A curious theoretic question was raised by Halleck's incidental statement that an armistice by Sherman could only bind his own army. Sherman said he must defend his truce at all hazards till it was duly terminated. Each was right in a sense, but fortunately the laws of war and military regulations would prevent practical difficulty arising. If Sheridan had advanced to Greensborough, Sherman would have met him there, and by virtue of his superior rank would have assumed command and responsibility for the united forces. Besides the orders and instructions from the President he already had, he would have to act in view of any authentic instructions or information which Sheridan might bring. On the other hand, if Halleck had accompanied his own forces, his seniority would have made Sherman his subordinate in the common field of operations; but as commander, he would have to respect, at his own peril, all the rights which Johnston had acquired under the principles of international law. The situation had perplexities only so long as the generals were playing at cross-purposes by reason of imperfect knowledge. Their intelligence and character were such that duty would have been plain to both as soon as they came together.
Stanton made no public explanation of his conduct, but in a conversation with General Howard, he asserted that Sherman's order to his troops announcing the armistice, by saying that when ratified it would "make peace from the Potomac to the Rio Grande," had put the government on the defensive, and made it seem proper to publish reasons for disapproving the terms. [Footnote:Id., vol. xlvii. pt. iii. p. 476.] This does not touch the question of the wisdom or folly of the matter published, or of its form. Sherman's reason for mentioning the prospect of a general and speedy peace was that the condition of his army under the news of Lincoln's assassination was such that he felt it necessary to soothe his excited soldiery with the hope of soon marching home in triumph, thus turning their thoughts from the vengeance which would have been inevitable if fighting were to be resumed. Instead of appreciating this, Mr. Stanton seems to have jumped to the conclusion that it was an act of vanity or of political ambition which was to be squelched per fas aut nefas, and in his passionate and hasty action he compromised the whole administration.
We who were Sherman's subordinates in the field knew so well his integrity and patriotism that we sympathized strongly with his indignation at the appeal to popular sentiment against him. Yet the sense of duty to the country and to the government prevented thoughtful men from being blind partisans of our chief. Without full means of judging of the possible effect of the first convention, if carried out, some of us were disposed to believe that there must have been a mistake on his part, since we were not able to believe that the Secretary of War would publish his "nine reasons" if they had no solid support and were not approved by the President and Cabinet. My personal opinion I wrote in my diary at the time, and I reproduce it to show the contemporaneous sentiment of one who was both a warm supporter of the government and a warm friend of the general. What I have written above will also show how far further investigation and fuller knowledge have modified my judgment. "Friday, April 28th.... Some of the Northern papers are very bitter on Sherman for the terms first offered by him, and it is manifest from the dispatches sent by the Secretary of War to New York to be published there, that the new administration is willing to give Sherman a hard hit. He made a great mistake in offering to Johnston the terms he did, but he has done the country such service that the administration owed it to him to keep the thing from the public and to come kindly to an understanding with him, instead of seeming to seek the opportunity to pitch upon him as if it desired to humble him. In conversation this morning he showed that he felt their conduct very sorely, but I hope he will keep out of controversy with them in regard to it. He complains with justice that they have refused to give any instructions to guide military officers as to the policy to be adopted, and then, when these are forced to act, seem to take pleasure in repudiating what the officers have done, and in humbling them or exposing them to popular odium."
PAROLING AND DISBANDING JOHNSTON'S ARMY--CLOSING SCENES OF THE WAR IN NORTH CAROLINA
General Schofield's policy when left in command--Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation in force--Davis's line of flight from Charlotte, N.C.--Wade Hampton's course of conduct--Fate of the cabinet officers--Bragg, Wheeler, and Cooper--Issuing paroles to Johnston and his army--Greensborough in my district--Going there with Schofield--Hardee meets and accompanies us--Comparing memories--We reach Johnston's headquarters--Condition of his army--Our personal interview with him--The numbers of his troops--His opinion of Sherman's army--Of the murder of Lincoln--Governor Morehead's home--The men in gray march homeward--Incident of a flag--The Salisbury prison site--Treatment of prisoners of war--Local government in the interim--Union men--Elements of new strife--The negroes--Household service--Wise dealing with the labor question--No money--Death of manufactures--Necessity the mother of invention--Uses of adversity--Peace welcomed--Visit to Greene's battlefield at Guilford-Old-Court-House.
On Thursday, the 27th of April, the same day on which Sherman issued his order announcing the final agreement for the surrender of Johnston's army and the homeward march of most of his own forces, General Schofield issued his own order declaring "the duty of all to cultivate friendly relations with the same zeal which has characterized our conduct of the war, that the blessings of union, peace and material prosperity may be speedily restored to the entire country." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. iii. 330.] He invited all peaceably disposed persons to return to their homes and resume their industrial pursuits. He promised also the loan of captured horses, mules, and wagons to those who had been deprived of their own by the armies, and food for the needy during the period when all must be busy planting if the season were to be made of any avail for agriculture. His order concluded with these words: "It will be left to the judicial department of the government to punish those political leaders who are responsible for secession, rebellion, and civil war with all its horrors. Between the Government of the United States and the people of North Carolina there is peace." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. iii. p. 330.]
In a separate order of the same date, to remove all doubt as to the end of slavery, he declared that "by virtue of the proclamation of the President of the United States, dated January 1, 1863, all persons in this State heretofore held as slaves are now free, and it is the duty of the army to maintain the freedom of such persons." [Footnote: Id., p. 331.] He recommended immediate fair contracts of hiring and the resumption of profitable industry, so that disorganization of labor might be avoided. He told the freedmen that it was not well for them to congregate about towns or military camps, and that they could not be supported in idleness. All classes of people were thus put upon the footing Sherman had intended in his first convention with Johnston, and Schofield's orders issued whilst Sherman was still with us at Raleigh may be received as an authoritative interpretation of the latter's views.
The Confederate troops were mostly concentrated about Greensborough upon the railroad from Richmond through Danville and Charlotte to Columbia in South Carolina, and the line of railroad we had followed from Goldsborough to Raleigh continued westward to Greensborough. Outposts, Confederate as well as National, remained at stations between the two armies, but no collision had occurred since the truce established on the 19th. [Footnote:Id., p. 250.] Mr. Davis had remained at Charlotte in the interval between the two conventions, but when the separate surrender of Johnston's army was determined, he started southward with a vague purpose of joining some of the smaller organized armies released from the armistice by our administration's rejection of the terms of Sherman's first convention. He tells us that he still hoped that he might cross the Mississippi with such forces as could be concentrated, joining Kirby Smith, who commanded there, and in the last resort carrying a body of irreconcilables out of the country into Mexico. [Footnote: Davis, Rise and Fall, vol. ii. pp. 694, 696.] A line of retreat southward had been agreed upon in case Johnston should not surrender, and some accumulations of supplies had been made at Chester, S. C., and other points upon it. General Bragg had been placed in command there, reporting directly to Davis or the Confederate War Department, [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. iii. p. 836.] and some cavalry in West Virginia under General Echols had been ordered to pass by mountain routes to the same region. [Footnote: Id., p. 795.] As soon as the truce was ended by the notice of the 24th, Davis started southward by the route indicated, which kept well to the westward of Columbia by way of Abbeville, aiming to cross the Savannah River above Augusta at the pontoon bridge near the junction of Broad River with the Savannah. [Footnote:Id., vol. xlix. pt. i. p. 548.] His party disintegrated before he entered Georgia, and he was nearly alone with his family when he was captured thirty or forty miles southeast of Macon.