Grant and Sherman: The Friendship that Won the Civil War (52 page)
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Authors: Charles Bracelen Flood
Tags: #Biography, #History, #bought-and-paid-for, #Non-Fiction
BOOK: Grant and Sherman: The Friendship that Won the Civil War
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This situation was a dramatic affront to the Monroe Doctrine, but there was more to it than that. Although Maximilian had refused the Confederacy’s overtures to create an alliance, some thousands of Confederate soldiers, among them former guerrillas fearing federal punishment, were now crossing into Mexico, where Maximilian was willing to have them join his forces and was ready to condone ownership of slaves. Combined with the fact that organized Confederate units in Texas still had not surrendered, there was a need for a strong United States Army force to resolve the situation within Texas and on its borders. (A few days after Appomattox, Grant had said lightly to an aide that the new slogan would soon be, “On to Mexico.”) Ironically, considering that the Mexican War in which Grant, Lee, and other American soldiers fought resulted in the taking of a vast area of northern Mexico, there would now be both overt and secretive American efforts to help Juarez and his Mexican nationalists in their successful struggle to throw out Maximilian and these more recent foreign invaders.
To deal with all these matters, Grant brought to the challenge the prestige of a victorious general, the authority of his rank as lieutenant general and position as general in chief, a wealth of administrative as well as battlefield experience, and his legendary determination. At the same time, the famous soldier who wrote Julia at eleven that night, readying to leave Washington in an hour on a daunting mission, was a tired man who had for four years borne a steadily increasing load. A few days earlier, he had balanced these assets and liabilities in a letter to his old friend Charles W. Ford: “For myself I would enjoy a little respite from my cares and responsibilities more than you can concieve [sic]. But I have health, strength and endurance and as long as they are retained I am willing to devote all for the public good.”
The next day, April 22, as Grant traveled south along the Virginia coast aboard the “special steamer”
Alhambra
accompanied by three of his officers, a servant, and Major Hitchcock of Sherman’s staff, Secretary of War Stanton received a letter from General Halleck, writing from his headquarters in Virginia. “Old Brains,” who had received the same explosive report from Sherman to Grant that precipitated the tempestuous cabinet meeting, knew that Sherman and Johnston had resumed surrender talks but did not know their status. Halleck told the secretary of war he was receiving intelligence that Davis and his fleeing Confederate governmental colleagues were carrying a large amount of gold with them and added, “They hope, it is said, to make terms with General Sherman or some other Southern [Union] commander by which they will be permitted, with their effects, including this gold plunder, to go to Mexico or Europe. Johnston’s negotiations look to this end. Would it not be well to put Sherman and all other commanding generals on their guard in this respect?”
Alhambra
accompanied by three of his officers, a servant, and Major Hitchcock of Sherman’s staff, Secretary of War Stanton received a letter from General Halleck, writing from his headquarters in Virginia. “Old Brains,” who had received the same explosive report from Sherman to Grant that precipitated the tempestuous cabinet meeting, knew that Sherman and Johnston had resumed surrender talks but did not know their status. Halleck told the secretary of war he was receiving intelligence that Davis and his fleeing Confederate governmental colleagues were carrying a large amount of gold with them and added, “They hope, it is said, to make terms with General Sherman or some other Southern [Union] commander by which they will be permitted, with their effects, including this gold plunder, to go to Mexico or Europe. Johnston’s negotiations look to this end. Would it not be well to put Sherman and all other commanding generals on their guard in this respect?”
Stanton, who had “seemed frantic” the day before, was no more calm today. He added to Halleck’s just-arrived letter his own misunderstanding of a cavalry movement that Sherman had recently ordered: the troopers would actually be placed directly across the route along which Davis was thought to be moving, but Stanton thought that Sherman had deliberately sent them in the opposite direction, to aid Davis in his effort to elude capture.
At that point, Stanton decided on his own initiative to disavow publicly anything Sherman had recently done or might do, and in the process distance himself and Johnson’s cabinet from Sherman. Stanton prepared a signed statement for a number of newspapers, including
The New York Times
and the
Chicago Tribune.
