They shook hands at the White House after Shiloh.
Lincoln valued truth but went out of his way to make
 

Grant comfortable in spite of the Union losses, saying,
The world answers to meanness and you’re a mean dog.
 

At Shiloh, all hell had broken loose at the Hornet’s Nest.
A stretch of road where the rebels surged. General Grant
 

had to tell Benjamin Prentiss to hold—to spend his men
to rescue the day. Lincoln wanted his mean dog fearless.
 

And what did Grant want? To finish the war, regardless.
After that? To stand over a map of a series of victories.
 

Then, after, to sit in a coach where John Wilkes Booth
would ride up—black rider in the gloom—on his way
 

to shooting a president, mistaking Grant for another,
thinking, No one would be caught dead in such a coat.
 

No general would ride beside the coachman—up top
on a chill, April night in the republic of the open air.