Grant and Sherman: The Friendship that Won the Civil War (53 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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Grant described his reaction to the uproar. “I knew that Sherman must see these papers, and I fully realized what great indignation they would cause him, though I do not think his feelings could have been more excited than were my own.” In this last, Grant was mistaken. As he had prepared to leave Washington for North Carolina, Grant burst out to Sherman’s aide Hitchcock with this indictment of what he had heard said of Sherman’s suspected treason: “It is infamous—infamous! After four years of such service as Sherman has done—that he should be used like this!” Indignant as Grant was, his anger did not match the fury of his friend. On the day after Grant left Raleigh, Sherman saw
The New York Times
of April 24 that carried Stanton’s de facto indictment of him. An officer came upon Sherman in his headquarters, surrounded by a dozen generals, acting “like a caged lion, talking to the whole room with a furious invective which made us all stare. He lashed Stanton as a mean, scheming, vindictive politician who made it his business to rob military men of their credit earned by exposing their lives.” As for his old enemy, the press, “the fellows that wielded too loose a pen” should be put in prison. (Sherman’s rank and file had a similar view of what the press was doing to their “Uncle Billy”; when General Henry Slocum saw a crowd of soldiers standing around a blazing cart on a street in Raleigh and sent a staff officer to investigate, the man returned with the message, “Tell General Slocum that cart is loaded with New York papers for sale to the soldiers … We have followed Sherman through a score of battles and nearly two thousand miles of the enemy’s country, and we don’t intend to allow these slanders against him to be circulated among his men.”)
The New York Times
of April 24 that carried Stanton’s de facto indictment of him. An officer came upon Sherman in his headquarters, surrounded by a dozen generals, acting “like a caged lion, talking to the whole room with a furious invective which made us all stare. He lashed Stanton as a mean, scheming, vindictive politician who made it his business to rob military men of their credit earned by exposing their lives.” As for his old enemy, the press, “the fellows that wielded too loose a pen” should be put in prison. (Sherman’s rank and file had a similar view of what the press was doing to their “Uncle Billy”; when General Henry Slocum saw a crowd of soldiers standing around a blazing cart on a street in Raleigh and sent a staff officer to investigate, the man returned with the message, “Tell General Slocum that cart is loaded with New York papers for sale to the soldiers … We have followed Sherman through a score of battles and nearly two thousand miles of the enemy’s country, and we don’t intend to allow these slanders against him to be circulated among his men.”)
That same day, April 28, Sherman wrote Grant an anguished letter. He began by saying that “I do think that my Rank, if not past services, entitled me at least to the respect of Keeping secret what was known to none but the Cabinet, until further inquiry could have been made,” and went on to say, accurately, that Stanton was “in deep error” in his portrayal of Sherman’s orders to his cavalry as aiding Jefferson Davis’s continuing flight. He told Grant that the idea that he was insubordinate and “have brought discredit on our Government” would cause “pain and amazement” to his generals. He put it to Grant that he had “brought an army of seventy thousand men in magnificent condition across a country deemed impossible, and placed it just where it was wanted almost on the day appointed,” and said he felt that alone “entitled me to the courtesy of being consulted before publishing to the world a proposition [Sherman’s first agreement with Johnston] rightfully submitted to higher authority for proper adjudication.” He inveighed against Stanton’s “other statements which invited the Press to be let loose upon me,” and in his postscript added, “As Mr. Stanton’s singular paper has been published, I demand that this also be made public.”
The following day, in Goldsboro on his way to Charleston to reposition his forces in the South for the postwar duty that would soon be theirs, Sherman wrote Grant’s chief of staff Rawlins at some length, enclosing a copy of his previous day’s letter to Grant and asking him to “send a copy to Mr. Stanton, and say to him I want it published.” He characterized Stanton’s criticism of him as “untrue, unfair, and unkind to me, and I will say undeserved.” Sherman went on to point out, correctly, that “there has been at no time any trouble about Joe Johnston’s army,” and told Rawlins that “the South is broken and ruined, and deserves our pity. To ride the people down with persecutions and exactions would be like slashing away at the crew of a sinking ship.” On another point, he commented that “the idea of Jeff. Davis running around the country with tons of gold is ridiculous.” (Sherman calculated that if the fleeing Davis had with him as much as six million dollars in bars of gold bullion—Stanton and Halleck were now saying he might be trying to escape with more than twice that—it would take fifteen slow-moving teams of six mules apiece to move it through the South. When Davis was captured, disguised as a woman while wearing his wife’s raincoat and shawl, the figure was found to be half a million, all of which was speedily confiscated.)
