The Fateful Lightning

  Grant set the papers on the table, a cloud of cigar smoke rising around his face. “That should suffice. You should probably issue an order to your army commanders, to make preparations for march. Once your forty-eight hours has passed, their orders should be specific, routes of march, so forth. You cannot assume hostilities will not continue.”

  Sherman felt his chest burning with a hard black fury, fought to keep it inside. “There will be no hostilities. Johnston is an honorable man. And a man who understands the depth of his defeat.”

  Grant stared at the two letters. “The order is not merely for Johnston. It is for Washington. They must know that it is your intention to fight this war to its fullest, lest you demonstrate a hesitancy that might be interpreted incorrectly.”

  Sherman pushed himself deeper into the chair, fought the urge to stand, to march around the room with thunderous steps. He took a long breath, could see Grant watching him. “Interpreted how?”

  Grant pulled an envelope from his pocket. “I am to give this to you, as though I was never present. This was transmitted to me by the War Department.”

  Lieutenant General Grant,

  General: The memorandum, or basis agreed upon between General Sherman and General Johnston having been submitted to the president, they are disapproved.

  Sherman stopped, held out the paper. “You explained this already. I went too far. Fine. Johnston will surrender as instructed. I have no doubts about that.”

  Grant pointed to the letter in Sherman’s hand. “Keep reading. The last paragraph.”

  The President desires that you proceed immediately to the headquarters of Major-General Sherman, and direct operations against the enemy.

  Sherman lowered the note, looked at Grant, saw no change of expression. “I am being relieved?”

  Grant shook his head. “No. But there is talk in the cabinet. Nasty talk. I spoke out on your behalf.”

  “Not the cabinet. Stanton. It’s just Stanton.”

  “I have not communicated to you any such thing. But the secretary is an influential man. We have a very new president, who is hesitant to insert his views, should they contradict any policies of Mr. Lincoln. The secretary of war has no such hesitancy.”

  He knew there were things Grant wasn’t saying, could see from Grant’s hard stare that events had spun wildly in a direction Sherman never expected.

  “Grant, what are you to do here?”

  “My desire is that I do nothing at all. I will not remain here any longer than is required for you to conclude this matter with General Johnston. Once your armies have ceased hostilities, all should be well elsewhere.”

  Sherman stood now, turned toward a tall window, gripped his cigar in his fist, obliterating it. “I abhor this, Grant! I did nothing wrong! I have no desire to interfere with civil politics. None! But Johnston was correct on one very important point. This is not Appomattox. His army is not as Lee’s was, hemmed in a trap. If he chooses not to accept your terms, his armies will continue their march, very probably will disperse, and instead of us having to deal with six or seven Southern states, we will deal with countless bands of desperadoes. Chasing down men like Forrest, Mosby, any of them! For how long? Years? Every city in the Confederacy will become an area of occupation by our armies. How many men will that require? For years as well?”

  Grant still watched him, and Sherman could see Grant was forcing himself not to react. Or to agree. Grant tipped the cigar down, dropping the ash to a small dish.

  “You can certainly address your concerns to the secretary. I recommend it.”

  “What do I tell him? The United States government has made a mistake?”

  Grant shrugged. “If you wish. He will tell you it’s none of your business. You are a servant of that government. You do not make policy.”

  Sherman spun around, pacing heavily. “Damn it all, Grant. I never wanted to make anything. All I have done in this theater is achieve victories. This army has done so, marvelously. And now I am to be doubted? I must be slapped on my knuckles like some errant schoolboy? President Lincoln would have approved the agreement with Johnston. You know that. You heard him, as I did. He wanted forgiveness, not punishment!”

  “Before you base your arguments on what Lincoln might or might not have approved, you should hear this.” Grant reached into a small valise, produced another letter. “This was sent to me by Stanton a few days prior to Lee’s surrender. Dated April third.”