Acidly referring to “a memorandum for what is called a basis for peace,” he released to the public his account of the previous night’s heretofore secret meeting of the cabinet. Stanton wrote that Sherman’s agreement with Johnston had been disapproved, and that Sherman had been “ordered to resume hostilities immediately.” After including the text of Lincoln’s earlier instructions to Grant that, regarding the political aspects of a peace settlement, “such questions the President holds in his own hands,” Stanton set forth the text of Sherman’s agreement with Johnston and then wrote that “this proceeding of Gen. Sherman was unapproved for the following among other reasons.” Putting the darkest construction upon every ambiguity, he said that “by the restoration of the rebel authority in their respective States, they would be enabled to reestablish slavery.”
The New York Times
and the
Chicago Tribune.
Acidly referring to “a memorandum for what is called a basis for peace,” he released to the public his account of the previous night’s heretofore secret meeting of the cabinet. Stanton wrote that Sherman’s agreement with Johnston had been disapproved, and that Sherman had been “ordered to resume hostilities immediately.” After including the text of Lincoln’s earlier instructions to Grant that, regarding the political aspects of a peace settlement, “such questions the President holds in his own hands,” Stanton set forth the text of Sherman’s agreement with Johnston and then wrote that “this proceeding of Gen. Sherman was unapproved for the following among other reasons.” Putting the darkest construction upon every ambiguity, he said that “by the restoration of the rebel authority in their respective States, they would be enabled to reestablish slavery.”
Stanton went on to say that the agreement might require the federal government to pay the debts that had been incurred by the Confederacy—a possibility nowhere mentioned in Sherman’s terms—and indicated that the Confederates would be “relieved” of facing legal action for any kind of crimes they had committed. He included the idea that the captured Confederate weapons might be available to the men of the South “as soon as the armies of the United States were disbanded, and used to conquer and subdue the loyal States.” In his ninth and final objection, Stanton concluded that this agreement left the Confederates “in condition to overthrow the United States Government.” He also quoted selectively from Halleck’s letter to him and added some words in Sherman’s orders to his cavalry, leaving the impression that Sherman might have been bribed with Confederate gold to sign an easy peace and let Jefferson Davis escape the country.
As Grant continued his trip to Sherman’s headquarters, neither he nor Sherman knew of Stanton’s mixture of fact, speculation, and falsehood, nor did they know that Halleck, apparently on his own initiative, had told generals Meade and Horatio Wright “to disregard any truce or orders of General Sherman suspending hostilities” and had suggested to Stanton that General James H. Wilson, serving directly under Sherman, “obey no orders from Sherman.” Halleck’s letter about this would also make its way into
The New York Times.
(In a letter to his friend General George W. Cullum, Halleck said of Sherman that he feared “there is some screw loose again.”)
The New York Times.
(In a letter to his friend General George W. Cullum, Halleck said of Sherman that he feared “there is some screw loose again.”)
On April 23, Sherman, who had billeted himself in the recently vacated (and much run-down, despite the name) Governor’s Palace in Raleigh, received a telegram from his aide Major Hitchcock. Sent from Morehead City, on the coast, the major informed him of his arrival the next day but, on Grant’s orders, did not mention that the general in chief was with him. Shortly after six the next morning, Sherman was up but not dressed when Grant walked in. Quietly taking Sherman aside, he told him that his surrender terms had not been approved but gave no indication of the “consternation” they had caused at the cabinet meeting. Grant left Sherman in no doubt as to what he was to do: get in touch with Joseph E. Johnston, tell him that the shooting would start again within forty-eight hours if he did not sign a new agreement based on the terms of the Appomattox surrender, and then go to Johnston and get such a document signed. Sherman accepted this—Grant later said, “like the true and loyal soldier that he was, he carried out the instructions I had given him”—but at that moment, when Grant realized that Sherman was expecting him to come along to the new parley, he told him that quite the opposite was true. He was going to stay quietly in Raleigh and evidently did not want Johnston to know that he was not still in Washington. Sherman’s mission was to get this done as fast as he could, and give the papers to Grant, who would speedily take them back to Washington. With all that had been going on—Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, victory celebrations, the North suddenly plunged into grief by Lincoln’s assassination, and the massively attended funeral ceremonies as Lincoln’s body proceeded home to Illinois—Grant hoped that a distracted public might not realize there was a delay in bringing to a close the long struggle between the forces of Sherman and Johnston.
