opinion is not strange. Two men beholding the same object from different points of observation are apt to describe it diversely; and yet neither may see it aright: and it is to be regretted that, at such a crisis, the administration should momentarily have lost sight of the consideration manifestly due to Sherman's great and patriotic services, and should have permitted that disapproval of his action to be presented to the people in such a manner as naturally to arouse their indignation and distrust against him. The excitement of that moment may indeed excuse what nothing can fully justify. General Sherman had given most noble testimony in favor of the Union cause; every thought of his mind and every aspiration of his heart were given to the best interests of his country. He never failed us in the hour of need; and on the very date of this bulletin, April 21st, he wrote a letter to an old personal friend in North Carolina, which is here reproduced, and which has the same ring of intense patriotism which characterized every act and every thought of his eventful career, and shows how foreign from his mind all unworthy motives were at that time,

"I have before me your letter addressed to General Hawley, inclosing a paper signed by John Dawson, Edward Kiddon, and others, testifying to your feelings of loyalty and attachment to the Government of the United States. Of course, I am gratified to know the truth as to one for whom I entertained friendship, dated far back in other and better days. I will be frank and honest with you. Simple passive submission to events, by a man in the prime of life, is not all that is due to society in times of revolution. Had the Northern men residing at the South spoken out manfully and truly at the outset, the active secessionists could not have carried the masses of men as they did.

"It may not be that the war could have been avoided, but the rebellion would not have assumed the mammoth proportions it did. The idea of war to perpetuate slavery in 1861 was an insult to the intelligence of the age. As long as the

South abided by the conditions of our fundamental compact of government, the constitution, all law-abiding citizens were bound to respect the property in slaves, whether they approved or not; but when the South violated that compact openly, publicly, and violently, it was absurd to suppose we were bound to respect that kind of property, or in fact any kind of property.

"I have a feeling allied to abhorrence towards Northern men resident South, for their silence or acquiescence was one of the causes of the war assuming the magnitude it did; and, in consequence, we mourn the loss of such men as John F. Reynolds, McPherson, and thousands of noble gentlemen, any one of whom was worth all the slaves of the South, and half the white population thrown in.

"The result is nearly accomplished, and is what you might have foreseen, and in a measure prevented-desolation from the Ohio to the Gulf, and mourning in every household."

Of General Sherman's military ability, vigor, enterprise, patriotism, and zeal for the public good, no generous or just mind can entertain a doubt. Of the general soundness of his judgment, he has also given conspicuous proofs. His policy in regard to trade in cotton, and in regard to the proper treatment of the inhabitants of conquered territory during the existence of war, was much in advance of the President and cabinet; and his personal knowledge of the condition, temper, and spirit of the Southern people entitled his opinions to greater weight than those of any other general officer in the field. Nevertheless, conditions of peace which may appear fair to a soldier, may, in the view of a statesman, appear inadmissible; but the fact that an able and experienced soldier entertains them, ought to shield them from that sort of condemnation which belongs to voluntary complicity with treason.

Nor did this unfortunate affair begin and end with Mr. Stanton alone. On the 26th of April, General Halleck, then at Richmond, in command of the Military Division of the James, dispatched a telegram to the War Department at

Washington, amongst other things, advising that instructions be given to General Sherman's subordinate officers to obey no orders given by him. This telegram was immediately communicated by the secretary of war to General Dix, and made public through the daily newspapers. Meeting Sherman's notice a fortnight later, it excited his indignation to the highest pitch. In his anger, he would listen to no excuse for what he deemed the treachery of his former friend. He considered the action of General Halleck as uncalled for and unpardonable; and when the fact became known to him, on the 10th of May, wrote to General Halleck: "After your dispatch to Mr. Stanton, of April 26th, I cannot have any friendly intercourse with you. I will come to City Point to-morrow, and march with my troops, and I prefer we should not meet." Further correspondence ensued between the same officers, but General Sherman seems to have felt that his honor had been assailed through design or indifference, and that in either case the act was too gross for pardon. He curtly declined a complimentary review tendered his troops by General Halleck, and caused his troops to march through the city without taking any notice whatever of that officer.

Neither Grant or Sherman knew of Mr. Stanton's bulletin until several days after its publication. Indeed, General Sherman was profoundly ignorant of it, and of the storm of indignation it had raised at home against him, until on his way home from Savannah, whither he had gone to make sundry dispositions for the government of his subordinate commanders, while his army was on the march to Richmond, and not knowing of the instructions issued from the War Office to disregard his orders, and at a moment when, unconscious of having done wrong, happy that the war was over, justly proud of the honorable part he had acted in it, and delighted with the prospect of soon meeting his family and friends from whom he had been long separated, he was on his way home to rest from his hard labors. Instead of commendation for having done his country some service, it seemed to his sensitive mind that he could read of nothing and hear of nothing

but abuse or suspicion. Instead of coming home filled with a soldier's pride and happiness, he felt he was returning like a culprit to defend himself against the unjust suspicions of a Government and people he had so faithfully served. Smarting under the rebuke of the Government and the comments of the press, he attributed both to personal hostility and a settled prearranged design of undermining his influence and destroying his popularity, and resented both on all occasions, public and private. The most offensive part of the entire matter to him was that General Halleck should have recommended and Mr. Stanton published, that subordinate officers should be instructed in the same manner and to the same effect of General Washington's orders after the defection of Benedict Arnold!

CHAPTER XXXIV.

HOMEWARD.

THE historian who shall hereafter chronicle, in full, the events of the civil war in America, and sketch the men who therein figured most prominently, will find the path by which General Sherman ascended as straight as it was difficult of ascent. His patriotism was not of that doubtful character which seeks reward through the forms of Government contracts. He was born with the instincts of a soldier, was educated for a soldier, and was ambitious to do the work of a soldier. He loved the Union, and ever set himself against the dangerous heresy that would admit of its peaceful dissolution. A resident of the South before the war, as soon as he divined the purposes of the secessionists, he broke away and arranged himself with the friends of the Union. While Mr. Stanton was yet a member of Mr. Buchanan's cabinet, and while such men as Jefferson Davis, Judah P. Benjamin, and Jacob Thompson were yet in office under the Government of the United States, and all-powerful in their influence over President Buchanan, Sherman had already determined to resign an honorable position in the State of Louisiana and offer his services to sustain the cause of the Union. On the 18th of January, 1861, as we have already seen, he wrote to Governor Moore: "If Louisiana withdraws from the Federal Union, I prefer to maintain my allegiance to the old constitution as long as a fragment of it remains, and my longer stay here would be wrong in every sense of the word." He saw the war coming, and gave the alarm, whilst others cried, "Peace! be still!"