 Section 69 of Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant When I left Appomattox, I ordered General Mead to proceed leisurely back to Berksville Station with the Army of the Potomac and the Army of the James, and to go into camp there until further orders from me. General Johnston, as had been stated before, was in North Carolina confronting General Sherman. It could not be known positively, of course, whether Johnston would surrender on the news of Lee's surrender, though I supposed he would, and if he did not, Berksville Station was the natural point from which to move to attack him. The Army which I could have sent against him was superior to his, and that with which Sherman confronted him was also superior, and between the two he would necessarily have been crushed or driven away, with the loss of their capital and the Army of Northern Virginia it was doubtful whether Johnston's men would have the spirit to stand. My belief was that he would make no such attempt, but I adopted this course as a precaution against what might happen, however improbable. Simultaneously with my starting from city point I sent a messenger to North Carolina by boat with dispatches to General Sherman informing him of the surrender of Lee and his Army, also of the terms which I had given him, and I authorized Sherman to give the same terms to Johnston if the latter chose to accept them. The country is familiar with the terms that Sherman agreed to conditionally because they embraced a political question as well as a military one, and he would therefore have to confer with the government before agreeing to them definitely. General Sherman had met Mr. Lincoln at city point while visiting there to confer with me about our final movement, and knew what Mr. Lincoln had said to the peace commissioners when he met them at Hampton Roads, that is, that before he could enter into negotiations with them they would have to agree to two points, one being that the Union should be preserved and the other that slavery should be abolished, and if they were ready to concede these two points he was almost ready to sign his name to a blank piece of paper and permit them to fill out the balance of the terms upon which we would live together. He had also seen notices in the newspapers of Mr. Lincoln's visit to Richmond and had read in the same papers that while there he had authorized the convening of the legislature of Virginia. Sherman thought, no doubt, in adding to the terms that I had made with General Lee that he was but carrying out the wishes of the President of the United States, but seeing that he was going beyond his authority he made it a point that the terms were only conditional. They signed them with this understanding and agreed to a truce until the terms could be sent to Washington for approval. If approved by the proper authorities there they would then be final. If not approved then he would give due notice before resuming hostilities. As the world knows, Sherman, from being one of the most popular generals of the land, Congress having even gone so far as to propose a bill providing for a second lieutenant general for the purpose of advancing him to that grade, was denounced by the President and Secretary of War in very bitter terms. Some people went so far as to denounce him as a traitor, a most preposterous term to apply to a man who had rendered so much service as he had, even supposing he had made a mistake in granting such terms as he did to Johnston and his army. If Sherman had taken authority to send Johnston with his army home with their arms to be put in the arsenals of their own states without submitting the question to the authorities at Washington, the suspicions against him might have some foundation, but the feeling against Sherman died out very rapidly and it was not many weeks before he was restored to the fullest confidence of the American people. Then, some days after my return to Washington, President Johnson and the Secretary of War receded the terms which General Sherman had forwarded for approval. A cabinet meeting was immediately called and I was sent for. There seemed to be the greatest consternation lest Sherman would commit the government to terms which they were not willing to accede to and which he had no right to grant. A message went out directing the troops in the south not to obey General Sherman. I was ordered to proceed at once to North Carolina and take charge of matter there myself. Of course I started without delay and reached there as soon as possible. I repaired to Raleigh, where Sherman was, as quietly as possible hoping to see him without even his army learning of my presence. When I arrived, I went to Sherman's headquarters and we were at once closeted together. I showed him the instruction and orders under which I visited him. I told him that I wanted him to notify General Johnston that the terms which they had conditionally agreed upon had not been approved in Washington and that he was authorized to offer the same terms I had given General Lee. I sent Sherman to do this himself. I did not wish the knowledge of my presence to be known to the army generally, so I left it to Sherman to negotiate the terms of the surrender solely by himself and without the enemy knowing that I was anywhere near the field. As soon as possible I started to get away to leave Sherman quite free and untrammeled. At Goldsboro, on my way back, I met a male containing the last newspapers and I found in them indications of great excitement in the North over the terms Sherman had given Johnston and harsh orders that had been promulgated by the President and Secretary of War. 