After his testimony, Grant felt badly in need of a breather from the poisonous atmosphere of Washington. For the first time, he and Julia took a seaside cottage in Long Branch, New Jersey, a hideaway where Grant could revert to a life suited him more. The town had recently become a fashionable watering hole for millionaires. The waterfront house on Ocean Avenue was three stories high with a shingled roof and two glassed-in observatories. Twice a day Grant rode in a carriage to breathe in tangy salt air before returning to the house and poring over mail and newspapers on the verandah. Staying in Long Branch struck him as a guilty pleasure. “Every day that I am absent from Washington,” he informed Stanton, “I see something in the papers or hear something, that makes me feel that I should be there.” At the same time, he admitted wistfully that “I have got so tired of being tired down that I am nearly ready to desert.”
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