In something of an undertone running through this letter to Rawlins, Sherman revealed what else was on his mind, in addition to justifying himself to the world. He had not seen Grant since they parted at Raleigh two days before, and he was worried about him, about their friendship, and about Grant’s overall reaction to this avalanche of criticism.
I doubt not efforts will be made to sow dissension between Grant and myself, on a false supposition that we have political aspirations, or, after Killing me off by libels, he will next be assailed. I can keep away from Washington, and I confide in his good sense to save him from the influences that will surround him there …If, however, Gen. Grant thinks that I have been outwitted by Joe Johnston, or that I have made undue concession to the rebels to save them from anarchy and us the needless expense of military occupation, I will take good care not to embarrass him.
In short, Sherman wanted Grant to know that he had learned his lesson, but that, while moving right along with the duties of commanding his army, he still had unfinished business with Stanton: using the word “resent” in its meaning of an aggressive reaction to an affront, he told Rawlins that “I have no hesitation in pronouncing Mr. Stanton’s compilation of April 22 a gross outrage upon me, which I will resent in time.”
By mistake, this letter to Rawlins, asking him to forward on to Stanton a copy of his relatively restrained letter to Grant, was sent on to Stanton. The letter to Grant had said nothing about repaying Stanton for “a gross outrage,” or linking Stanton with an effort to drive a wedge between Grant and Sherman; now it was all there, in Sherman’s handwriting, for Secretary of War Stanton to see.
Angry as Sherman was at Stanton, a different mixture of emotions swept over him a few days later. Stopping at Hilton Head, South Carolina, as he headed north after inspecting forces at Savannah, on May 2 he read in
The New York Times
the text of Halleck’s letter to Stanton, stating that Halleck had recently ordered Union generals not to obey Sherman’s orders. As would remain true for another two weeks, there would be delays and crossed communications between Grant and Sherman. Back in Washington, Grant had already made these orders “not to obey” Sherman inoperative, but Sherman did not know that, and the fact that Halleck had countermanded his orders struck Sherman as a betrayal that he would soon publicly characterize as “an act of Perfidy.” Despite Ellen Sherman’s warnings to him earlier in the war about Halleck’s “lawyerly ambiguities,” Sherman saw him as the man who had saved his career at a time when many judged him to be insane. That had been in good part true, although Halleck, aware of Sherman’s political connections in Washington, had wished to curry favor with men like Sherman’s father-in-law, Thomas Ewing, and his brother Senator John Sherman, while at the same time writing cautionary internal reports that would protect him from any consequences of Sherman’s actions. Again, after Shiloh, Sherman had seen Halleck sideline Grant to the point that only Sherman’s intervention persuaded Grant not to leave the army and go home, but his own gratitude to Halleck, who to this moment he had thought of as a friend, had led him for a time to see Halleck as being a better commander than Grant.
The New York Times
the text of Halleck’s letter to Stanton, stating that Halleck had recently ordered Union generals not to obey Sherman’s orders. As would remain true for another two weeks, there would be delays and crossed communications between Grant and Sherman. Back in Washington, Grant had already made these orders “not to obey” Sherman inoperative, but Sherman did not know that, and the fact that Halleck had countermanded his orders struck Sherman as a betrayal that he would soon publicly characterize as “an act of Perfidy.” Despite Ellen Sherman’s warnings to him earlier in the war about Halleck’s “lawyerly ambiguities,” Sherman saw him as the man who had saved his career at a time when many judged him to be insane. That had been in good part true, although Halleck, aware of Sherman’s political connections in Washington, had wished to curry favor with men like Sherman’s father-in-law, Thomas Ewing, and his brother Senator John Sherman, while at the same time writing cautionary internal reports that would protect him from any consequences of Sherman’s actions. Again, after Shiloh, Sherman had seen Halleck sideline Grant to the point that only Sherman’s intervention persuaded Grant not to leave the army and go home, but his own gratitude to Halleck, who to this moment he had thought of as a friend, had led him for a time to see Halleck as being a better commander than Grant.