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, but like the true and loyal soldier that he was, he carried out the instructions I had given him, obtained the surrender of Johnston's army, and settled down in his camp, of Mount Raleigh, to await final orders. There were still a few expeditions out in the South that could not be communicated with and had to be left to act according to the judgment of their respective commanders. With these it was impossible to tell how the news of the surrender of Lee and Johnston, of which they must have heard, might affect their judgment as to what was best to do. The three expeditions which I had tried so hard to get off from the commands of Thomas and Canby did finally get off, one under Canby himself against Mobile late in March, that under Stoneman from East Tennessee on the twentieth and the one under Wilson starting from Eastport, Mississippi on the twenty-second of March. They were all eminently successful, but without any good result. Indeed, much valuable property was destroyed, and many lives lost at a time when we would have liked to spare them. The war was practically over before their victories were gained. They were so late in commencing operations that they did not hold any troops away that otherwise would have been operating against the armies which were gradually forcing the Confederate armies to a surrender. The only possible good that we may have experienced from these raids was by Stoneman's getting near Lynchburg about the time the armies of the Potomac and the James were closing in on Lee at Appomattox. Stoneman entered North Carolina and then pushed north to strike the Virginia and Tennessee railroad. He got upon that road, destroyed its bridges at different places, and rendered the road useless to the enemy up to within a few miles of Lynchburg. His approach caused the evacuation of that city about the time we were at Appomattox and was the cause of a commotion we heard of there. He then pushed south and was operating in the rear of Johnston's army about the time the negotiations were going on between Sherman and Johnston for the latter's surrender. In this raid, Stoneman captured and destroyed a large amount of stores, while fourteen guns and nearly two thousand prisoners were the trophies of his success. Can be appeared before Mobile on the 27th of March. The city of Mobile was protected by two forts. Besides other entrenchments, Spanish Fort on the east side of the bay and Fort Blakely north of the city. These forts were invested. On the night of the 8th of April, the national troops having carried the enemy's works at one point, Spanish Fort was evacuated. And on the 9th, the very day of Lee's surrender, Blakely was carried by assault with a considerable loss to us. On the 11th, the city was evacuated. I had tried for more than two years to have an expedition sent against Mobile when its possession by us would have been of great advantage. It finally cost lives to take it when its possession was of no importance, and when, if left alone, it would within a few days have fallen into our hands without any bloodshed, whatever. Wilson moved out with full twelve thousand men, well-equipped and well-armed. He was an energetic officer and accomplished his work rapidly. Forest was in his front, but with neither his old-time army nor his old-time prestige. He now had principally conscripts. His conscripts were generally old men and boys. He had a few thousand regular cavalry left, but not enough to even retard materially the progress of Wilson's cavalry. Selma fell on the 2nd of April, with a large number of prisoners and a large quantity of war material, machine shops, etc., to be disposed of by the victors. Tuscaloosa, Montgomery, and West Point fell in quick successions. These were all important points to the enemy by reason of their railroad connections, as depots of supplies and because of their manufactories of war material. They were fortified or entrenched, and there was considerable fighting before they were captured. Macon surrendered on the 21st of April. Here news was received of the negotiations for the surrender of Johnston's army. Wilson belonged to the military division commanded by Sherman and, of course, was bound by his terms. This stopped all fighting. General Richard Taylor had now become the senior Confederate officer still at Liberty east of the Mississippi River, and on the 4th of May he surrendered everything within the limits of his extensive command. General E. Kirby Smith surrendered the Trans Mississippi Department on the 26th of May, leaving no other Confederate army at Liberty to continue the war. Wilson's raid resulted in the capture of the fugitive president of the defunct Confederacy before he got out of the country. This occurred at Irwinsville, Georgia on the 11th of May. For myself and I believe Mr. Lincoln shared the feeling I would have been very glad to have seen Mr. Davis succeed in escaping. But for one reason I feared that if not captured he might get into the Trans-Mississippi region and there set up a more contracted Confederacy. The young men now, out of homes and out of employment, might have rallied under his standard and protracted the war yet another year. The northern people were tired of the war. They were tired of piling up a debt, which would be a further mortgage upon their homes. Mr. Lincoln, I believe, wanted Mr. Davis to escape because he did not wish to deal with the matter of his punishment. He knew there would be people clamoring for the punishment of the ex-Confederate president for high treason. He thought blood enough had already been spilled to atone for our wickedness as a nation. At all events he did not wish to be the judge to decide whether more should be shed or not. But his own life was sacrificed at the hands of an assassin before the ex- president of the Confederacy was a prisoner in the hands of the government which he had lent all his talent and all his energies to destroy. All things are said to be wisely directed and for the best interest of all concern. This reflection does not, however, abate in the slightest our sense of bereavement in the untimely loss of so good and great a man as Abraham Lincoln. He would have proven the best friend the South could have had, and saved much of the wrangling and bitterness of feeling brought out by reconstruction under a president who, at first, wished to revenge himself upon southern men of better social standing than himself, but who still sought their recognition, and in a short time conceived the idea and advanced the proposition to become their Moses to lead them triumphantly out of all their difficulties. The story of the legislation enacted during the reconstruction period to stay the hands of the president is too fresh in the minds of the people to be told now. Much of it, no doubt, was unconstitutional, but it was hoped that the laws enacted would serve their purpose before the question of constitutionality could be submitted to the judiciary and a decision obtained. These laws did serve their purpose, and now remain a dead letter upon the statute books of the United States. No one taking interest enough in them to give them a passing thought. Much was said at the time about the garb Mr. Davis was wearing when he was captured. I cannot settle this question from personal knowledge of the facts, but I have been under the belief, from information given to me by General Wilson