Trivia 9-29-2020 Headaches ... that might have influenced a Nation's history!

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It is widely known that General Ulysses S. Grant suffered heavily from migraines, or "sick headaches", as it was called then. At the last stage of the war, at Appomattox, Grant again spent a sleepless night in pain, unsuccessfully trying to fight back a migraine that had him tightly in its grip. He tried various contemporary treatments, but all in vain. Only when he got Lee's note that signaled the chance that the Army of the Potomac would surrender, he was instantly cured from all pain. Some Doctors today even suppose that the mild terms of surrender (officers may keep their side arms, all cavalry is allowed to keep the horses for later farm work, no arrests, imprisonment, or humiliating public spectacle) came from the after-effects (or postdrone) of his earlier migraine, that left him in a kind of subdued mood, or, as he himself put it "my own feelings, which had been quite jubilant on the receipt of his letter, were sad and depressed". Grant had been known earlier for his harsh treatment of defeated foes. If not for his acute migraine, he might have been inclined to show his enemy less compassion - as Lee probably had feared when he had remarked "There is nothing left for me to do but go and see General Grant and I would rather die a thousand deaths."

How did Ulysses S. Grant try (in vain) to get rid of his migraines during that night before on April 9th he received Robert E. Lee's message?

credit: @FarawayFriend
 
He spent the night bathing his feet in hot water and mustard, putting mustard plasters on his wrists and the back of his neck.
 
Grant himself wrote in his memoirs that he bathed his feet in hot water and mustard, and applied mustard-plasters to his wrists and the back of his neck. Horace Porter in his Campaigning with Grant says the same.

Sources: Grant's memoirs Vol. II p. 483, Horace Porter Campaigning with Grant p. 462


I'll be taking a break from Trivia in October since I'll be traveling for a while with spotty internet. Have a good month, everyone, and see you back in November!
 
According to his memoirs he wrote in chapter LXVII: “I was suffering very severely with a sick headache... I spent the night in bathing my feet in hot water and mustard, and putting mustard plasters on my wrists and the back part of my neck.”
So he tried: Hot water and mustard along with mustard plasters using the ingredients on his feet (bathing), wrists and on the back of his neck (mustard plasters).
https://www.bartleby.com/1011/67.html
 
“bathing my feet in hot water and mustard, and putting mustard plasters on my wrists and the back part of my neck, hoping to be cured by morning" U.S. Grant

 
So Grant retired to bed in a Virginia farmhouse on the night of April 8, dirty, tired, and miserable with a migraine. He spent the night “bathing my feet in hot water and mustard, and putting mustard plasters on my wrists and the back part of my neck, hoping to be cured by morning.” It didn’t work. When the morning came, Grant pulled on his clothes from the day before and rode out to the head of his column with his head throbbing.

http://werehistory.org/grants-migraine/
 
He spent the night “bathing my feet in hot water and mustard, and putting mustard plasters on my wrists and the back part of my neck, hoping to be cured by morning.”
migraine/#:~:text=On%20April%208%2C%201865,before%20Lee%20had%20to%20surrender.&text=So%20Grant%20retired%20to%20bed,and%20miserable%20with%20a%20migraine.
 
I believe he was applying or having “mustard plasters” applied to his wrists and the back of his neck, as a sort of heat-therapy muscle relaxant. As noted, his pain only went away when he was notified that the war in Virginia was about to end.

(What I did not know was that a mustard plaster left on too long can cause a skin burn... :hot:)
 
He spent the night “bathing my feet in hot water and mustard, and putting mustard plasters on my wrists and the back part of my neck, hoping to be cured by morning.” It didn’t work. When the morning came, Grant pulled on his clothes from the day before and rode out to the head of his column with his head throbbing.


As he rode, an escort arrived with a note from General Lee requesting an interview for the purpose of surrendering Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. “When the officer reached me I was still suffering with the sick headache,” Grant recalled, “but the instant I saw the contents of the note I was cured.”
source: http://werehistory.org/grants-migraine/
 
In Grant's memoirs he wrote, “I was suffering very severely with a sick headache... I spent the night in bathing my feet in hot water and mustard, and putting mustard plasters on my wrists and the back part of my neck.” Despite these efforts, his “sick headache” still persisted the following morning. Then Lee’s message arrived, and even writing decades later Grant recalled that “the instant I saw the contents of the note, I was cured.”
 
It is widely known that General Ulysses S. Grant suffered heavily from migraines, or "sick headaches", as it was called then. At the last stage of the war, at Appomattox, Grant again spent a sleepless night in pain, unsuccessfully trying to fight back a migraine that had him tightly in its grip. He tried various contemporary treatments, but all in vain. Only when he got Lee's note that signaled the chance that the Army of the Potomac would surrender, he was instantly cured from all pain. Some Doctors today even suppose that the mild terms of surrender (officers may keep their side arms, all cavalry is allowed to keep the horses for later farm work, no arrests, imprisonment, or humiliating public spectacle) came from the after-effects (or postdrone) of his earlier migraine, that left him in a kind of subdued mood, or, as he himself put it "my own feelings, which had been quite jubilant on the receipt of his letter, were sad and depressed". Grant had been known earlier for his harsh treatment of defeated foes. If not for his acute migraine, he might have been inclined to show his enemy less compassion - as Lee probably had feared when he had remarked "There is nothing left for me to do but go and see General Grant and I would rather die a thousand deaths."

How did Ulysses S. Grant try (in vain) to get rid of his migraines during that night before on April 9th he received Robert E. Lee's message?

credit: @FarawayFriend
In his own words, “bathing my feet in hot water and mustard, and putting mustard plasters on my wrists and the back part of my neck, hoping to be cured by morning.”
Source: Heather Cox Richardson, "What Grant’s Migraine Says about the Civil War", We'reHistory, October 12, 2014. http://werehistory.org/grants-migraine/
 
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