Sherman promptly wrote two messages to Johnston, the first telling him that their truce would end within forty-eight hours, and the second saying that, pursuant to instructions he had just received, “I therefore demand the surrender of your army on the same terms as were given General Lee at Appomattox … purely and simply.” (Some of Sherman’s generals soon learned that Grant had slipped into Raleigh. Major General Henry Slocum noted that “Grant is here. He has come to save his friend Sherman from himself.”)
On this same morning that Grant arrived and Sherman wrote Johnston that he was rescinding his previous terms—Sunday, April 24—
The New York Times
came out with Stanton’s statement plastered all over the front page. Among a third of a column of subheadlines were: “Sherman’s Action Promptly Repudiated,” “The President and All His Cabinet Rebuke Him,” “Gen. Grant Gone to North Carolina to Direct Our Armies,” and “Possible Escape of Jeff. Davis with His Gold.” In an editorial titled “An Extraordinary Operation,” the
Times
said that “it looks very much as if this negotiation was a blind to cover the escape of Jeff. Davis and a few of his officials, with the millions of gold they have stolen from the Richmond banks.” On the same day,
the Chicago Tribune
had this to say: “Sherman has been completely over-reached and outwitted by Joe Johnston … We cannot account for Sherman’s signature on this astounding memorandum, except on the thesis of stark insanity …”—an eerie echo of the
Cincinnati
Commercial‘s
“General William T. Sherman Insane” headline of 1862, when Sherman had been so nervously overestimating the forces opposed to him in Kentucky. The
Tribune
added that it had information that Sherman intended to lead a proslavery political party composed of unrepentant Confederates and Northern conservatives.
The New York Times
came out with Stanton’s statement plastered all over the front page. Among a third of a column of subheadlines were: “Sherman’s Action Promptly Repudiated,” “The President and All His Cabinet Rebuke Him,” “Gen. Grant Gone to North Carolina to Direct Our Armies,” and “Possible Escape of Jeff. Davis with His Gold.” In an editorial titled “An Extraordinary Operation,” the
Times
said that “it looks very much as if this negotiation was a blind to cover the escape of Jeff. Davis and a few of his officials, with the millions of gold they have stolen from the Richmond banks.” On the same day,
the Chicago Tribune
had this to say: “Sherman has been completely over-reached and outwitted by Joe Johnston … We cannot account for Sherman’s signature on this astounding memorandum, except on the thesis of stark insanity …”—an eerie echo of the
Cincinnati
Commercial‘s
“General William T. Sherman Insane” headline of 1862, when Sherman had been so nervously overestimating the forces opposed to him in Kentucky. The
Tribune
added that it had information that Sherman intended to lead a proslavery political party composed of unrepentant Confederates and Northern conservatives.
No word of this sensational release of garbled information reached either Grant or Sherman in Raleigh, but, from talking to Grant, Sherman realized he needed to mend some fences. The next day, knowing only that Johnston had received his messages but still awaiting a response to the changed terms, and unaware of Stanton’s disclosure to the press, Sherman wrote Stanton that “I admit my folly in embracing in a military convention any civil matters, but, unfortunately, such is the nature of our situation that they seem inextricably united.” He added that he would carry out President Johnson’s and the cabinet’s wishes, as conveyed to him by Grant, but that was about as conciliatory as Sherman could bring himself to be: referring to Stanton’s instructions that Grant should “proceed immediately to the headquarters of Major-General Sherman, and direct operations against the enemy,” he said in closing that “I had flattered myself that, by four years of patient, unremitting, and successful labor, I deserved no such … [censure].”
At about the same time Sherman was writing this, Grant, probably sitting a few yards from Sherman in the mansion of the departed governor of North Carolina, penned a letter to Julia. He told her that Raleigh was virtually untouched by the war, but added, “The suffering that must exist in the South the next year, even with the war ending now, will be beyond conception. People who talk now of further retaliation and punishment, except of the political leaders, either do not conceive of the suffering endured already or they are heartless and unfeeling and wish to stay at home, out of danger, whilst the punishment is being inflicted.”