shortly after the event, that when Mr. Davis learned that he was surrounded by our cavalry he was, in his tent, dressed in a gentleman's dressing gown. Naturally enough, Mr. Davis wanted to escape and would not reflect much how this should be accomplished, provided it might be done successfully. If captured he would be no ordinary prisoner. He represented all there was of that hostility to the government which had caused four years of the bloodiest war and the most costly in other respects of which history makes any record. Everyone supposed he would be tried for treason, if captured, and that he would be executed. Had he succeeded in making his escape in any disguise it would have been judged a good thing afterwards by his admirers. As my official letters on file in the War Department, as well as my remarks in this book, reflect upon General Thomas by dwelling somewhat upon his tardiness. It is due to myself, as well as to him, that I give my estimate of him as a soldier. The same remark will apply also in the case of General Canby. I had been at West Point with Thomas one year and had known him later in the Old Army. He was a man of commanding appearance, slow and deliberate in speech and action, sensible, honest and brave. He possessed valuable soldierly qualities in an imminent degree. He gained the confidence of all who served under him and almost their love. This implies a very valuable quality. It is a quality which calls out the most efficient services of the troops serving under the commander possessing it. Thomas's dispositions were deliberately made and always good. He could not be driven from a point he was given to hold. He was not as good, however, in pursuit as he was in action. I do not believe that he could ever have conducted Sherman's army from Chattanooga to Atlanta against the defenses and the commander guarding that line in 1864. On the other hand, if it had been given him to hold the line which Johnston tried to hold, neither that general nor Sherman nor any other officer could have done it better. Thomas was a valuable officer who richly deserved as he has received the plaudits of his countrymen for the part he played in the great tragedy of 1861 through 1865. General Canby was an officer of great merit. He was naturally studious and inclined to the law. There have been in the army but very few, if any, officers who took as much interest in reading and digesting every act of Congress and every regulation for the government of the army as he. His knowledge gained in this way made him a most valuable staff officer, a capacity in which almost all his army services were rendered up to the time of his being assigned to the military division of the Gulf. He was an exceedingly modest officer, though of great talent and learning. I presume his feelings when first called upon to command a large army against a fortified city were somewhat like my own when marching a regiment against General Thomas Harris in Missouri in 1861. Neither of us would have felt the slightest trepidation in going into battle with someone else commanding. Had Canby been in other engagements afterwards he would, I have no doubt, have advanced without any fear arising from a sense of the responsibility. He was afterwards killed in the lava beds of southern Oregon while in pursuit of the hostile Modoc Indians his character was as pure as his talent and learning were great. His services were valuable during the war but principally as a bureau officer. I have no idea that it was from choice that his services were rendered in an office but because of his superior efficiency there. . . . . . . And as the certainty that there would be no more armed resistance became clearer, the troops in North Carolina and Virginia were ordered to march immediately to the capital and go into camp there until mustered out. Suitable garrisons were left at the prominent places throughout the south to ensure obedience to the laws that might be enacted for the government of the several states and to ensure security to the lives and property of all classes. I do not know how far this was necessary but I deemed it necessary at that time that such a course should be pursued. I think now that these garrisons were continued after they ceased to be absolutely required but it is not to be expected that such a rebellion as was fought between the sections from 1861 to 1865 could terminate without leaving many serious apprehensions in the mind of the people as to what should be done. Sherman marched his troops from Goldsboro up to Manchester on the south side of the James River opposite Richmond and there put them in camp while he went back to Savannah to see what the situation was there. It was during this trip that the last outrage was committed upon him. Halleck had been sent to Richmond to Command Virginia and had issued orders prohibiting even Sherman's own troops from obeying his Sherman's orders. Sherman met the papers on his return containing this order of Halleck and very justly felt indignant at the outrage. On his arrival at Fortress Monroe returning from Savannah Sherman received an invitation from Halleck to come to Richmond and be his guest. This he indignantly refused and informed Halleck furthermore that he had seen his order. He also stated that he was coming up to take command of his troops and as he marched through it would probably be as well for Halleck not to show himself because he, Sherman, would not be responsible for what some rash person might do through indignation for the treatment he had received. Very soon after that Sherman received orders from me to proceed to Washington City and to go into camp on the south side of the city pending the mustering out of the troops. There was no incident worth noting in the march northward from Goldsboro to Richmond or in that from Richmond to Washington City. The army, however, commanded by Sherman which had been engaged in all the battles of the west and had marched from the Mississippi through the southern states to the sea from there to Goldsboro and thence to Washington City had passed over many of the battlefields of the Army of the Potomac thus having seen to a greater extent than any other body of troops the entire theater of the Four Years War for the preservation of the Union. The march of Sherman's army from Atlanta to the sea and north to Goldsboro while it was not accompanied with the danger that was anticipated yet was magnificent in its results and equally magnificent in the way it was conducted. It had an important bearing in various ways