Mr. Stanton's habit of impetuous action without reflection, upon first impressions and imperfect knowledge, was notorious, as was his constitutional inability to admit that he had been in the wrong. Once aroused, he was a fierce combatant, using any weapon that came to hand, inquiring only whether it would hurt his opponent. When obliged to see that he had judged wrongly, his silence was the only confession: he was seldom equal to a candid apology. If a tacit retreat was accepted by the other party, he might endeavor to compensate for the wrong in some other manner. [Footnote: On this subject General E. D. Townsend, as adjutant-general, is a most competent and conclusive witness. (Townsend's Anecdotes of the Civil War, p. 137.) Two little matters occurring at nearly the same time with the Sherman quarrel perfectly illustrate this characteristic in Stanton. General Townsend was in charge of the funeral escort of Lincoln's body, and in New York a photograph was taken of the coffin, in state, in the City Hall, with the drapery of the alcove formed of national flags and crape, with Admiral Davis and General Townsend as guard of honor at head and foot. Stanton read of it in a newspaper, and without further knowledge sent a violent and undignified reprimand to Townsend, ordering him to relieve and send back to Washington the officers on duty, and to seize and destroy the plates. A telegraphic correspondence followed, bringing in the photographers, Henry Ward Beecher, H. J. Raymond, and the military officers, with the proof that there was nothing to find fault with, but rather the desirable preservation of a memento of a memorable scene. There was a retreat, but no apology by the Secretary. (Official Records, vol. xlvi. pt. iii. pp. 952, 965, 966). The other was the permission given the Episcopal clergy in Richmond to continue Divine service in the churches if they omitted the prayer for the Confederate President in their liturgy, that being treated as a demonstration in favor of the insurgent government. General Weitzel was in command, and Mr. Lincoln was in the city when the question first arose whether, in addition to the above prohibition, the clergy should be required to insert, affirmatively, a prayer for the President of the United States. Weitzel supposed he was acting in accordance with Mr. Lincoln's direction not to be sticklish in little things, stopped at the prohibition, as was generally done by commanders in the field, on the ground that to order a form to be inserted in any liturgy where it did not exist, would be ridiculous for a government based on total separation of church and state. Stanton, hearing of it through Mr. C. A. Dana, informed Weitzel that his action was "strongly condemned," and that he was "unwilling to believe that a general officer of the United States, commanding in Richmond, would consent to such an omission of respect to the President." Weitzel asked whether the direction would apply to Roman Catholics, Hebrews, and other churches having a prescribed liturgy, and Stanton replied ex cathedra, in the affirmative, repeating his reprimand. Weitzel now appealed to the President, and the absurd controversy was stopped. Stanton seems to have acted at first in ignorance that individual ministers had no power to insert a prayer into the formal liturgy; but he could not yield when better informed, and a temperate memorial of the local clergy stating the canonical difficulty and their earnest intention to have the change made with all speed possible, is in the Records, "disapproved by order of the Secretary of War"! (Id., pp. 619, 677, 678, 684, 696, 711, 737). Perhaps the nearest historical parallel is Napoleon's order to the Russian clergy to pray for him instead of the Czar in 1812. (Fezensac, Souvenirs Militaires, 4th ed., liv. 2, chap. i. p. 233.)]
Sherman was not the man to submit to what he considered and called an outrage, and when made aware of it, he struck back with all his force. He exposed and denounced the perversions of fact and misstatements of what he had done, and demanded the publication of the original "Memorandum" with his statement of its relations to Mr. Lincoln's policy and wishes as stated by the dead President himself. Grant advised him to omit some of the expressions of his official report, but he refused and courted an official investigation, whilst he clearly stated his duty and his purpose to obey without question such orders as were given by competent authority. He was quite too large a man to be made the victim of a manifest wrong, and when once the case was fairly presented, the purity of his motives and the reasonableness of his belief that he was acting under highest authority were generally acknowledged, even by those who supported a severer policy toward the Southern States. The President and nearly all the members of the Cabinet assured him that the published bulletins had been without their knowledge, and cordially strove to soothe his wounded feelings. [Footnote: For the correspondence, see Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. iii. pp. 302, 334, 345, 371, 410, 476, 515, 547, 576, 581, 582, 586, 662; Id., pt. i. p. 40. See also Sherman's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 375; Conduct of the War, vol. vi. p. 3.] The genuineness of character, patriotism, and subordination tempered by proper self-respect, which he exhibited, did not diminish the public regard, but rather heightened it. As to the debatable questions of policy involved in his first convention, he proudly left them to the judgment of time.
