In transmitting the memorandum through General Grant, Sherman wrote that the point to which he attached most importance was "that the dispersion and disbandment of those armies is done in such a manner as to prevent their breaking up into guerilla bands," whilst there was no restriction on our right to military occupation. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. iii. p. 243.] As to slavery, he said, "Both generals Johnston and Breckinridge admitted that slavery was dead, and I could not insist on embracing it in such a paper, because it can be made with the States in detail." [Footnote: Ibid.] He also referred to the financial question, and the necessity of stopping war expenditures and getting the officers and men of the army home to work. Writing to Halleck as chief of staff at the same time, he referred to the same topics, expressed his belief, from all he saw and heard, that "even Mr. Davis was not privy to the diabolical plot" of assassination, but that it was "the emanation of a set of young men of the South who are very devils." [Footnote:Id., p. 245.] He told Halleck that Johnston informed him that Stoneman's cavalry had been at Salisbury, but was then near Statesville, which was on the road back to Tennessee, about forty miles west of Salisbury and double that distance west of Greensborough.
A week now intervened, in which the important papers were journeying to Washington and the orders of the government coming back. On the 20th Sherman had occasion to inform Johnston of steps he had taken to enforce the details of the truce, and as evidence that he had not mistaken Mr. Lincoln's views in regard to the State governments, he enclosed a late paper showing that "in Virginia the State authorities are acknowledged and invited to resume their lawful functions." [Footnote: Id., p. 257.] The convention seemed therefore in harmony with the course actually pursued by the administration at Washington, and the negotiators were justified in feeling reassured.
Another day passed, and as other incidents in the relations of the armies needed to be communicated to Johnston, Sherman recurred again to the encouraging feature of the leave to assemble the Virginia legislature, but added some reflections on points which he thought might require more explicit treatment than they had given, and he suggested Johnston's conference with the best Southern men, so that he might be ready to act without delay if modifications should be required in the final convention. "It may be," he said, "that the lawyers will want us to define more minutely what is meant by the guaranty of rights of person and property. It may be construed into a compact for us to undo the past as to the rights of slaves, and 'leases of plantations' on the Mississippi, of 'vacant and abandoned' plantations. I wish you would talk to the best men you have on these points, and if possible, let us, in the final convention, make these points so clear as to leave no room for angry controversy. I believe if the South would simply and publicly declare what we all feel, that slavery is dead, that you would inaugurate an era of peace and prosperity that would soon efface the ravages of the past four years of war. Negroes would remain in the South and afford you abundance of cheap labor, which otherwise will be driven away, and it will save the country the senseless discussions which have kept us all in hot water for fifty years. Although, strictly speaking, this is no subject of a military convention, yet I am honestly convinced that our simple declaration of a result will be accepted as good law everywhere. Of course I have not a single word from Washington on this or any other point of our agreement, but I know the effect of such a step by us will be universally accepted." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. iii. p. 266.]
On the same day (21st), he was replying to a letter from an acquaintance of former days residing at Wilmington. In this reply he spoke out more vigorously his own sentiments: "The idea of war to perpetuate slavery in the year 1861 was an insult to the intelligence of the age." War being begun by the South, "it was absurd to suppose we were bound to respect that kind of property or any kind of property. . . . The result is nearly accomplished, and is what you might have foreseen." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. iii. p. 271.]
On the 23d he sent a bundle of newspapers to Johnston and Hardee, giving the developments of the assassination plot and the hopes that the Sewards would recover. In the unofficial note accompanying them, he said: "The feeling North on this subject is more intense than anything that ever occurred before. General Ord at Richmond has recalled the permission given for the Virginia legislature, and I fear much the assassination of the President will give a bias to the popular mind which, in connection with the desire of our politicians, may thwart our purpose of recognizing 'existing local governments.' But it does seem to me there must be good sense enough left on this continent to give order and shape to the now disjointed elements of government. I believe this assassination of Mr. Lincoln will do the cause of the South more harm than any event of the war, both at home and abroad, and I doubt if the Confederate military authorities had any more complicity with it than I had. I am thus frank with you, and have asserted as much to the War Department. But I dare not say as much for Mr. Davis or some of the civil functionaries, for it seems the plot was fixed for March 4, but delayed awaiting some instructions from Richmond." [Footnote: Id., p. 287.]
The whole tenor of this letter speaks most clearly the faith which personal intercourse with Johnston had given Sherman in his honor and his sincerity of desire that the war should end. The same had been expressed in an official note of the same date in which Sherman had said in regard to his directions to General Wilson in Georgia: "I have almost exceeded the bounds of prudence in checking him without the means of direct communication, and only did so on my absolute faith in your personal character." [Footnote: Id., p. 286.] The faith was not misplaced and was not disappointed.
The correspondence thus quoted reveals to us Sherman's thoughts from day to day, the real opinions and sentiments which he intended to embody in the convention, and his recognition of the probability that its provisions would need more explicit definition before the final acts of negotiation. It shows, too, how frank he was in warning Johnston that the terrible crime at Washington had changed the situation. It seems indisputable that this open-hearted dealing between the generals made it much easier for them to come together on the final terms, by having revealed to Johnston the motives and convictions which animated his opponent in seeking the blessing of peace as well as in applying the scourge of war.
As further evidence of what Sherman told us, his subordinates, of the terms agreed upon, I quote the entry in my diary of what I understood them to be, on the 19th, the day following the signing of the convention, after personal conversation with the general: "Johnston's army is to separate, the troops going to their several States; at the State capitals they are to surrender their arms and all public property. Part of the arms are to be left to the State governments and the rest turned over to the United States. The officers and soldiers are not to be punished by the United States Government for their part in the war, but all are left liable to private prosecutions and indictments in the courts." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. i. p. 938.]
In the evening of the 23d Sherman heard of the arrival at Morehead City of Major Hitchcock, his messenger to Washington, and he at once notified Johnston that the dispatches would reach him in the morning. He asked the latter to be ready "to resume negotiations when the contents of the dispatches are known." [Footnote:Id., pt. ii. p. 287.] When Major Hitchcock came up on a night train reaching Raleigh at six in the morning, to Sherman's great surprise General Grant came also, unheralded and unannounced. [Footnote: Id., p. 286.]