Sherman went on the offensive. On May 6, sitting aboard the steamer
Russia
while she rode out a storm in the harbor at Beaufort, North Carolina, during his trip north to rejoin his main army, he issued his blistering Special Field Orders 69, an astonishing military document. It began: “The General commanding announces to the Armies under his command that a most foul attempt has been made on his fair fame.” Suggesting that there were some mysterious figures behind “this base attempt,” who “used the Press[,] the common resort of libellers,” he promised his soldiers that they “will be discovered and properly punished.” Then, after saying that these shadowy people “made use of the gossiping official Bulletins of our secretary of war, with their garbled statements and false contexts,” he stopped using the image of nebulous conspirators and took aim at the man he had thought was his friend. It was bold language to describe a man who through date of rank was still nominally senior to him. “Maj. Gen. Halleck, who as long as our Enemy stood in bold & armed array sat in full security in his Easy chair at Washington, was suddenly seized with a Newborn Zeal & Energy, when that Enemy has become (by no agency of his,) defeated, disheartened & submissive. He publicly disregarded [a] Truce of which he was properly advised.” Sherman criticized the countermanding of orders, saying that the instruction to his generals to do that had been withheld from him “but paraded before the Northern Public in direct violation of the Army regulations, of the orders of the War Department … as well as Common decency itself.”
Russia
while she rode out a storm in the harbor at Beaufort, North Carolina, during his trip north to rejoin his main army, he issued his blistering Special Field Orders 69, an astonishing military document. It began: “The General commanding announces to the Armies under his command that a most foul attempt has been made on his fair fame.” Suggesting that there were some mysterious figures behind “this base attempt,” who “used the Press[,] the common resort of libellers,” he promised his soldiers that they “will be discovered and properly punished.” Then, after saying that these shadowy people “made use of the gossiping official Bulletins of our secretary of war, with their garbled statements and false contexts,” he stopped using the image of nebulous conspirators and took aim at the man he had thought was his friend. It was bold language to describe a man who through date of rank was still nominally senior to him. “Maj. Gen. Halleck, who as long as our Enemy stood in bold & armed array sat in full security in his Easy chair at Washington, was suddenly seized with a Newborn Zeal & Energy, when that Enemy has become (by no agency of his,) defeated, disheartened & submissive. He publicly disregarded [a] Truce of which he was properly advised.” Sherman criticized the countermanding of orders, saying that the instruction to his generals to do that had been withheld from him “but paraded before the Northern Public in direct violation of the Army regulations, of the orders of the War Department … as well as Common decency itself.”
As Sherman portrayed it, in contrast to the villains Stanton and Halleck, there was a hero. “But thanks to our noble and honest commanding officer, Lt. Genl. Grant, [who] after coming in person to Raleigh, and seeing and hearing for himself was enabled to return to the North” with, as Sherman assured his troops, the proper resolution to confound these calumnies against “one of the most successful results of the war.”
This was, of course, a selective picture, absolving Sherman of any blame for his own actions, but Halleck immediately ran up the white flag. On May 9, when Sherman, reunited with his northward-moving army, was nearing Richmond, he received an obsequious letter from Halleck, who as the post-Appomattox commander of the Army of the James [River] had his headquarters in the former Confederate capital. “You have not had during this war nor have you now a warmer admirer than myself,” Halleck told Sherman. “If in carrying out what I knew to be the wishes of the War Department in regard to your armistice I used language which has given you offense it was unintentional, and I deeply regret it. If fully aware of the circumstances under which I acted I am certain you would not attribute to me any improper motives. It is my wish to continue to regard and receive you as a personal friend.” Knowing that Sherman was marching his army north to be demobilized and would be passing through Richmond, Halleck invited Sherman to stay at his headquarters and apparently expected to review Sherman’s army as it passed through, standing in a place of honor and receiving the salutes of his regiments as they marched by.
