So boys! a final bumper
While we all in chorus chant—
“For next president we nominate
Our own Ulysses Grant!”
MIKE O’REILLY
1868
THE LAME DUCK 39TH CONGRESS reassembled in Washington on December 3, 1866. Its term would expire March 3, and ordinarily the newly elected 40th Congress would not meet until the next December. But the Republicans were unwilling to allow so long an interval, lest President Johnson use the hiatus to undo their plans for Reconstruction. Almost as its first order of business the outgoing Congress broke precedent and enacted legislation calling the 40th Congress into session on March 4, 1867.I That would ensure continuous legislative oversight of Reconstruction and limit President Johnson’s ability to act independently. Congress then passed a District of Columbia bill enfranchising freedmen in the nation’s capital, a tenure-of-office measure designed to shield Republican appointees from the president’s removal power, and the first of three Reconstruction Acts placing the South under military government. All three measures became law over Johnson’s veto. Finally, the president’s power as commander in chief was curtailed through a rider attached to the military appropriations bill for 1867–1868. Henceforth, any orders Johnson might have for the army would have to be issued through Grant as general in chief, who, the rider specified, could not be removed without the Senate’s consent. Johnson signed the appropriations bill lest the army’s funds expire, but he was furious at the diminution of his constitutional authority.1
The three measures Johnson vetoed went to the heart of the president’s worsening relationship with Congress: black suffrage, political patronage, and readmission of Southern states to the Union. Johnson opposed black suffrage in principle, but in the District of Columbia, where freedmen constituted one fourth of the population, he found it particularly objectionable.2 The Tenure of Office Act was pure politics. During the last six months of 1866 Johnson had replaced almost seventeen hundred postmasters, three quarters for political reasons.3 Postmasterships were the heart of the nation’s patronage system and the Republicans responded with alarm. The act prohibited the president from dismissing any appointee who had been confirmed by the Senate unless the Senate concurred. The measure protected the grassroots patronage dear to each congressman. The president’s cabinet was afforded less protection. The act stated they should hold office “for and during the term of the President by whom they were appointed . . . subject to removal by and with the advice and consent of the Senate.” Whether that applied to Lincoln’s appointees (Seward, Stanton, and Welles) was debatable.4
The Military Reconstruction Act of 1867, usually designated the First Reconstruction Act, was the most far-reaching of the three measures. The South was divided into five military districts, the existing state governments were declared provisional, and each district commander was vested with plenary authority. In effect, the South was placed under military rule. The act specified that the various state governments would be recognized and their representatives readmitted to Congress as soon as they called new constitutional conventions, provided for black suffrage, and ratified the Fourteenth Amendment. As one historian has observed, the measure was “an unprecedented experiment in interracial democracy.”5
Grant and Stanton took an active interest in the legislation. The rider to the military appropriations bill was Stanton’s handiwork.6 The Reconstruction Act reflected Grant’s view that more effort was required to protect Southern blacks. Military government seemed the only solution. It was deplorable to consider such a possibility, he told Stanton, but the failure of local authorities in the South to investigate and punish crimes against the freedmen “constitutes what is practically a state of insurrection.” Grant said military rule would provide relative security “to all classes of citizens without regard to race, color, or political opinions, and could be continued until society was capable of protecting itself.”7
When the Reconstruction bill went into conference committee to reconcile the House and Senate versions, Grant worked closely with Sherman’s brother, sponsor of the bill in the Senate, to fashion a measure that would provide for black suffrage and at the same time indicate to Southern states how the military occupation could be ended.8 Grant’s role was widely reported. The New York Independent noted, “For once, at least, there is no doubt whatever of the General’s position. He has spoken in all places, where he could do so with propriety, in support of the bill.”9
What was most surprising was Grant’s endorsement of black suffrage. Throughout 1865 and 1866 he had been skeptical about enfranchising the freedmen, at least immediately. But continued resistance on the part of white Southerners to granting legal equality to African-Americans, combined with the increasing violence in the South, convinced him that black suffrage was essential. Only by weaving the freedmen into the political fabric of the nation could past injustices be corrected and the current wave of violence be brought under control. “The General is getting more and more Radical,” Grant’s aide Colonel Cyrus Comstock noted in his diary on March 1.10