The breach of friendship between Sherman and Halleck, which was also caused by Mr. Stanton's bulletins, was especially to be regretted. Their early close relations as young officers going "around the Horn" to California have already been mentioned, as well as the warm personal correspondence between them during the Atlanta campaign. [Footnote: Ante, pp. 174-176.] He had been grateful also for Halleck's friendly conduct toward him in his period of depression in 1861, and expressed it strongly in a long letter when Atlanta had fallen and he had won his commission as major-general in the regular army. "I confess I owe you all I now enjoy of fame," he said, "for I had allowed myself in 1861 to sink into a perfect 'slough of despond.'" Halleck's friendship and encouragement had put him in the way of recovering from this. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. v. p. 791.] But now his faith in human nature was rudely shocked by finding, apparently, this friendly hand joining in the hardest blows at his fame and honor.
In the first of Stanton's bulletins concerning him, Sherman found copied the dispatch from Halleck giving the rumor of Davis's great "plunder," and the hope of the Confederate leaders to "make terms with Sherman or some other commander," by which they would be permitted to escape out of the country with this treasure. [Footnote: Id., vol. xlvii. pt. iii. p. 286.] The sting of this was in the apparent insinuation that Sherman might be bought. It naturally roused him to explosive wrath. Had Mr. Stanton quoted the final sentence of Halleck's dispatch, it would have shown that the latter intended no such thing. It concluded, "Would it not be well to put Sherman and all other commanding generals on their guard in this respect?" [Footnote: Id., vol. xlvi. pt. iii. p. 887.] The apparent insinuation was in the Secretary's bulletin by the omission of this sentence from the quoted dispatch. Had Sherman seen the dispatch as Halleck wrote it, he would not have been angered by it.
But on the 28th there appeared in the New York papers another dispatch of Halleck to Stanton, dated the 26th, and saying that his subordinates were ordered "to pay no regard to any truce, or orders of General Sherman suspending hostilities, on the ground that Sherman's agreements could bind his own command and no other." [Footnote: Id., p. 953.] This was upon receipt of a dispatch from Beauregard stating "that a new arrangement had been made with Sherman." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvi. pt. iii. p. 953.] In the same dispatch Halleck suggested that orders be telegraphed through General Thomas to General Wilson, at the head of a strong cavalry column in Georgia, to mind no orders of Sherman, but, with other commanders in the Gulf States, to "take measures to intercept the rebel chiefs and their plunder," now estimated, rather indefinitely, at "from six to thirteen millions."
The folly of such publications was egregious, and justified Sherman's sarcasm that if anybody was conniving at Davis's escape, it was the officer who gave them to the public. It was, however, the direction to disregard his new truce, embracing Johnston's troops alone and based on their actual surrender, that stirred anew his indignation. He had made a short inspection tour down the coast after starting his columns northward, and saw the dispatch in newspapers he received at Morehead, May 4th, on his return there by steamer from Savannah. In writing General Grant, he characterized Halleck's action as an insult. [Footnote: Id., vol. xlvii. pt. iii. p. 388.] Fortunately, he had met at Savannah an officer of General Wilson's staff, Captain L. M. Hosea, who had made an adventurous journey across half Georgia to open communications, [Footnote: Id., p. 371.] and in sending a steamboat up to Augusta with supplies for Wilson, he had hurried Captain Hosea back with such full information as enabled Wilson to observe scrupulously the final convention with Johnston whilst vigorously pushing his efforts to capture Davis. These efforts were successful on the 10th. [Footnote:Id., vol. xlix. pt. i. pp. 515, 526.]
Sherman's sense of military honor was violated and shocked by the orders disregarding his truce, which were "cordially approved" by the Secretary of War. [Footnote: Id., vol. xlvi. pt. iii. p. 967.] Grant suggested that Halleck's action was so connected with Mr. Stanton's orders that it might not seem so bad on fuller information, [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. iii. p. 410.] but Sherman's sense of injury was such that in passing Richmond on the 8th he refused Halleck's offered hospitality, saying that after the dispatch of the 26th of April friendly intercourse was impossible. [Footnote: Id., p. 435.] Halleck's was the "soft answer which turneth away wrath," and it is due to him to remember it. "You have not had during this war, nor have you now, a warmer friend and admirer than myself. 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 offence, 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 motive. It is my wish to continue to regard and receive you as a personal friend. With this statement I leave the matter in your hands." [Footnote: Id., p. 454.]