  Grant read,

  Lieutenant-General Grant,

  The president directs me to say to you that he wishes you to have no conference with General Lee, unless it be for capitulation of General Lee’s army, or on some minor or purely military matter. He instructs me to say that you are not to decide, discuss, or confer upon any political questions….

  Sherman stared at him, his mouth open. “I knew nothing of that.”

  “I know you didn’t. Never bothered to tell you. Wasn’t important then. It is now.”

  “So, they sent you here to read that to me?”

  “Actually, Sherman, they seem to believe you already saw this. They think…someone thinks you deliberately ignored this instruction, and acted on your own. That’s not a good thing for a military commander to do.”

  “Dammit, Grant, I didn’t!”

  “I know. They’ll know that as well, if this continues to boil. This kind of thing happens to all of us eventually. Write Stanton, tell him you were wrong to stray into civil affairs. A foolish error.”

  Sherman slumped into the chair again. “All right. What are you going to do?”

  Grant lit another cigar. “For now, I wish the army to be kept unaware of my presence. That would serve no useful purpose, and might convey the impression that I have come here to…well, to make mischief. Instead, I’m going to enjoy the comforts of this fine home, until you receive a response from General Johnston. Then I am going to return as quickly as I can back to that infuriating city.”

  —

  The next day, April 25, Sherman received the letter from Johnston he was desperately hoping for. It was not merely Sherman’s wishful thinking that Johnston understand his limited options. The Confederate commander accepted the terms of surrender as Sherman presented them, the same terms given Lee’s army at Appomattox. On April 26, the two men met one more time at the Bennett house. The meeting was brief, formal, Johnston seeming to grasp completely the hornet’s nest Sherman had created for himself. But the time for argument, for controversy had passed. Accompanied by a host of senior commanders, Sherman and Johnston went straight to the business at hand. Seventeen days after Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, the two men signed their names to a document that no one could dispute.

  All acts of war on the part of the troops under General Johnston’s command to cease from this date…

  AFTERWORD

  In late April 1865, as Sherman prepares to leave his command, intending first to visit Charleston and his army’s base in Savannah, he receives a copy of the April 24 edition of The New York Times. The column, attributed to Secretary Stanton, relates the entire complaint against Sherman’s negotiations with General Johnston, as well as a not-so-subtle suggestion that Sherman’s command is susceptible to a bribe from Jefferson Davis, which might allow Davis to escape the country. As a conclusion, Stanton writes that Ulysses Grant was sent to Raleigh to direct operations against Johnston’s army, the wording identical to the order Stanton had given Grant. Sherman is outraged by the breach of military protocol, and writes a lengthy letter of response to Grant, protesting the slam against his character and reputation, including the insinuation that he has been grossly insubordinate. Sherman writes,

  I, who for four years, have labored day and night, winter and summer, who have brought an army of seventy thousand men in magnificent condition across a country hitherto deemed impassible, and placed it just where it was wanted, on the day appointed, have brought discredit to our Government! I do not wish to boast of this, but do say that it entitled me to the
courtesy of being consulted to higher authority to adjudication, and then accompanied by statements which invited the dogs of the press to be let loose upon me. It is true that non-combatants, men who sleep in comfort and security while we watch on the distant lines, are better able to judge than we poor soldiers, who rarely see a newspaper, hardly hear from our families, or stop long enough to draw our pay….

  Sherman demands that his letter be made as public as Stanton’s, and a war of words breaks out in the various newspapers of the day, Sherman’s longtime enemies in the press delighting in the controversy.

  In his memoirs, Sherman writes,

  To say that I was merely angry at the tone and substance of these published bulletins of the War Department, would hardly express the state of my feelings. I was outraged beyond measure….

  Clearly Grant recognizes the injustice done to Sherman, and by comparing the two men in his memoirs, Grant writes,

  Mr. Stanton never questioned his own authority to command…he cared nothing for the feelings of others….The enemy would not have been in danger if Mr. Stanton had been in the field.