upon the great object we had in view that of closing the war. All the states east of the Mississippi River up to the state of Georgia had felt the hardships of the war. Georgia and South Carolina and almost all of North Carolina up to this time had been exempt from invasion by the northern armies except upon their immediate sea coasts. Their newspapers had given such an account of Confederate success that the people who remained at home had been convinced that the Yankees had been whipped from first to last and driven from pillar to post and that now they could hardly be holding out for any other purpose than to find a way out of the war with honor to themselves. Even during this march of Sherman's the newspapers in his front were proclaiming daily that his army was nothing better than a mob of men who were frightened out of their wits and hastening panic-stricken to try to get under the cover of our navy for protection against the southern people. As the army was seen marching on triumphantly, however, the minds of the people became disabused and they saw the true state of affairs. In turn they became disheartened and would have been glad to submit without compromise. Another great advantage resulting from this march, and which was calculated to hasten the end, was the fact that the great storehouse of Georgia was entirely cut off from the Confederate armies. As the troops advanced north from Savannah, the destruction of the railroads in South Carolina and the southern part of North Carolina, further cut off their resources and left the armies still in Virginia and North Carolina dependent for supplies upon a very small area of the country already very much exhausted of food and forage. In due time the two armies, one from Berksfield Junction and the other from the neighborhood of Raleigh North Carolina, arrived and went into camp near the capital as directed. The troops were hardy, being enured to fatigue and they appeared in their respective camps as ready and fit for duty as they had ever been in their lives. I doubt whether an equal body of men of any nation, take them man for man, officer for officer, was ever gotten together that would have proved their equal in a great battle. The armies of Europe are machines. The men are brave and the officers capable, but the majority of the soldiers in most of the nations of Europe are taken from a class of people who are not very intelligent and who have very little interest in the contest in which they are called upon to take part. Our armies were composed of men who were able to read, men who knew what they were fighting for and could not be induced to serve as soldiers except in an emergency when the safety of the nation was involved and so necessarily must have been more than equal to men who fought merely because they were brave and because they were thoroughly drilled and enured to hardships. There was nothing of particular importance occurred during the time these troops were in camp before starting north. I remember one little incident which I will relate as an anecdote characteristic of Mr. Lincoln. It occurred a day after I reached Washington and about the time General Mead reached Berksville with the army. Governor Smith of Virginia had left Richmond with the Confederate State's government and had gone to Danville. Supposing I was necessarily with the army at Berksville he addressed a letter to me there informing me that as Governor of the Commonwealth of the State of Virginia he had temporarily removed the state capital from Richmond to Danville and asking if he would be permitted to perform the functions of his office there without molestation by the federal authorities. I give this letter only in substance. He also inquired of me whether in case he was not allowed to perform the duties of his office he with a few others might not be permitted to leave the country and go abroad without interference. General Mead, being informed that a flag of truce was outside his pickets with a letter to me at once sent out and had the letter brought in without informing the officer who brought it that I was not present. He read the letter and telegraphed me its contents. Meeting Mr. Lincoln shortly after receiving this dispatch I repeated its contents to him. Mr. Lincoln, supposing I was asking for instructions said and replied to that part of Governor Smith's letter which inquired whether he with a few friends would be permitted to leave the country unmolested that his position was like that of a certain Irishman, giving the name, he knew in Springfield who was very popular with the people, a man of considerable promise and very much liked. Unfortunately he had acquired the habit of drinking and his friends could see that the habit was growing on him. These friends determined to make an effort to save him and to do this they drew up a pledge to abstain from all alcoholic drinks. They asked Pat to join them in signing the pledge and he consented. He had been so long out of the habit of using plain water as a beverage that he resorted to soda water as a substitute. After a few days this began to grow distasteful to him, so holding the glass behind him he said, Doctor, couldn't you drop a bit of brandy in that unbeknownst to myself? I do not remember what the instructions were the President gave me but I know that Governor Smith was not permitted to perform the duties of his office. I also know that if Mr. Lincoln had been spared there would have been no efforts made to prevent anyone from leaving the country who desired to do so. He would have been equally willing to permit the return of the same expatriated citizens after they had time to repent of their choice. On the 18th of May orders were issued by the Adjutant General for a grand review by the President and his cabinet of Shermans and Meads' armies. The review commenced on the 23rd and lasted two days. This army occupied over six hours of the first day in passing the grandstand which had been erected in front of the President's house. Shermans witnessed this review from the grandstand which was occupied by the President and his cabinet. Here he showed his resentment for the cruel and harsh treatment that had been necessarily been inflicted upon him by the Secretary of War by refusing to take his extended hand. Shermans troops had been in camp on the south side of the Potomac. During the night of the 23rd he crossed over and bivouacked not far from the capital. Promptly at ten o'clock on the morning of the 24th his troops commenced to pass in review. Shermans army