direction, passing them a second time.
Before their train reached Baltimore,
someone tried to enter the car in which
Porter and the Grants were traveling. He
was deterred because the conductor had
locked the door to the car to ensure the
Grants’ privacy. The Grant party reached
Philadelphia that night. At a late supper
around midnight, a telegram informed
Grant that the president had been shot
earlier that evening at Ford’s Theatre.
Porter believed Grant’s life was in dan-
ger on April 14. Porter and the Grants
thought photos of John Wilkes Booth pub-
lished after the assassination strongly
resembled the man who spied on the
Grants on their way to the station. In
November 1868, Grant received an anony-mous letter, ostensibly from the man who
tried to enter the railway car Grant had
taken to Philadelphia. The writer claimed
to have been an accomplice of Booth
assigned to kill Grant. The writer noted
that the door to Grant’s railway car had
been locked, a fact known to few people.
A final aspect of Porter’s involvement
with Lincoln’s assassination was his
appointment to the court assigned to try
the conspirators. The defense, however,
claimed Porter would be biased because he
was on the staff of an intended victim.
Porter was excused from the jury.
The Civil War was for Porter and his gen-
eration the most formative experience of
their lives. When Porter reflected on the
years of battle, he recognized “the terrible
realism of relentless war.” From 1887 to
1897, Porter collected documents, analyzed
published materials, and wrote many let-
ters inquiring into recollections of Civil
War events. He also studied his own “elab-
orate” notes from 1863 to 1865, with a
goal to publish a thorough and exact
account of the Virginia campaign with
Grant. Portions of Campaigning With
Grant appeared as articles in Century Mag-
azinein the late 1880s and mid-1890s
before Porter finally collected them into
one volume. He finished Campaigning
With Grantjust before he departed for
Europe in spring 1897 as U.S. Ambassador
to France. He dedicated it “To my com-
rades of the Union Armies whose valor
saved the Republic.”
From 1866 to 1868, Porter served under
Grant in Washington helping with the dis-
solution of Union armies and inspecting
military posts around the country. For a
time he was assistant secretary of war to
Grant. In the winter of 1868-1869, he was
dispatched south to quell Ku Klux Klan
wars in Arkansas and Louisiana. Porter
struck a raw nerve with the Klan, precipi-
tating a letter to him signed “Beware—
KKK.” It warned: “Your time is short.
Thus far you have been spared, but neitherthe army, the navy nor Congress can pro-
tect you longer, nor for one hour defer the
just retribution in store for you when the
time to strike arrives.”
From 1869 to 1872, Porter served as
executive secretary to Grant, who had been
elected president. But Porter was unused to
Washington politics. By 1872, his experi-
ences disillusioned him and he decided to
leave the administration after Grant’s
reelection, although he reluctantly took
leave of Grant himself. In 1872, he became
vice president of the Pullman Palace Car
Company. In that and other railway and
business ventures, Porter became a mil-
lionaire. He also was active in civic affairs
and politics, particularly in New York, rais-
ing large sums to finance William McKin-
ley’s 1896 election.
From 1897 to 1905, Porter served as U.S.
Ambassador to France. During those years,
he was involved with Spanish-American
War diplomacy and the complex interna-
tional events of that era when the United
States emerged as a world power. In 1907,
he was U.S. delegate to the Second Hague
Peace Conference. An advocate of naval
preparedness before WWI, he served as
president of the Navy League of the United
States from 1909 to 1915.
But all his life, Porter retained memories
of the hardship, suffering, destruction, and
death that he witnessed, lived, and survived
from 1861 to 1865. The Civil War influ-
enced him through the remainder of his life
and career in business and diplomacy. His
two great heroes were two men he knew,
one exceptionally well: Lincoln and Grant.
Horace Porter died in 1921.Dr. Richard H. Owens is president and pro-
fessor of history at Heidelberg College in
Tiffin, OH. He has published a biography
of Horace Porter and two novels. In 1993,
he served as historian and commentator for
“A Nation Divided,” a BBC production on
the U.S. Civil War. He is at work on a book
about the Battle of Gettysburg.Porter stuck with Grant throughout this critical campaign that began Battle of the Wilderness in May,
1864, and worked its way south of Richmond to Petersburg. He not only was in the action, but also had
the opportunity to observe Grant closely. Porter was promoted for his meritorious service at the Battle
of the Wilderness.Q-Spr16 Horace Porter_Layout 1 1/14/16 12:26 PM Page 67