Grant’s support for the Reconstruction Act opened a new phase in his relationship with Andrew Johnson. He was no longer simply a military subordinate but a political figure in his own right. Caught in the conflict between the president and Congress, Grant found Congress to be a valuable ally. If Johnson wanted to emasculate Reconstruction, the Radicals on Capitol Hill could be counted on to prevent him. Johnson, for his part, could no longer ignore Grant’s wishes. Aside from the fact that Congress had guaranteed his position, the general in chief’s popularity ensured that the president could not afford an open break. It was preferable to keep Grant in the administration, where he would at least be subject to the president’s direct military orders. In the frontier phraseology that Johnson favored, it was better to have Grant inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in. An English visitor to Washington put it more elegantly: “At the present time, when the President and Congress are defying one another, and are at open rupture . . . the General in Chief becomes a very interesting person.”11
When Congress overrode Johnson’s veto of the Reconstruction Act, Grant was delighted. The legislation, he wrote Washburne, would provide a solution to problems in the South “unless the President proves an obstruction.” Grant added that Johnson’s veto message, redolent with racism, was “one of the most ridiculous that ever emanated from any President.”12
Elihu Washburne, Grant’s longtime sponsor, was one of the few men with whom the general in chief spoke frankly. Sherman was another. Apologizing to Uncle Billy for his tardiness in writing, Grant said he deferred sending a letter “while you were in Mexico because I did not know how to address you except through the Secretary of State and I have nothing to do with that functionary when it can be avoided.” Grant warned Sherman about the growing conflict between the president and Congress, and said he wanted to travel abroad for a year or so, “but to leave now would be like throwing up a command in the face of the enemy.”13
Sherman replied that Grant should not leave Washington under any circumstances. As for himself, he wanted no part of it. The army had enough problems to deal with, and in Sherman’s view, “We ought to be allowed to confine ourselves to our pure Military business.”14 As the secondranking officer in the army,II Sherman commanded United States forces on the frontier, where problems of Reconstruction were compounded with the need to protect settlers crossing the Great Plains. Cump warned Grant of the danger of a race war developing in Arkansas. “The Whites and Blacks are nearly balanced in numbers, and a general War between them would be an ugly case for us.” On the other hand, said Sherman, if such a war broke out, it would be like the bear fight in which “the woman said she did not care much whether the bear or the husband whipped.”
The situation on the Plains was equally urgent. In December 1866, 3,000 Sioux warriors under Chief Red Cloud ambushed the cavalry patrol of Captain William J. Fetterman near Fort Phil Kearny in the Wyoming Territory. All ninety-four troopers were killed, and the public was crying for vengeance.15 Both Grant and Sherman were sympathetic to the plight of the Indians, who were fighting to preserve their hunting grounds, and neither wanted to undertake a winter campaign or launch a general war. Sherman’s solution was to restrict the Sioux henceforth to the area north of the Platte and west of the Missouri, and to keep the other tribes south of the Arkansas. That would leave a broad band for settlement between the Platte and the Arkansas rivers that Sherman believed could be protected.
Grant agreed. On January 15, 1867, he urged Stanton’s approval of Sherman’s proposal “provided it does not conflict with our treaty obligations with the Indians now between the Platte and the Arkansas.”16 The general in chief told Sherman that unless he heard otherwise he could consider the plan accepted.17 Grant continued to watch the situation on the frontier closely. He was soon convinced that many of the Indian agents appointed by the government to trade with the tribes were major contributors to the problems the army faced. They plied the Indians with liquor, ignored their true needs, and sold them repeating rifles despite orders to the contrary. Grant told Stanton, not entirely in jest, that if the system was not reformed, the only course left open would be “to carry on formidable hostilities until all the Indians or all the Whites upon the great plains are exterminated.”18 Grant resisted public pressure to take military action and left it to Sherman to sort things out. On March 9 he informed Stanton, “Present preparations look more to preventing further massacres than to hostile action toward the Indians on the plains.”19
Passage of the Reconstruction Act was a massive step toward racial equality in the South. But it was scarcely the panacea Grant expected it to be. The act spelled out how the Southern states could regain representation in Congress, but it failed to specify how the process was to begin. This was a serious omission. With no compulsion to act, white Southerners did nothing, content to remain under military rule rather than cooperate in adopting new constitutions with black suffrage. The 40th Congress met the challenge by passing a Second Military Reconstruction Act (over another Johnson veto), placing responsibility for action on each district commander. The generals were instructed to register eligible voters, establish a timetable for holding constitutional conventions, and set up machinery for ratification.
Grant was optimistic. The day after enactment of the Second Reconstruction Act, he wrote to Charles Ford, his old friend in St. Louis, that he was “looking forward with a good deal of confidence” to a final settlement in the South.20 In a similar vein he told former Congressman Isaac Morris, another old friend, that Reconstruction was “now in a fair way of being finally and favorably consummated.”21 As he had done so often during the war, Grant was looking on the bright side. He was confident of the force he could bring to bear in the South, but as at Shiloh and in the Wilderness, he underestimated the capacity of the enemy to resist. Above all, he failed to take into account Andrew Johnson’s determination to circumvent the will of Congress.