made a different appearance from that of the army of the Potomac. The latter had been operating where they received directly from the north full supplies of food and clothing regularly. The review of this army therefore was the review of a body of 65,000 well-drilled, well-disciplined and orderly soldiers inert the hardship and fit for any duty but without the experience of gathering their own food and supplies in an enemy's country and of being ever on the watch. Shermans army was not so well-dressed as the army of the Potomac, but their marching could not be excelled. They gave the appearance of men who had been thoroughly drilled to endure hardships either by long and continuous marches or through exposure to any climate without the ordinary shelter of a camp. They exhibited also some of the order of march through Georgia where the sweet potatoes sprung up from the ground as Shermans army went marching through. In the rear of a company there would be a captured horse or mule loaded with small cooking utensils, captured chickens and other food picked up for the use of the men. Negro families who had followed the army would sometimes come along in the rear of a company with three or four children packed upon a single mule and the mother leading it. The sight was varied in grand, nearly all day for two successive days from the capital to the treasury building could be seen a mass of orderly soldiers marching in columns of companies. The national flag was flying from almost every house and store. The windows were filled with spectators. The doorsteps and sidewalks were crowded with colored people and poor whites who did not succeed in securing better quarters from which to get a view of the grand armies. The city was about as full of strangers who had come to see the sights as it usually is on inauguration day when a new president takes his seat. It may not be out of place to begin allude to President Lincoln and the Secretary of War, Mr. Staunton, who were the great conspicuous figures in the executive branch of the government. There is no great difference of opinion now in the public mind as to the characteristics of the president. With Mr. Staunton the case is different. They were the very opposite of each other in almost every particular except that each possessed great ability. Mr. Lincoln gained influence over men by making them feel that it was a pleasure to serve him. He preferred yielding his own wish to gratifying others rather than to insist upon having his own way. It distressed him to disappoint others. In matters of public duty, however, he had what he wished, but in the least offensive way. Mr. Staunton never questioned his own authority to command unless resisted. He cared nothing for the feeling of others. In fact, it seemed to be pleasanter to him to disappoint than to gratify. He felt no hesitation in assuming the functions of the executive or in acting without advising with him. If his act was not sustained, he would change it if he saw the matter would be followed up until he did so. It was generally supposed that these two officials formed the complement of each other. The secretary was required to prevent the presidents being imposed upon. The president was required in the more responsible place of seeing that injustice was not done to others. I do not know that this view of these two men is still entertained by the majority of the people. It is not a correct view, however, in my estimation. Mr. Lincoln did not require a guardian to aid him in the fulfillment of a public trust. Mr. Lincoln was not timid, and he was willing to trust his generals in making and executing their plans. The secretary was very timid, and it was impossible for him to avoid interfering with the armies, covering the capital when it was sought to defend it by an offensive movement against the army guarding the Confederate capital. He could see our weakness, but he could not see that the enemy was in danger. The enemy would not have been in danger if Mr. Stoughton had been in the field. These characteristics of the two officials were clearly shown shortly after early came so near getting into the capital. Among the army and corps commanders who served with me during the war between the states, and who attracted much public attention, but of whose ability as soldiers I have not yet given any estimate are Mead, Hancock, Sedgwick, Burnside, Terry, and Hooker. There were others of great merit such as Griffin, Humphreys, Wright, and McKinsey. Of those first named, Burnside at one time had command of the army of the Potomac and later of the army of the Ohio, Hooker also commanded the army of the Potomac for a short time. General Mead was an officer of great merit with drawbacks to his usefulness that were beyond his control. He had been an officer of the engineer corps before the war and consequently had never served with troops until he was over 66 years of age. He never had, I believe, a command of less than a brigade. He saw clearly and distinctly the position of the enemy and the topography of the country in front of his own position. His first idea was to take advantage of the lay of the ground sometimes without reference to the direction he wanted to move afterwards. He wasordinate to his superiors and rank to the extent that he could execute an order which changed his own plans with the same zeal he would have displayed if the plan had been his own. He was brave and conscientious and commanded the respect of all who knew him. He was, unfortunately, of a temper that would get beyond his time and make him speak to officers of high rank in the most offensive manner. No one saw this fault more plainly than he himself and no one regretted it more. This made it unpleasant at times, even in battle, for those around him to approach him even with information. In spite of this defect he was a most favorable officer and deserves a high place in the annals of his country. General Burnside was an officer who was generally liked and respected. He was not, however, fitted to command an army. No one knew this better than himself. He always admitted his blunders and extenuated those of officers under him beyond what they were entitled to. It was hardly his fault that he was ever assigned to a separate command. Of Hooker I saw but little during the war. I had known him very well before, however, where I did see him at Chattanooga, his achievement in bringing his command around the point of Lookout Mountain and into Chattanooga Valley was brilliant. I nevertheless regarded him as a dangerous