The Whiskey Ring: The Scandal That Reached the White House
On 12 February 1876, President Ulysses S. Grant gave evidence at the White House in defence of his private secretary, Orville Babcock. A whiskey tax fraud centred on St. Louis had reached the President's inner circle. Distillers and the federal officials entrusted with overseeing them had concealed whiskey production from the tax authorities. Now Babcock was on trial, and Grant was standing behind him. [1][2]
How the Whiskey Ring worked
The ring made its money on whiskey that vanished from the tax returns, not from the distillery. Members sold more than they reported, leaving the federal tax on each unreported gallon unpaid. Distillers kept separate accounts of illicit whiskey; gaugers and storekeepers received payments per barrel. Rectifiers bought what participants called “crooked whiskey” below market price, and payments were divided at the supervisor's office. [1]
This was fraud inside the revenue system, carried out through registered distillers rather than simply by moonshiners beyond official reach. Ring leaders recruited, pressured and blackmailed distillers, rectifiers, gaugers, storekeepers, revenue agents and Treasury clerks. The people charged with recording production and checking the figures could instead help make the whiskey disappear from the books. [1]
The practice had deep roots. Historian William S. McFeely traces falsified production returns between distillers and revenue agents back to the Lincoln administration. St. Louis became the scandal's centre, but the cases also touched Chicago. Rives names Milwaukee, New Orleans and Cincinnati among the leading distilling cities in his account. [1][4]
Following the whiskey, not the paperwork
Grant had appointed John McDonald supervisor of internal revenue for Missouri and six other states in February 1870, with Babcock's support. Four years later, he appointed Benjamin H. Bristow Secretary of the Treasury. Bristow had served as the first Solicitor General from 1870 to 1872. [3][4]
The Treasury's account describes Bristow “shaking up the detective force” and consolidating Customs and Internal Revenue districts. St. Louis newspaperman George W. Fishback helped bring an important recruit into the investigation: on 11 February 1875, he wrote to Bristow offering Myron Colony's help. Bluford Wilson appointed Colony a Secret Service agent on 1 March. [3][4]
Colony's team followed grain and liquor shipments and watched night distilling. Their task was to expose the gap between what distilleries produced and what their returns admitted. The whiskey existed; its official accounting had been falsified. [1]
In May 1875, federal agents arrested more than 300 ring members, according to Rives. McDonald and revenue agent John A. Joyce were indicted in June. The pursuit of unreported production had become a prosecution of the officials and associates involved. [1]
The trail to Grant's secretary
Grant and Babcock had met during the Vicksburg campaign in 1863. In his later deposition, the President said he had known Babcock “intimately” since March 1864. Investigators were approaching a man whose loyalty Grant believed he knew at first hand. [2]
Telegrams helped bring Babcock into the case. One, dated 13 December 1874, read: “I succeeded. They will not go. I will write you. Sylph.” Prosecutors attributed it to Babcock. Other ring messages included “We have official information that the enemy weakens. Push things. Sylph.” and “Crush out St. Louis enemies.”, signed “Grit”. [1]
At Long Branch, New Jersey, in July 1875, Grant was told of evidence against his secretary. His response was emphatic: “Let no guilty man escape if it can be avoided.” Yet by August, Rives describes his attitude towards the investigation as “tacit disapproval”. The instruction marked a moment of support, not his position throughout the case. [1][4]
Verdict badge
Documented
Claim: Grant's support cooled after his July 1875 endorsement; he also barred immunity offers.
The record: Rives documents the shift; Nilsson reports the ban on offering suspects immunity in exchange for evidence. 1 5 The reason for the ban remains disputed. 6
Source notes: Earliest known source not documented in the supplied sheet. Sources: Rives, 2000; Nilsson, 2019; Shenkman, 2005. Last checked: November 2026, exact day not documented.