  Though several newspapers take up the call for Sherman’s removal, some even labeling him treasonous, he has his defenders, including Horace Greeley of the New-York Tribune, who describes Stanton’s insinuation that Sherman had aided Jefferson Davis’s efforts to escape as no more than flapdaddle.

  Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles writes,

  We were all imposed upon by Stanton for a purpose. He and the radicals were opposed to the mild policy of President Lincoln on which Sherman acted, and which Stanton opposed and was determined to defeat.

  Thus is laid bare the enormous and unanswerable what-if of Lincoln’s assassination, and just how differently the next generation of politicians might have worked successfully to heal the gaping wounds suffered by the South, instead of the policies of Reconstruction, which have dug painfully into those scars even to this day.

  As for Sherman’s contribution to the unhealed wounds, historians have argued over the merits or sins of Sherman’s campaigns into the twenty-first century. Historian John G. Barrett writes, “Sherman inflicted wounds which would remain open for generations to come. The hatred for the North instilled in the hearts of many Southerners by Sherman’s operations lengthened the South’s road to reunion…” But Barrett also writes, “Though pitiless in campaign and intemperate in language, Sherman was not a cruel individual with the instincts of a barbarian.”

  The briefest of summaries can be made by historian Ellis M. Coulter: “To him, war must be fought effectively, or not at all.”

  —

  Ordered by Grant to march the substance of his army northward to Washington City, Sherman embarks himself by boat, and on May 11 he makes a rendezvous with his troops at Richmond. He marches his army through northern Virginia, passing through nearly all of the major battlefields in that part of the East, fields that Sherman has never seen. On May 19, Sherman orders his army into camps around Alexandria, Virginia, awaiting further orders from Grant. Immediately across the Potomac River are the camps of the Army of the Potomac, the men commanded by George Gordon Meade.

  With his army resting and rejuvenating, Sherman visits Washington, sees Grant and the new president, Andrew Johnson, who offers Sherman assurances that neither he nor the rest of his cabinet officials were aware that Stanton intended to make public the insult to Sherman’s reputation. Though Grant attempts to bridge the gulf between Sherman and Stanton with a social meeting, Sherman declines, claiming without hesitation that he will hold this grudge for a very long time.

  On May 23, as ordered by Grant, a grand review is held through the streets of the capital. Meade’s army precedes Sherman’s. The Army of the Potomac is fitted out in new uniforms, with polished brass, shined boots, freshly adorned horses, the perfect spit and polish that official Washington expects. The following day, Sherman’s army begins its parade. The men are unshaven, most in their field uniforms, and are accompanied by an enormous number of the freed slaves that still follow the army. It is no accident that Sherman offers the American public a demonstration of what a true army looks like, having just marched from the last great battlefields of the war.

  Sherman leads the procession, the one notable exception in a crisp new uniform. According to protocol, once he passes the enormous reviewing stand, he leaves his army to complete their parade and climbs into the stands, joining the vast throng of dignitaries. He happily greets and accepts the appropriate accolades offered him by Grant, the president, and the attending cabinet. Then, confronted by a smiling Edwin Stanton, who extends his hand, Sherman turns away, a scene that is “universally noticed.” For the following six hours, the remainder of Sherman’s army, the Fifteenth, Seventeenth, Twentieth, and Fourteenth corps, passes by. Sherman writes,

  It was, in my judgment, the most magnificent army in existence—sixty five thousand men, in splendid physique, who had just completed a march of nearly two thousand miles in a hostile country, in good drill, and who realized they were being closely scrutinized by thousands of their fellow countrymen and foreigners….Many people, up to that time, had looked upon our Western army as a sort of mob; but then the world saw, and recognized the fact that it was an army in the proper sense…and there was no wonder that it had swept through the South like a tornado.

  One soldier, of the 7th Iowa Regiment, writes,

  The difference in the two armies is this: they have remained in camp and lived well; we have marched and fought and gone hungry and ended the war.