man. He was not subordinate to his superiors. He was ambitious to the extent of carrying nothing for the rights of others. His disposition was, when engaged in battle, to get detached from the main body of the army and exercise a separate command, gathering to his standard all he could of his juniors. Hancock stands the most conspicuous figure of all the general officers who did not exercise a separate command. He commanded a corps longer than any other one, and his name was never mentioned as having committed in battle a blunder for which he was responsible. He was a man of very conspicuous personal appearance, tall, well formed, and at the time of which I now write young and fresh looking. He presented an appearance that would attract the attention of an army as he passed. His genial disposition made him friends, and his personal courage and his presence with his command in the thickest of the fight, one for him the confidence of troops serving under him. No matter how hard the fight, the second corps always felt that their commander was looking after them. Sedgewick was killed at Spotsylvania before I had an opportunity of forming an estimate of his qualifications as a soldier from personal observation. I had known him in Mexico when both of us were lieutenants and when our service gave no indication that either of us would ever be equal to the command of a brigade, he stood very high in the army, however, as an officer and a man. He was brave and conscientious, his ambition was not great, and he seemed to dread responsibility. He was willing to do any amount of battling but always wanted someone else to direct. He declined the command of the army of the Potomac once, if not oftener. General Alfred H. Terry came into the army as a volunteer without a military education. His way was one without political influence up to an important, separate command, the expedition against Fort Fisher in January 1865. His success there was most brilliant and one for him the rank of Brigadier General in the regular army and of Major General of Volunteers. He is a man who makes friends of those under him by his consideration of their wants and their dues. As a commander, he won their confidence by his coolness and action and by his clearness of perception in taking in the situation under which he was placed at any given time. Griffin, Humphries, and Mackenzie were good corps commanders, but came into that position so near to the close of the war as not to attract public attention. All three served as such in the last campaign of the armies of the Potomac and the James, which culminated at Appomattox Courthouse on the 9th of April 1865. The sudden collapse of the rebellion monopolized attention to the exclusion of almost everything else. I regarded Mackenzie as the most promising young officer in the army. Graduating at West Point as he did during the second year of the war, he had won his way up to the command of a corps before it's closed. This he did upon his own merit and without influence. Conclusion. The cause of the great war of the rebellion against the United States will have to be attributed to slavery. For some years before the war began it was a trite saying among some politicians that a state half-slave and half-free cannot exist. All must become slave or all-free or the state will go down. I took no part myself in such view of the case at the time, but since the war is over reviewing the whole question I have come to the conclusion that the saying is quite true. Slavery was an institution that required unusual guarantees for its security wherever it existed, and in a country like ours where the larger portion of it was free territory inhabited by an intelligent and well-to-do population the people would naturally have but little sympathy with demands upon them for its protection. Hence the people of the south were dependent upon keeping control of the general government to secure the perpetuation of their favorite institution. They were enabled to maintain this control long after the states where slavery existed had ceased to have the controlling power through the assistance they received from odd men here and there throughout the northern states. They saw their power waning and this led them to encroach upon the prerogatives and independence of the northern states by enacting such laws as the fugitive slave law. By this law every northern man was obliged when properly summoned to turn out and help apprehend the runaway slave of a southern man. Northern marshals became slave catchers and northern courts had to contribute to the support and protection of the institution. This was a degradation which the north would not permit any longer than until they could get the power to expunge such laws from the statute books. Prior to the time of these encroachments the great majority of the people of the north had no particular quarrel with slavery so long as they were not forced to have it themselves. But they were not willing to play the role of police for the south in the protection of this particular institution. In the early days of the country, before we had railroads, telegraphs, and steamboats in a word, rapid transit of any sort, the states were each almost a separate nationality. At that time the subject of slavery caused but little or no disturbance to the public mind. But the country grew. Rapid transit was established in trade and commerce between the states got to be so much greater than before that the power of the national government became more felt and recognized and therefore had to be enlisted in the cause of this institution. It is probably well that we had the war when we did. We are better off now than we would have been without it and have made more rapid progress than we otherwise should have made. The civilized nations of Europe have been stimulated into unusual activity so that commerce, trade, travel, and through acquaintance among people of different nationalities has become common whereas before it was but the few who had ever had the privilege of going beyond the limits of their own country or who knew anything about other people. Then, too, our Republican institutions were regarded as experiments up to the breaking out of the rebellion and monarchical Europe generally believed that our Republic was a rope of sand that would part the moment the slightest strain was brought upon it. Now it has shown itself capable of dealing with one of the greatest wars that was ever made and our people have proven themselves to be the most formidable in war of any