Die when I may, I want it said of me by those who knew me best that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.
¶ Remark to Joshua Speed (Feb. 1865)
In Melancthon Woolsey Stryker's Hamilton, Lincoln & Other Addresses (1896).
Also in John Y. Simon, Personal Memoirs of Julia Dent Grant (1975), pp. 141-142.
