if you haven’t already, read this post about General Grant’s annoyance with a poorly constructed “tank”.

The post implies that General Grant appears to have little patience with this seemingly small matter. I was recently reviewing that letter and it occurred to me that a couple of contributing factors might have been at play at this point in time. The key thing that I realized is that the date on the memo is March 27, 1865. Two things were going on around this time that might have shortened Grants temper.

• The battle of Fort Stedman had just occurred on March 25th. It should be obvious that any kind of major battle, no matter what the result, should increase the amount a stress a commander is feeling.
• Abraham Lincoln was at City Point at this time. Surely having your boss in town would increase anyones stress levels. Just speculating a little more, but imagine he visits your quarters and finds that he can’t get a drink of fresh water, because your water tank is defective.

So isn’t it just possible that the sharp memo about the lousy tank might have been at least party caused by a recent increase in stress levels that General Grant was subjected to? So the question is, is this annoyance of Grants a normal thing, or was it at least partly due to the stress he was dealing with at that particular moment in time? I can almost imagine Grant flying off the handle after Lincoln tries to use the water tank and finds it broken. Grant vents the frustration of past days on to poor Caption Schummaker who happened to be in the area at the time. Captain Schummaker responds by writing the memo that I found in National Archives.