Biographer Geoffrey Perret argued that Grant saw no reason the “small fry” should go free; McFeely concluded that he acted to protect Babcock. These are competing explanations for the immunity decision, not proof of Grant's participation in the fraud. [5][6]
Prosecutions and a dismissed prosecutor
During the trial of former Treasury chief clerk W. O. Avery, special prosecutor John B. Henderson, a former senator, accused Babcock of obstructing justice and attacked Grant. Attorney General Edwards Pierrepont fired Henderson afterwards. The prosecution had become a confrontation over presidential loyalty as well as whiskey fraud. [1]
The convictions mounted. McDonald and Joyce each received three years in the state penitentiary; Avery and William McKee were also convicted. According to Rives, by December 1875 every man tried for the whiskey frauds before Babcock had been convicted. [1]
Babcock sought a military court of inquiry on 2 December 1875. That route closed a week later: on 9 December, a St. Louis grand jury indicted him for conspiracy, and the military tribunal was dropped. His case would go before the civilian court. [1][4]
The President as a defence witness
On 8 February 1876, Grant told his cabinet that he felt the prosecution was aimed at himself. He planned to testify in St. Louis, but the cabinet objected. Instead, on 12 February, he gave a deposition at the White House before Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite. [2][4][6]
William A. Cook questioned the President for the defence and Major Lucien Eaton for the government. Grant called Babcock “a most efficient and most faithful officer”. His secretary's reputation for honesty was “Good”; his own confidence remained “unshaken”. [2]
Asked whether he had seen anything linking Babcock to the St. Louis ring, Grant answered “Never”. Babcock's explanations of the telegrams, he said, “seemed to me to be entirely satisfactory”. These answers expressed the President's trust in his secretary and his own understanding of the evidence, rather than an independent finding about the messages' meaning. [2]
On 17 February 1876, the deposition was read into the St. Louis court record. Rives identifies it as the first voluntary testimony by a sitting President as a defence witness in a criminal trial. Grant did not take the stand in St. Louis. [1][4]
Acquittal did not settle every question
About two hours after receiving the judge's instructions, the jury returned a not guilty verdict. Babcock was the only major St. Louis defendant acquitted. About ten days later, he was indicted in the separate Safe Burglary Conspiracy case. He was acquitted again. [1]
Whether Grant himself knew about or belonged to the ring remains Disputed. McFeely quotes historian William Hesseltine's conclusion that McDonald “failed to establish his contention”. [1][4]
Verdict badge
Disputed.
Claim: Grant was a member of the Whiskey Ring.
The record: McDonald later made this allegation; McFeely notes that it lacked corroboration. 4 No court established Grant's membership. 1
Source notes: Earliest known source not established from the supplied record. Sources: 1, 4. Last checked: November 2026, exact day not documented.
Bristow left the cabinet in June 1876. According to the Treasury's account, the scandal convinced Grant that Bristow was using his office to pursue the Republican nomination, and Grant pressured him to resign. McDonald left prison in January 1877 after receiving an unconditional pardon from Grant. [1][3]
The indictment, the verdict and the President's own testimony survive together at the National Archives at Kansas City. They are held in Babcock case file 4180, in Record Group 21; Record Group 118 contains US Attorney's letters from 1875 to 1877. Beyond the famous telegrams and presidential declarations lies this fuller paper trail, keeping the fraud, the trial and Grant's deposition open to scrutiny without settling every disputed question. [1]
Sources
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US National Archives, Timothy Rives, Grant, Babcock, and the Whiskey Ring, Prologue, Fall 2000, Vol. 32, No. 3.
https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2000/fall/whiskey-ring-1
https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2000/fall/whiskey-ring-2 -
The American Presidency Project, University of California, Santa Barbara, Ulysses S. Grant, Deposition in the Trial of Orville E. Babcock, 12 February 1876.
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/deposition-the-trial-orville-e-babcock -
US Department of the Treasury, Benjamin H. Bristow (1874 to 1876), prior Secretaries, undated web biography.
https://home.treasury.gov/about/history/prior-secretaries/benjamin-h-bristow-1874-1876 -
American Heritage, William S. McFeely, Ulysses S. Grant and the Whisky Frauds, Vol. 66, Issue 2; publication year not supplied in the fact sheet.
https://americanheritage.com/ulysses-s-grant-and-whisky-frauds -
The Saturday Evening Post, Jeff Nilsson, The Failure of the First Special Prosecutor, 25 March 2019.
https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2019/03/the-failure-of-the-first-special-prosecutor/ -
History News Network, Rick Shenkman, The Whiskey Ring, excerpt from Presidential Ambition, 31 October 2005.
https://www.hnn.us/article/17562
This desk research article follows the supplied verified fact sheet, drawing principally on Rives's account from court records and the transcript of Grant's deposition, with historical interpretations attributed separately.
Last checked: November 2026