  Though there are still official hostilities west of the Mississippi River, those Confederate commanders, notably Richard Taylor and Kirby Smith, recognize that continuing their own campaigns has no purpose. On May 4, Taylor surrenders the Trans-Mississippi armies to Federal commander Edward Canby, thus the final end to the war in every part of the South.

  THOSE WHO WORE GRAY

  WILLIAM J. HARDEE

  By the spring of 1865, the man whom friends describe as boisterous, debonair, and full of cheer leaves his service to the Confederate cause a shattered and disillusioned man. Though Hardee is viewed by all who serve him as the consummate professional tactician, Sherman’s overwhelming dominance of Hardee’s efforts destroys any hopes Hardee has of resuming some kind of influential role in any military circle, especially his beloved West Point.

  Historian Nathaniel Hughes writes,

  The Army of the Tennessee was vital to the Confederate War effort, and Hardee should be remembered as an integral and able part of it. Albert Sidney Johnston, Bragg, Joe Johnston and even Hood placed great reliance on him as a battle commander, and consulted him in strategic matters. [But] limited by his reluctance to abandon outmoded military techniques in which he was expert, Hardee never rose to first rank.

  He surrenders with Joe Johnston at Durham’s Station and settles at his young wife’s family plantation near Demopolis, Alabama, then moves to Selma. Hardee never seems to find comfort in civilian life, tries his hand at various enterprises, including cotton farming and railroading, which he attacks with a military zeal. But zeal alone cannot overcome the poor health of the economy, and in 1868 he leaves that profession.

  He appeals for a pardon from the United States government, including a personal appeal to William T. Sherman. He even professes publicly that he would serve the United States Army again, should any need arise, believing that the issues so destructive to the nation from 1861 through 1865 have been settled. But the Congress is not so flexible, and his petition drags through the capital for two years before Hardee is finally pardoned.

  He and Mary travel a great deal, mostly throughout the South, and make frequent visits to White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. While at the springs in the summer of 1873, Hardee is taken ill, is diagnosed with stomach cancer. Attempting to return home by rail, Hardee dies at Wytheville, Virginia. He is fifty-eight. His young wife, Mary, survives but two more years, dies at age thirty-five, from tuberculosis.

  In 187
1, Hardee’s daughter Sallie marries his adjutant and chief of staff, Thomas Roy.

  As the war concludes, Hardee demonstrates the respect he holds for his most notable adversary, expressing to Joe Johnston that when he “learned that Sherman’s army was marching through the Salkehatchie swamps, making his own corduroy roads at the rate of a dozen miles a day or more, and bringing its artillery and wagons with it, I made up my mind that there had been no such army in existence since the days of Julius Caesar.”

  JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON

  With the surrender of his army, Johnston witnesses an act of generosity from Sherman he never expects, as Sherman issues ten days’ rations to Johnston’s hungry troops and orders the Federal commissary to provide sacks of seed for the former soldiers, assisting them to return to life on their farms. As a result, Johnston will never speak out against Sherman personally, or offer any condemnation of Sherman’s military operations. It is not always a popular position for Johnston to take.

  He tries his hand at the railroad business, but it holds no appeal, and Johnston is very much a career soldier without a career to fulfill him.

  He writes his memoirs in 1874, in which he soundly criticizes Jefferson Davis, an extension of their disagreeable relationship, which goes back to 1861. As well, Johnston assails Braxton Bragg and John Bell Hood, content to leave his own mark at the expense of their reputations. Though supported in his tactical and strategic views by Sherman and Grant, the vitriolic nature of his feuds with the former Confederates diminishes his reputation. In 1870, Wade Hampton writes him, “I feel sure no good would come in any way by any publication by you raising an issue on the point [of Davis].” It is advice Johnston ignores. But after two years of brutal imprisonment, Jefferson Davis is more a martyr than villain, and Johnston’s attacks on him are not well received. The memoir fails to sell.