But what had occurred seemed to Sherman to be so ingeniously fitted together as parts of a malignant plan, that he replied, "I cannot consent to the renewal of a friendship I had prized so highly till I can see deeper into the diabolical plot than I now do." [Footnote: Ibid.] His words were all the bitter expression of a heart wounded beyond endurance by wrongs which seemed too palpable and plain for discussion or explanation. In the distribution of commands on the peace establishment made soon afterward, Halleck went to the Pacific coast and did not live long. It is to be feared that no opportunity for a full understanding between him and Sherman occurred, though the latter was as placable as he was impetuous; and when he found, as he soon did, that his fame and reputation had not suffered permanent injury, he ignored the past so far, at least, as to show that he harbored no lasting enmity.
Yet Halleck was probably right in saying that he had done nothing but what he deemed his duty, and with no unfriendly purpose toward Sherman. His dispatch of the 26th of April was only one of a series, and it was made to have a different effect, taken by itself, from what it would have had if read in its connection with the others. There is no reasonable doubt that Stanton's angry purpose had been to humiliate Sherman by practically superseding him in command. Halleck knew this and went to Richmond, where he assumed command on the 22d, with full knowledge of the sentiment which then ruled the War Department. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvi. pt. iii. p. 891.] In the afternoon of the same day, Grant, on his way to North Carolina, telegraphed him that the truce would be ended as soon as he could reach Raleigh, and ordered him to send Sheridan with the cavalry toward Greensborough, sending also a corps of infantry along as far as Danville. [Footnote:Id., p. 888.] This assumed that by the time these troops could enter Sherman's theatre of operations the truce would have been terminated; for Sheridan was then at Petersburg, and the Sixth Corps at Burke's Station. [Footnote: Id., p. 895.] The cavalry could not be ready to march before the 24th (at the earliest) and did not start in fact till the 25th or 26th. [Footnote: Id., pp. 931, 947.] Neither it nor the infantry got beyond Danville or entered North Carolina before they were halted by Grant's order to Halleck of the 26th, received in the morning of the 28th. [Footnote: Id., pp. 954, 997.] No interference with Sherman's truce, either the first or the second, actually occurred. Halleck knew that the first truce would be ended as soon as the two days' notice could expire after Grant reached Raleigh, and long before his troops could come into contact with Johnston's. But he was also moving them by Grant's order, and must not only obey, but must assume that the first truce was no longer in question. It was not necessary or proper for him to explain fully to his subordinates all he knew of Grant's journey and purpose. For their direction it was enough to say they were not to regard the truce which had been made on the 18th and was currently spoken of as "Sherman's truce." Had Sherman known of Grant's order to Halleck and the assumed situation on which it was based, he would not have regarded Halleck's language an insult. Without such knowledge it looked very much like it.
Halleck, however, had to face the question how his subordinates must act if, on coming near the enemy, Johnston should claim a new armistice. He shared the War Department opinion that the negotiation was not sincere on the part of the Confederates, but was a ruse to gain time for Davis's escape with the imaginary "plunder." A pretended armistice is an old and familiar stratagem in warfare. It would seem that Halleck fully believed that Grant would assume actual command, on reaching Sherman (as he had commanded when with Meade during the past campaign), and concluded that any real armistice again made would be in Grant's name. Any other would be a sham or would have been made before Grant was present. Under such circumstances he could not be blamed for telling his subordinates that only Grant's authority or his own must bind them. He was mistaken, in fact, for Grant's arrival was not even known to Johnston, and Sherman concluded the final convention as if Grant had still been in Washington. The curtness of telegrams often creates ambiguities, and when Sherman saw in print Halleck's dispatch of the 26th separated from the rest of the series, he naturally gave to it the meaning which hurt him so. Had he known the rest of the story, he would have seen no treachery to old friendships. The sin was in the unprecedented publications which embroiled everything. In truth, Halleck's order to Meade was more guarded in form than the language of his dispatch to Stanton, for Meade was only told to ignore "any agreements made by General Sherman before the arrival of Lieutenant-General Grant." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvi. pt. iii. p. 941.]