Although I recently quoted a few examples of 19th century feminine jealously and pettiness from Ron Chernow’s biography of Ulysses S. Grant, in fact, the vast majority of the petty bickering in the book is conducted by the men.  At age 38, when the Civil War began, Grant was an abject failure.  Both his father-in-law, Colonel Fred Dent, and his actual father, Jesse Root Grant, never stopped seeing him in those terms.

They were both men of great bombast and little consequence other than their connection to the President.  Here’s Chernow’s account:

“Now in his early eighties, the Colonel had never modified his confederate views and remained a rabid Democrat.  Before becoming president, Grant had paid off such sizable debts accumulated by his father-in-law that it mired him in financial obligations.  For visitors to the executive mansion in the Grant years, Colonel Dent was ubiquitous, whether sunning himself on the porch or occupying his favorite spot near Grant’s office and lecturing waiting politicians.  At Blue Room receptions, he sprawled in an easy chair behind the President and First Lady, as if he were the grand old man of the administration.  Despite a surface charm, the Colonel was still dogmatic about politics and said his son-in-law was ‘really a stanch Democrat; but he doesn’t know it.’

“As in past years, the self-absorbed Jesse Root Grant and equally self-absorbed Colonel Dent continued to find each other insufferable and Grant took refuge in his old strategy of passive detachment.  With Colonel Dent monopolizing the White House, Jesse stayed in an inexpensive hotel when he visited Washington.  The two men took turns insulting each other, pretending the other was a doddering old fool.  ‘You should take better care of that old gentleman, Julia,’ Dent would say of Jesse Grant.  ‘He is feeble and deaf as a post, and yet you permit him to wander all over Washington alone.  It is not safe; he should never be allowed out without an attendant.’  To insult Jesse, Colonel Dent would pop out of his armchair whenever Jesse entered the room.  ‘Accept my chair, Mr. Grant,’ he would say with elaborate courtesy, as if humoring a senile old man.  Stiffly indiginant, Jesse would reply in a stage whisper to a grandson, “I hope I shall not live to become as old and infirm as your Grandfather Dent.'”

The rivalry between the Grant and Dent families was sufficiently intense that Ulysses’ mother, Hannah Simpson Grant, never visited Washington because doing so would necessarily entail spending time with the hated Dents.