nationality. But this war was a fearful lesson and should teach us the necessity of avoiding wars in the future. The conduct of some of the European states during our troubles shows the lack of conscience of communities where the responsibility does not come upon a single individual, seeing a nation that extended from ocean to ocean embracing the better part of a continent growing as we were growing in population, wealth and intelligence the European nations thought it would be well to give us a check. We might possibly, after a while, threaten their peace or at least the perpetuity of their institutions. Hence England was constantly finding fault with the administration at Washington because we were not able to shape up an effective blockade. She also joined at first with France and Spain in setting up an Austrian prince upon the throne in Mexico totally disregarding any rights or claims that Mexico had of being treated as an independent power. It is true, they trumped up grievances as a pretext, but they were only pretexts which can always be found when wanted. Mexico in her various revolutions had been unable to give that protection to the subjects of foreign nations which she would have liked to give and some of her revolutionary leaders had forced loans from them under pretense of protecting their citizens these nations seized upon Mexico as a foothold for establishing a European monarchy upon our continent thus threatening our peace at home. I myself regarded this as a direct act of war against the United States by the powers engaged and supposed as a matter of course that the United States would treat it as such when their hands were free to strike. I often spoke of the matter to Mr. Lincoln and the Secretary of War, but never heard any special views from them to enable me to judge what they thought or felt about it. I inferred that they felt a good deal as I did, but were unwilling to commit themselves while we had our own troubles upon our hands. All of the powers except France very soon withdrew from the armed intervention for the establishment of an Austrian prince upon the throne of Mexico, but the governing people of these countries continued to the close of the war to throw obstacles in our way after the surrender of Lee, therefore, entertaining the opinion here expressed. I sent Sheridan with a corps to the Rio Grande to have him where he might aid Juarez in expelling the French from Mexico. These troops got off before they could be stopped and went to the Rio Grande where Sheridan distributed them up and down the river, much to the consternation of the troops in the quarter of Mexico bordering on that stream. This soon led to a request from France that we should withdraw our troops from the Rio Grande and to negotiations for the withdrawal of theirs. Finally Bezin was withdrawn from Mexico by order of the French government. From that day the empire began to totter. Mexico was then able to maintain her independence without aid from us. France is the traditional ally and friend of the United States. I did not blame France for her part in the scheme to erect a monarchy upon the ruins of the Mexican Republic. That was the scheme of one man, an imitator, without genius or merit. He had succeeded in stealing the government of his country and made a change in its form against the wishes and instincts of his people. He tried to play the part of the First Napoleon without the ability to sustain that role. He sought by new conquest to add to his empire and his glory, but the signal failure of his scheme of conquest was a precursor of his own overthrow. Like our own war between the states, the Franco-Prussian war was an expensive one, but it was worth to France all it cost her people. It was the completion of the downfall of Napoleon III. The beginning was when he landed troops on this continent. Failing here, the prestige of his name, all the prestige he ever had, was gone. He must achieve a success or fall. He tried to strike down his neighbor, Prussia, and fell. I never admired the character of the First Napoleon, but I recognized his great genius. His work, too, has left its impress for good on the face of Europe. The Third Napoleon could have no claim to having done a good or just act. To maintain peace in the future, it is necessary to be prepared for war. There can scarcely be a possible chance of conflict, such as the last one, occurring among our own people again. But growing as we are in population, wealth, and military power, we may become the envy of nations which led us in all these particulars only a few years ago. And unless we are prepared for it, we may be in danger of a combined movement being some day made to crush us out. Now scarcely twenty years after the war, we seem to have forgotten the lessons it taught and are going on as if in the greatest security, without the power to resist an invasion by the fleets of fourth-rate European powers for a time until we could prepare for them. We should have a good navy, and our sea coast defenses should be put in the finest possible condition. Neither of these cost much when it is considered where the money goes and what we get in return. Money expended in a fine navy not only adds to our security and tends to prevent war in the future, but is very material aid to our commerce with foreign nations in the meantime. Money spent upon sea coast defenses is spent among our own people and all goes back again among the people. The work accomplished too, like that of the navy, gives us a feeling of security. England's course towards the United States during the rebellion exasperated the people of this country very much against the mother country. I regretted it. England and the United States are natural allies and should be the best of friends. They speak one language and are related by blood and other ties. We together, or even either separately, are better qualified than any other people to establish commerce between all the nationalities of the world. England governs her own colonies and particularly those embracing the people of different races from her own better than any other nation. She is just to the conquered but rigid. She makes them self-supporting but gives the benefit of labor to the laborer. She does not seem to look upon the colonies as outside possessions, which she is at liberty to work for the support and a grandisement of the home government. The hostility of England to the United States during our rebellion was not so much real as it was apparent. It was the hostility of the leaders of