Col. Blair fully understood and sympathized with the President. He put the letter and order in his pocket and talked confidentially to Lyon in regard to it. They decided not to publish the order until it would be wicked to delay it. They both liked and admired Harney, and if he could be decisively separated from his Secession environment, he could be of the greatest possible value. They would give him the opportunity of thoroughly testing his policy.
Blair tried his best to arouse Gen. Harney to a sense of what was going on, and particularly to demand suspension of the execution of the Military Bill, but without effect. He sent to Gen. Harney telegrams and correspondence, showing that the Brigadier-Generals were rapidly organizing their forces, that emissaries were stirring up the Indians, and that Chief Ross, of the Cherokee Nation, had promised 15,000 well-armed men to help the Secessionists. When Harney called Price's attention to this, Price calmly pooh-poohed it all as of no consequence.
Therefore, on May 30, Blair decided that the emergency for the delivery of the order had come, and sent it to Gen. Harney, and at the same time wrote to the President in explanation of what he had done.
Gen. Harney wrote the Adjutant-General of the Army a pathetic letter, in which he said:
My confidence in the honor and integrity of Gen. Price, in
the purity of his motives, and in his loyalty to the
Government, remains unimpaired. His course as President of
the State Convention that voted by a large majority against
submitting an Ordinance of Secession, and his efforts since
that time to calm the elements of discord, have served to
confirm the high opinion of him I have for many years
entertained.
My whole course as Commander of the Department of the West
has been dictated by a desire to carry out in good faith the
instructions of my Government, regardless of the clamor of
the conflicting elements surrounding me, and whose advice
and dictation could not be followed without involving the
State in blood and the Government in the unnecessary
expenditure of millions. Under the course I pursued Missouri
was secured to the Union, and the triumph of the Government
was only the more glorious, being almost a bloodless
victory; but those who clamored for blood have not ceased to
impugn my motives. Twice within a brief space of time have
I been relieved from the command here; the second time in a
manner that has inflicted unmerited disgrace upon a true and
loyal soldier. During a long life, dedicated to my country,
I have seen some service, and more than once I have held her
honor in my hands; and during that time my loyalty,
I believe, was never questioned; and now, when in the
natural course of things I shall, before the lapse of many
years, lay aside the sword which has so long served my
country, my countrymen will be slow to believe that I have
chosen this portion of my career to damn with treason my
life, which is so soon to become a record of the past, and
which I shall most willingly leave to the unbiased judgment
of posterity. I trust that I may yet be spared to do my
country some further service that will testify to the love I
bear her, and that the vigor of my arm may never relax while
there is a blow to be struck in her defense.
I respectfully ask to be assigned to the command of the
Department of California, and I doubt not the present
commander of the Division is even now anxious to serve on
the Atlantic frontier.
I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
WM. S. HARNEY, Brigadier-General, U. S. Army.
He started for Washington, but the train on which he was going was captured at Harper's Ferry by a Secession force, and he was taken a prisoner to Richmond, where the authorities immediately ordered his release.
The Government made no further use of him; he was retired in 1863 as a Brigadier-General. At the conclusion of the struggle, in which he took no further part, he was brevetted a Major-General, and died in the fullness of years May 9,1889, at his home at Pass Christian, Miss.