The fraud took place in cities across the country, but was centered in St. Louis (in the cartoon, it is the first barrel led away by the police). The St. Louis ring was headed by John McDonald, the Treasury Department’s supervisor of internal revenue for the St. Louis area and an old army buddy of President Grant. Some of the fraudulent money went into Republican campaign coffers, but most was pocketed by the ring members for personal use. In an obvious attempt to fend off administration inquiries, McDonald gave expensive gifts to Orville Babcock, Grant’s personal secretary and close friend. McDonald also later testified to giving the president lavish gifts, but the claim was not proven in court.

In June 1874, President Grant appointed Benjamin H. Bristow to replace Treasury Secretary William Richardson, who had resigned under the cloud of another scandal. Bristow soon learned that a Whiskey Ring was defrauding the government out of millions of dollars in annual revenue, so he ordered an immediate and thorough investigation. (His statement to that effect appears at the top of the cartoon.) Bristow, along with Attorney General Edwards Pierrepont and Treasury solicitor Bluford Wilson, secured indictments for 238 individuals, 110 of whom were eventually convicted.

In the summer of 1875, Grant was told that Babcock might be involved in the Whiskey Ring, and the disheartened president informed Bristow to "Let no guilty man escape." Babcock, however, was able to convince the president that he was an innocent victim of Bristow’s desire to gain notoriety and thereby the Republican presidential nomination. By the time a grand jury indicted Babcock for conspiracy to defraud the government on December 9, 1875, the president was hostile to the investigation. When the government’s special counsel, former senator John B. Henderson, hinted publicly that Babcock’s involvement threw suspicion on the president’s role, Grant removed him from the case.