President Johnson, who had started out with the plan of being generous to the South, and for some unknown reason departed from that policy, conceived the idea of having arrested and thrown into prison and tried for treason a number of the high officers of the Confederacy. He called for a Cabinet meeting to get an endorsement of this plan, and sent for General Grant to attend the meeting. He forcibly presented his reasons for the procedure, and asked for the opinions of those present. After much discussion there was general acquiescence by the Cabinet. “The silent man of destiny” was the last member of the conference to open his lips. He said, “I will resign my commission in the army before I will, as commanding general, sign a warrant for the arrest of any of these Confederate officers as long as they observe the honorable terms of surrender made to me.”
It would be easy to write a book about a statement like that, but the book when written would not be as good as the unadorned statement.
The illustrious Union general’s noble generosity to the conquered South is an old tale. But it is so beautiful that it bears repetition, and I love to repeat it. I have digressed from the main line of this paper to pay to General Longstreet’s boyhood friend the modest tribute of my admiration. From early childhood I reverenced Grant. I always regarded him as the greatest man, the greatest general, the greatest hero on the Union side. I have now a life-size steel-engraving of him that I secured when a girl. This was long before I knew much of that side of his life which has since most appealed to me. My admiration of him has been in every way strengthened by the stories General Longstreet told me of him, particularly the stories showing his generosity to his foes and his many private and official kindnesses to the widows and orphans of Confederate officers and privates. Of these stories I give one typical of many: When Grant was President, a widow of a Confederate officer applied for a post-office in a small Southern town. Hearing nothing of her application, she came to Washington to press it. She was unable to move the authorities at the Post-Office Department, and was about to go home in despair, when a friend suggested that it might be worth while for her to see the President. With much effort she summoned courage and appeared at the White House. The President received her in a most friendly manner, and after hearing her story took her application and wrote a brief but strong endorsement on the back of it. She hurried in triumph to the Post-Office Department. The official to whom she presented the application frowned and pondered over it for some time, and then wrote under the President’s endorsement: “This being a fourth-class office, the President does not have the appointing power.” The application was handed back to her, and she went away in deep distress, and was again preparing to return home, when another friend told her by all means to take the paper back to the President so that he might see how his endorsement had been received. She did so. The President wrote under the last endorsement: “While the President does not have the appointing power in this office, he has the appointment of the Postmaster-General,” and, summoning his secretary, directed him to accompany the lady to the Department and in person deliver her application to the Postmaster-General. It is needless to add that she received the commission before leaving the office.
While on a tour through the West in 1899, General Longstreet was entertained in San Diego, California, at a dinner at the home of U. S. Grant, Jr. After dinner he requested the company to stand while he proposed a toast. We expected, perhaps, some pleasantry or gallant compliment to the hostess. He said: “Thirty-odd years ago I first met General Grant in the Civil War at the Wilderness, and there received the wound that paralyzed my right arm. During the fiercest warfare this nation has seen, General Grant was the strongest obstacle that stood between me and my people and the consummation of the dearest hopes that they then cherished. Now, in this day of peace and union, with not a cloud upon the sky of a reunited country, in the presence of General Grant’s descendants, under the roof of his namesake son, I want to drink this toast to the memory of Grant, revered alike by the brave men who fought with him and the equally brave men who fought him.”
HIS FIRST ROMANCE
Fifty years before the pleasant day in San Diego, fresh from the fields of his honors and victories in Mexico, young Major Longstreet had come home to wed the daughter of his old brigade commander, Colonel John Garland. She was Marie Louise Garland, a very charming woman, and so small of figure as to be in striking contrast to her husband of six feet two. They were engaged for some time before the breaking out of the Mexican War. With a lofty deference, which he bravely overcame in later life, he had never kissed his fiancée. In setting out for the Mexican War, he said that he thought, inasmuch as he might get killed and never see her again, it might not be improper, under all the sad circumstances, to kiss her. They had ten children, five of whom died in infancy. A word as to the living five. A son born in Virginia during the war was named Robert Lee, after the Southern Commander. This son served in the recent Spanish-American War, and was, by happy fortune, a member of the staff of General Fitzhugh Lee. He is now in the government service at Washington City. Another son, named James, after his father, was born in Virginia not long after the surrender. At the time, General Longstreet wrote to an absent relative: “This is my Union son, but he has a yell like the rebel yell when trying to reach the breastworks. I have named him James, after myself, and I know he will always be as good a Union man as I am going to be hereafter.” This son likewise saw volunteer service in the Spanish-American War. He afterwards received a commission in the regular army, and is now serving in the Philippines in the Thirteenth Cavalry. This Union officer son is a strong Democrat; his brother in Washington is an equally strong Republican. The General always taught that political alignment should be based upon conviction alone. His oldest son, John, an architect, lives in Atlanta, the youngest son, Randolph, a farmer, lives on the home place at Gainesville; the only daughter is Mrs. Whelchel, of Gainesville, Georgia. There are five grandchildren.
General Longstreet said that he started out in his married life with the purpose of preserving military discipline in the family,—managing the family as he would manage soldiers on the field. He soon found that this would not work, and turned over the chief control of his home to his wife.
General Longstreet was a great admirer of ladies, and has often said that he never saw enough of them, never knew as many as he wanted to know. Into his soldier life few ladies had come. When he got into civil life he wondered where all the ladies came from. After the Civil War he was much petted and kissed by the ladies of the South, as was the custom with the old heroes of the war. He submitted to it with something more than willingness, particularly from the younger and prettier girls. He always had for woman in the abstract the tenderest love and reverence. He considered her the human temple of all loveliness. He preserved to the end of his long life the romance and sentiment which, having but half a chance to develop in his youth, had continued to develop in his later years. The home was ever to him the holy of holies.