one political party. I am told that there was no time during the Civil War when they were able to get up in England a demonstration in favor of secession while these were constantly being gotten up in favor of the Union or as they called it in favor of the North. Even in Manchester, which suffered so fearfully by having the cotton cut off from her mills, they had a monster demonstration in favor of the North at the very time when their workmen were almost famishing. It is possible that the question of a conflict between races may come up in the future as did that between freedom and slavery before. The condition of the colored man within our borders may become a source of anxiety to say the least, but he was brought to our shores by compulsion and he now should be considered as having as good a right to remain here as any other class of our citizens. It was looking to a settlement of this question that led me to urge the annexation of Santo Domingo during the time I was President of the United States. Santo Domingo was freely offered to us, not only by the administration, but by all the people, almost without price. The island is upon our shores, is very fertile, and is capable of supporting fifteen millions of people. The products of the soil are so valuable that labor in her fields would be so compensated as to enable those who wish to go there to quickly repay the cost of their passage. I took in that the colored people would go there in great numbers so as to have independent states governed by their own race. They would still be states of the Union and under the protection of the general government, but the citizens would be almost wholly colored. By the war with Mexico we had acquired, as we have seen, territory almost equal in extent to that we already possessed. It was seen that the volunteers of the Mexican War largely composed the pioneers to settle up the Pacific Coast country. Their numbers, however, were scarcely sufficient to be a nucleus for the population of the important points of the territory acquired by that war. After our rebellion, when so many young men were at liberty to return to their homes, they found they were not satisfied with the farm, the store, or the workshop of the villages, but wanted larger fields. The mines of the mountains first attracted them, but afterwards they found that rich valleys and productive grazing and farming lands were there. This territory, the geography of which was not known to us at the close of the rebellion, is now as well mapped as any portion of our country. Railroads traverse it in every direction north, south, east, and west. The mines are worked, the high lands are used for grazing purposes, and rich agricultural lands are found in many of the valleys. This is the work of the volunteer. It is probably that the Indians would have had control of these lands for a century yet, but for the war. We must conclude, therefore, that wars are not always evils unmixed with some good. Prior to the rebellion, the great mass of the people were satisfied to remain near the scenes of their birth. In fact, an immense majority of the whole people did not feel secure against coming to want should they move among entire strangers. So much was the country divided into small communities that localized idioms had grown up so that you could almost tell what section a person was from by hearing him speak. Before new territories were settled by a class of people who shunned contact with others, people who, when the country began to settle up around them, would push out farther from civilization. Their guns furnished meat and the cultivation of a very limited amount of the soil, their bread and vegetables. All the streams abounded with fish, trapping would furnish pelts to be brought into the states once a year to pay for necessary articles which they could not raise, powder, lead, whiskey, tobacco, and some store goods. Occasionally some little articles of luxury would enter into these purchases a quarter of a pound of tea, two or three pounds of coffee, more of sugar, some playing cards, and if anything was left over of the proceeds of the sale more whiskey. Little was known of the topography of the country beyond the settlements of these frontiersmen. This is all change now. The war begot a spirit of independence and enterprise. The feeling now is that a youth must cut loose from his old surroundings to enable him to get up in the world. There is now such a commingling of the people that particular idioms and pronunciation are no longer localized to any great extent. The country has filled up from the center all around to the sea. Railroads connect the two oceans and all parts of the interior, maps nearly perfect of every part of the country are now furnished the student of geography. The war has made us a nation of great power and intelligence. We have but little to do to preserve peace, happiness, and prosperity at home and the respect of other nations. Our experience ought to teach us the necessity of the first. Our power secures the latter. I feel that we are on the eve of a new era, when there is to be great harmony between the federal and confederate. I cannot stay to be a living witness to the correctness of this prophecy, but I feel it within me that it is to be so. The universally kind feeling expressed for me at a time when it was supposed that each day would prove my last seemed to me the beginning of the answer to let us have peace. The expression of these kindly feelings were not restricted to a section of the country nor to a division of the people. They came from individual citizens of all nationalities, from all denominations, the Protestant, the Catholic, and the Jew, and from the various societies of the land, scientific, educational, religious, or otherwise. Politics did not enter into the matter at all. I am not egotistic enough to suppose all this significance should be given because I was the object of it. But the war between the states was a very bloody and a very costly war. One side or the other had to yield principles they deemed dearer than life before it could be brought to an end. I commanded the whole of the mighty host engaged on the victorious side. I was, no matter whether deservedly so or not, a representative of that side of the controversy. It is a significant and gratifying fact that Confederates should have joined heartily in this spontaneous move. I hope the good feeling inaugurated may continue to the end. End of Section 71, Recording by Jim Clevenger Lillarock, Arkansas. Jim at joclev.com