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Historical daily menu from the prestigious Willard’s Hotel in Washington, D.C., dated Wednesday, May 10, 1865, measuring 9.75 x 7.75 open, signed inside in black ink and fountain pen, “U. S. Grant, Lt. Gen. U.S.A.” and “Phil. H. Sheridan, Maj. Genl., U.S.A.” Archivally double-matted and framed with an engraved plaque to an overall size of 16 x 16; window to frame backing reveals the front of the menu. In fine condition, with intersecting folds.
A magnificent piece of American history — originating from one of Washington’s most fabled establishments, signed by two of the Union’s foremost military officers, dating to the very day that Confederate President Jefferson Davis was captured. This remarkable menu was obtained by the father of New York journalist Edward Page Mitchell, who was with his father in the Willard Hotel when the signatures were obtained. Incredibly, Mitchell documented the entire event in his 1924 book Memoirs of an Editor: Fifty Years of American Journalism. The story, which can be found on pages 31 and 32, reads:
‘Several times in the old Willard, and many times in its grandiose successor, as through a lens at focus I got close-up figures of great personages of the Civil War and of national politics. Of the Willard memories that persist in outstanding two more shall here suffice. Three years after the first visit I went back to that hotel in tow of my father, the indefatigable collector of autographs, coins, memorabilia, curios of all sorts. Something of that propensity must have been inherited by me, but nothing of his systematic thoroughness in the practice. This sojourn at the inn of Messrs. Sykes, Chadwick & Co., occurred a few weeks after the culminating events of the war and a few weeks before the grand review in Washington of the victorious armies. Sheridan's cavalry had rejoined Meade's army south of the James. Jefferson Davis had been captured by his pursuers under General James H. Wilson. Grant, with the instinctive delicacy of a gentleman, had delegated to General Joshua L. Chamberlain of Maine the honor of receiving Lee's surrender. The commander-in-chief was at the capital, established in Halleck's old office in the War Department. Willard's was crowded with officers of the high command. I saw Grant there, and Sheridan; the third of the great triad of military success, General William Tecumseh Sherman, of the march to the sea, is not identified in my recollection of the assembled leaders. Immense was my father's satisfaction when he procured a dinner menu for Wednesday, May 10, 1865, setting forth in bronze ink the chef's programme for the day, beginning with cove-plant oysters and promising the guests in a queer blending of good English and indifferent near-French such things as ‘Fillet de Boeuf, pique’ and ‘Assorted Vegetables’ down to ‘Petit pastry au Gelee’ and coffee; the entire prospectus being displayed under the more or less mysterious legend ‘Still so Gently.’ But what gave interest and value in my father's eyes to this menu was its joint indorsement, in close juxtaposition on a blank space opposite the ‘Epigramme d’Agneau’ and the ‘Assorted Vegetables’ by ‘U. S. Grant, Lt. Gen. U.S.A.,’ in acutely angular autograph, and ‘Phil. H. Sheridan, Maj. Gen. U.S.A.,’ in the sprawling scrawl or scrawling sprawl characteristic of that dashing soldier's chirography.’
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