The next day, Sherman and Johnston met again, in the same place. Johnston began trying for somewhat easier terms but quickly sensed that he could either sign or hear the Union cannon fire resume. He signed terms virtually identical to those Grant had offered Lee. As soon as he did, Sherman began a humane policy similar to the one Grant had begun at Appomattox: there would be ten days’ rations for every surrendered Confederate soldier, and his army would even lend them enough horses and mules “to insure a crop.” Sherman would go farther than that, having his quartermasters issue thousands of bushels of corn and tons of meal and flour to hungry civilians throughout the South. This would soon bring from Johnston a letter praising Sherman’s “enlightened and humane policy,” and stating, “The enlarged patriotism exhibited in your orders reconciles me to what I had previously regarded as the misfortune of my life, that of having to encounter you in the field.”
When Sherman returned to Raleigh on the evening of April 26, Grant immediately read and approved the new document he brought with him. (Throughout the meeting with Sherman earlier in the day, Johnston had no idea that Grant was in North Carolina and was startled when his copy was quickly returned to him with Grant’s written endorsement on it.) At ten that night, Grant sent Stanton a telegram saying that the surrender had been signed, “on the basis agreed upon between Lee and myself for the Army of Northern Virginia.”
From a standing start five days before in Washington, Grant had called for a cabinet meeting, traveled 380 miles by combinations of ship and train, caused the resumption of disastrously conducted surrender arrangements, brought about a successful conclusion to the matter, and done it in a manner that, thus far, left his and Sherman’s friendship intact. As Grant boarded the train for the coast on the morning of April 27, both men had reason to feel they had put a most unfortunate episode behind them. Back in Washington on the 29th, he wrote Julia that “I have just returned after a pleasant trip to Raleigh N.C. where Gn. Sherman succeeded in bringing Johnston to terms that are perfectly satisfactory to me and I hope will be well received by the country. I have not yet been able to look over the [news]papers and see what has transpired in my absence.”
When Grant did “look over the papers,” he saw that
The New York Times
, after its first criticism of Sherman, was now characterizing the original surrender agreement as “Sherman’s surrender to Johnston.” The New York Herald told its readers that “Sherman’s splendid military career is ended, he will retire under a cloud … Sherman has fatally blundered.”
The Washington Star
characterized his dealings with Johnston as “calamitous mischief.” In New York, when Lincoln’s body was halted there to receive the city’s homage, the historian George Bancroft said in a funeral oration that Sherman had “unsurped more than the power of the executive, and has revived slavery and given security and political power to traitors from the Chesapeake to the Rio Grande.” Radical Republicans, who had long worried that the sacrifices of war might be undercut by too generous a peace, leapt into the situation: Senator William Sprague of Rhode Island telegraphed Stanton that “loyal men deplore and are outraged by Sherman’s action. He should be promptly removed.” Two days before Grant read the newspapers from the week while he was gone and out of touch, the
New Haven Journal
carried a story suggesting that Sherman had played a part in the plot to kill Lincoln. (One historian concluded that, apart from major Union victories and Lincoln’s assassination, Sherman’s supposed treason received more newspaper attention throughout the North than any other event of the war.)
The New York Times
, after its first criticism of Sherman, was now characterizing the original surrender agreement as “Sherman’s surrender to Johnston.” The New York Herald told its readers that “Sherman’s splendid military career is ended, he will retire under a cloud … Sherman has fatally blundered.”
The Washington Star
characterized his dealings with Johnston as “calamitous mischief.” In New York, when Lincoln’s body was halted there to receive the city’s homage, the historian George Bancroft said in a funeral oration that Sherman had “unsurped more than the power of the executive, and has revived slavery and given security and political power to traitors from the Chesapeake to the Rio Grande.” Radical Republicans, who had long worried that the sacrifices of war might be undercut by too generous a peace, leapt into the situation: Senator William Sprague of Rhode Island telegraphed Stanton that “loyal men deplore and are outraged by Sherman’s action. He should be promptly removed.” Two days before Grant read the newspapers from the week while he was gone and out of touch, the
New Haven Journal
carried a story suggesting that Sherman had played a part in the plot to kill Lincoln. (One historian concluded that, apart from major Union victories and Lincoln’s assassination, Sherman’s supposed treason received more newspaper attention throughout the North than any other event of the war.)
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