Sherman answered this the next day. Contrasting these professions of friendship with the published letter in
The New York Times
in which Halleck had assured Stanton that he was countermanding Sherman’s orders, he told Halleck that “I cannot possibly reconcile the friendly expressions of the former with the deadly malignity of the latter, and cannot consent to the renewal of a friendship I had prized so highly.” As for the idea that Halleck would be receiving the salutes of his men at a review, Sherman had this to say: “I will march my Army through Richmond quietly and in good order without attracting attention, and I beg you to keep slightly perdu [lost], for if noticed by some of my old command I cannot undertake to maintain a model behavior, for their feelings have become aroused by what the world adjudges an insult at least to an honest commander. If loss of life or violence result from this you must attribute it to the true cause, a public insult to a Brother officer when he was far away on public service, perfectly innocent of the malignant purpose and design.”
The New York Times
in which Halleck had assured Stanton that he was countermanding Sherman’s orders, he told Halleck that “I cannot possibly reconcile the friendly expressions of the former with the deadly malignity of the latter, and cannot consent to the renewal of a friendship I had prized so highly.” As for the idea that Halleck would be receiving the salutes of his men at a review, Sherman had this to say: “I will march my Army through Richmond quietly and in good order without attracting attention, and I beg you to keep slightly perdu [lost], for if noticed by some of my old command I cannot undertake to maintain a model behavior, for their feelings have become aroused by what the world adjudges an insult at least to an honest commander. If loss of life or violence result from this you must attribute it to the true cause, a public insult to a Brother officer when he was far away on public service, perfectly innocent of the malignant purpose and design.”
On the same day, May 10, Sherman wrote a letter to Grant, marked “Private & Confidential,” that showed him not only to be still enraged against Halleck and Stanton but also puzzled and troubled about the state of their own relationship. Until a brief telegram had come that morning ordering him to march his army to Washington and encamp at Alexandria, Virginia, about three miles down the Potomac from the capital, he had not heard from Grant since they had parted at Raleigh thirteen days before. There had been no answer to his letters to both Grant and Rawlins attacking Stanton and asking that his sentiments be passed on to Stanton and published. At midnight two days before, Sherman had penned a plaintive note to Grant, saying that he had immediate reason to issue some orders to General James H. Wilson, one of the officers who had been told “not to obey” him, and asked, “Does the Secretary of War’s news-paper order take General Wilson from my command, or shall I continue to order him—If I have proven incompetent to manage my own command, let me know it.” The following day, still not hearing from Grant, he communicated with him again, saying that Wilson, needed some instructions, but that because of “secretary Stanton’s newspaper order taking Wilson substantially from my command I wish you would give the orders necessary.”
Although Sherman had not yet received it, these messages had produced a brief, businesslike telegram from Grant sent on May 9, saying, “I know of no order which changed your command in any particular.” Referring to the fact that Sherman had been all over the South since they parted, Grant added, “Gen. Wilson is in telegraphic communication with Washington whilst you have not been[,] consequently instructions have been sent to him direct.” The unspoken message: you have been wronged, but I consider you to be in full command, just as you were before you got yourself into trouble and I did my best to get you out of it, and we need to get on with our duties, and you need to spend less time feuding.
Now, still having heard nothing from Grant except a brief order to bring his army on to encamp across the river opposite Washington, Sherman poured out his emotions to Grant in his letter. “I do think a great outrage has been enacted against me,” he wrote. “Your orders and wishes shall be to me the Law, but I ask you to vindicate my name … If you do not I will … No man shall insult me with impunity … No amount of retraction or pusillanimous excusing will do. Mr. Stanton must publicly confess himself a Common libeller or—but I won[’]t threaten. I will not enter Washington except on yours or the Presidents emphatic orders, but I do wish to stay with my army, till it ceases to exist, or till it is broken up and scattered to other duty.”
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