"We were all delighted at the news of your return to Washington and the prospect of your restoration to the proper duties and authority of general of the army; and I sincerely hope the events to occur this week, alluded to in your telegram to-day, may be such as to justify you in taking the course universally desired by the army. We want our general where he can best look after all the interests of the military service, with power to command the army in fact as well as in name.
"I have read with the greatest pleasure your capital speech to the
Knights of St. Patrick.
"Please present my respectful compliments to the Secretary of War, and my kindest regards to the President.
"I am, dear General, as ever, truly yours,
"J. M. Schofield."
During the Civil War the demand for the services in the field of the most capable officers had, as was generally understood, been prejudicial to the interests of the military academy; and this continued some time after the close of the war, in consequence of the unusual increase in rank of those officers who were known to be fitted in all respects for the head of that institution. This difficulty was increased by the very unreasonable notion that because the law had opened the academy to the line of the army, the superintendent must necessarily be taken from the line, and not from the corps of engineers, although the latter contained many officers of appropriate rank who had then added to their high scientific ability and attainments distinguished services in the field. Even in the line, officers were not wanting of appropriate rank, character, ability, education, and experience to qualify them for the duties of superintendent. For example, my immediate predecessor, Major-General Thomas H. Ruger, then a colonel of infantry, was in all respects highly qualified for that office; and when I relived him I found the academy in about the same state of efficiency which had characterized it before the war. There was, in fact, at that time little, if any, foundation for the assumption that the interests of the military academy required the assignment of any officer of higher rank than colonel to duty as superintendent of the academy. Of course I did not know this before I went there, and it was a matter for the judgment of my superiors, whose duty, and not mine, it was to know the facts.
ULTERIOR REASONS FOR THE APPOINTMENT
But General Sherman had other reasons, some of them very cogent in his own estimation at least, for desiring my presence somewhere in the Eastern States; and the West Point "detail" was the only way in which that could be readily brought about. He had just been restored, or was about to be, to the actual command of the army, after having been practically suspended from command a long time because of his differences with the Secretary of War. He desired especially to bring the military academy under his command, and appears to have been assured of President Grant's support in that regard. General Sherman also wished me to revise the army regulations, so as to incorporate the theory of relation between the administration and the command which he and General Grant had maintained as the true one, but which had generally, if not always, been opposed by the Secretaries of War and by the chiefs of staff departments. These were doubtless the principal reasons for General Sherman's anxiety to have me accept the assignment to West Point. But very soon after my arrival in the East I found that I was also expected to preside over a board of review in the case of General Fitz-John Porter and in that of Surgeon-General William A. Hammond; and that my junior in rank, Major-General Irvin McDowell, could not be given a command appropriate to his rank unless it was the division which I had consented to vacate. Of course I could not but feel complimented by this indication that my superiors thought me capable of doing well so many things at once, nor yet could I fail to see that, after all, my care of West Point had not been considered of so vital importance, since it would not interfere with the all-important revision of the army regulations, and the retrial of Porter and Hammond.
But I had given my consent, though under erroneous impressions as to reasons and necessity, to what my superiors desired, and hence determined to keep my thoughts to myself so long as the promises made by General Sherman were fulfilled. But I had hardly got settled in the academic chair before I received a great affront from the Secretary of War, through the adjutant-general of the army, in direct violation of General Sherman's promise that I should "be subject to no supervision except by the usual board of visitors and the general commanding the army." This offensive action arose not simply from ignorance of General Sherman's promise, of which the adjutant-general and the Secretary of War had evidently not been informed, but from culpable ignorance of the academic regulations on the part of the adjutant-general, and still more culpable disregard of the invariable rule of courtesy enjoined by military law among military men. With no little difficulty I restrained my indignation so far as to write a calm and respectful letter to the Secretary of War, inclosing a copy of my correspondence with General Sherman respecting my command at West Point, and pointing out the regulation which he or the adjutant-general had ignored, and requesting him to submit the whole matter to the President. It is due to the Honorable Secretary, and is a pleasure to me, to say that he did not wait the slow course of the mail, but telegraphed me at once that it was all a mistake, and that he made all the amend that a gentleman could make under the circumstances. He as well as I had been made the victim of the ignorance and discourtesy of a staff officer, in a matter about which the Secretary of War could of necessity know nothing unless the staff officer informed him. But I was determined to guard against any such outrage in the future, and hence insisted that West Point be erected into a military department. By this means I would become entitled to the effective intervention and protection of the general of the army. This is the origin of that anomaly which must have puzzled many military men, namely, the "Department of West Point."
But I discovered in time that even this safeguard was by no means sufficient. I had some apprehension on this subject at the start, and telegraphed General Sherman about it; but his answer of May 25 was accepted as sufficiently reassuring. Indeed it could hardly have been imagined that a President of the United States would disregard an honorable obligation incurred by his predecessor; but before I got through with that matter I was enlightened on that point.