Autograph Letter Signed ("U.S. Grant"), 3 pp recto and verso, 8vo (conjoining leaves), New York City, November 25, 1882, to General Fitz John Porter regarding his recent commutation, leaves mildly creased, some soiling, hinge reinforced.

Fitz John Porter [1822-1901] was court-martialed after the Battle of Bull Run for disobeying orders from General John Pope. Though he defended himself by arguing that Pope was incompetent, Porter was convicted of both charges. He spent the next twenty years seeking to clear his name. Finally Rutherford B. Hayes established a commission to review the court-martial which recommended that Porter be reinstated, a move that finally happened in May of 1882 during the Arthur administration.
Grant writes this letter to Porter sending a draft of an excerpt from his memoir touching on the court martial: "With this I send you the matter prepared by me yesterday touching upon the findings of the Court Martial of 1862 upon charges against you. You are at liberty to do with it as you think best. I will suggest however that it does not appear to me worthy of a place in a magazine of the standing of the North American Review. As you know it was dictated from notes prepared hastily, and they were departed from largely. The subject however has become so familiar to me recently that I think I have committed no error in the statement of facts."