Sheridan's secret orders, dated December 24, 1874, were sent to him direct from the Secretary of War, and without the knowledge of Gen. Sherman, commanding the army, or of Gen. McDowell, commanding the Department of the South, which embraced Louisiana, with his headquarters in Louisville, Ky.; but he was advised that he might stop and make known to Gen. McDowell the object of his mission if he deemed it proper to do so, but he passed by without seeing McDowell. On arriving in New Orleans he made the State of Louisiana a part of his department, and then issued his decree declaring the people of the state "banditti." This alarmed the President. It was too imperialistic. Sheridan then suggested that Congress be called on to pass an act in a few words making the people banditti. The President declined. Then the chief of the banditti advised the President to issue an order through the War Department declaring the people banditti, and to leave ALL TO HIM, and he would quell them without giving him (the President) any further trouble. In all this there is a thirst for blood and punishment by military authority. But Grant, sitting on the ragged edge of imperialism, declined to support his man-of-all-work on the banditti question. But still undaunted, Sheridan perchance recalled to mind how Cromwell entered the "Praise God Barebone" house of Parliament, and, charging the members to be guilty of dishonorable acts, drove them out of the house by an armed force, locked the door, and put the key in his pocket; or how Napoleon entered the hall of the council of live hundred in Paris, and at the point of the bayonet dissolved the convention—resolved to imitate those great men by taking a company of the United States army, and thrust the members of the conservative Legislature into the street. This he did by sending Gen. De Trobirand to close the legislative hall of a sovereign State in the Union, first ejecting the members.
However much the North was willing to punish the South, they saw in this a usurpation of United States authority which, if unrebuked, might be applied to a "truly loyal" State in the North; and now the Northern press howled, not because it had been done in Louisiana, but for fear their Legislatures might be invaded likewise, and they cried: "Have we also a Cæsar?" And all this was done to secure the vote of Louisiana to the radical party in the coming presidential election.
Pending these events Sherman and McDowell were inflamed with anger that such orders should be issued secretly, and not sent through the proper channel of communication. Such were some of the incidents of the attempt of Sheridan to punish the people of Louisiana who were "to the manner born," who owned the land, and paid nine-tenths of all the taxes, and who intellectually were his equal, and socially and in the amenities of life his superior in many respects.
JULIUS L. BROWN.
Time passed on. Election day came, and, had these States been recorded as the people had voted, the election would have been: For Tilden, 203; for Hayes, 166. But the election machinery in most of the Southern States was in Republican hands, and thus by Chandler's orders the States of Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina could be counted out; and if this was done, R. B. Hayes would have 185 and S. J. Tilden 184. Now "who should count the votes" became the battle ground. For two months scheme after scheme was proposed and rejected. More than once it was proposed to throw dice, and raffle off the presidency like "a good, fat turkey for Christmas," but this leaked out. One proposition after another again fell through, and at last Hayes won by trickery. Only the great desire for peace, and the marshaling of troops and concentrating naval vessels under the orders of President Grant prevented a clash of arms.
Among the first acts of President Hayes was an order removing the United States troops from New Orleans and Columbia, S. C., as the purpose for which they had been kept there had been accomplished. Those who are fond of reading low villainy can find it written in the chronicles of Louisiana.