In reply to your communication, I have deemed it proper, in order to prevent further misunderstanding, to make this simple recital of facts.
Very respectfully, yours,
ANDREW JOHNSON.
General Grant to the President.
HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE UNITED STATES,
Washington, D.C., February 3, 1868.
His Excellency A. JOHNSON,
President of the United States.
SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your communication of the 31st ultimo,[52] in answer to mine of the 28th ultimo[53]. After a careful reading and comparison of it with the article in the National Intelligencer of the 15th ultimo and the article over the initials J.B.S. in the New York World of the 27th ultimo, purporting to be based upon your statement and that of the members of your Cabinet therein named, I find it to be but a reiteration, only somewhat more in detail, of the "many and gross misrepresentations" contained in these articles, and which my statement of the facts set forth in my letter of the 28th ultimo[53] was intended to correct; and I here reassert the correctness of my statements in that letter, anything in yours in reply to it to the contrary notwithstanding.
I confess my surprise that the Cabinet officers referred to should so greatly misapprehend the facts in the matter of admissions alleged to have been made by me at the Cabinet meeting of the 14th ultimo as to suffer their names to be made the basis of the charges in the newspaper article referred to, or agree in the accuracy, as you affirm they do, of your account of what occurred at that meeting.
You know that we parted on Saturday, the 11th ultimo, without any promise on my part, either express or implied, to the effect that I would hold on to the office of Secretary of War ad interim against the action of the Senate, or, declining to do so myself, would surrender it to you before such action was had, or that I would see you again at any fixed time on the subject.
The performance of the promises alleged by you to have been made by me would have involved a resistance to law and an inconsistency with the whole history of my connection with the suspension of Mr. Stanton.