As during the last year of the war, Grant was again at the head of military efforts in the South. Technically, responsibility for the occupation was vested in each district commander. But when in doubt, each looked exclusively to Grant for direction. The difference this time was that Grant no longer had the support of the commander in chief. To the contrary, he was Congress’s man, carrying out Congress’s policy, which the president strongly opposed. Grant found solace in the fact that in constitutional terms the policy of Congress was the law of the land. His duty was to uphold the law, not to kowtow to the president—and in this instance he firmly believed Congress’s policy was correct.
It is a tribute to Grant’s diplomatic skill—a trait with which he is seldom credited—that he was able to push Reconstruction and at the same time maintain amicable relations with the president. He gave Johnson all the deference due his office, and by so doing was able to postpone a final break between the Executive and Congress. In a curious way, Grant’s equanimity, his ability to move forward without getting flustered, was as important for Reconstruction as it was during combat. His calm demeanor reassured both sides. As his secretary, Adam Badeau, expressed it, Grant felt it was important not to inflame passion.
He was careful not to exasperate North or South. A word from him would have excited Congress beyond its own control; an appeal to the North might have precipitated another war. He cautioned his subordinates; he strove to hold in check the hotheads in Congress. He felt extreme reluctance to use arbitrary power in the South. But he felt that the emancipated millions must be protected and that the recently hostile population must be held in check.22
At first things moved smoothly. “Everything is getting on well here under the Congressional Reconstruction Bill,” Grant wrote Washburne in early April. “All will be well if Administration and Copperhead influence do not defeat the objects of that measure.” Grant said there had been no interference thus far with the actions of the five district commanders, “all of whom are carrying out the measures of Congress according to the spirit of the acts.”23
When a mob of white demonstrators in Mobile attacked Republican Congressman William D. “Pig Iron” Kelley of Pennsylvania, John Pope, heading the Third Military District, removed the mayor and chief of police.24 Kelley was part of a congressional delegation touring the South to organize the Republican party. After the outbreak, Grant instructed other commanders to take precautionary measures to prevent future violence. In New Orleans, Sheridan ordered the desegregation of streetcars and the admission of blacks to jury duty. In the Carolinas, General Daniel Sickles issued orders revising the civil and criminal codes to remove discriminatory provisions that denied the freedmen equal justice. General John Schofield, commanding in Virginia, offered military protection “in cases where the civil authorities fail to give such protection.”25
Grant provided constant support. He could not issue orders in civil matters, he told Pope, but “I can give my views, for what they are worth.” Grant said the district commanders were responsible for the faithful execution of the Reconstruction Act, and that Pope’s actions showed prudence and good judgment. “Rest assured that all you have done meets with the approval of all who wish to see the Act of Congress executed in good faith.”26
Resistance to Reconstruction was most pronounced in New Orleans, and Sheridan moved to take matters in hand. Officeholders who impeded reorganization would be promptly removed, he announced, and on March 27 he discharged the mayor of New Orleans, the state attorney general, and a district judge, all of whom had been implicated in plotting the riot the previous July. Later he removed the white supremacist governor. Grant wired his immediate support. “It is just the thing,” he told Little Phil. “I approve what you have done. I have no doubt it will also meet with the approval from the reconstructed.”27
Sheridan’s action did not sit well at the White House. Congress had stripped Johnson of responsibility for administering the Reconstruction Act, but as commander in chief he retained the power to appoint and remove the district commanders. If Sheridan insisted on forcing Reconstruction, Johnson planned to remove him and install someone more lenient. On April 5 Grant warned Sheridan to be on guard. Grant said the attorney general was preparing an opinion pertaining to the authority of the district commanders, and he urged Sheridan to make no more removals until it was issued. “Then make up your own mind as to the proper course to pursue, and pursue it, without fear, and take the consequences. No officer is going to be hurt by a faithful performance of his duty.”28
Attorney General Stanbery’s opinion, issued June 12, 1867, interpreted the Reconstruction Acts in the narrowest possible fashion.29 Despite clear congressional intent to the contrary, he held that the army’s control of civil government was restricted to police duties; that district commanders could not remove civilian officials; and that voting registrars must accept without question a prospective voter’s oath that he had not participated in the rebellion. Grant was appalled; the district commanders even more so. Sheridan complained that Stanbery’s ruling opened “a broad macadamized road for perjury and fraud to travel on.”30 Grant and Stanton protested the opinion, and Johnson was sufficiently shaken by the vehemence of their objections that he chose not to issue the attorney general’s finding as an executive order.31 Instead, it was transmitted to the district commanders “for their information.” Grant interpreted that to mean it was not binding.
Grant now became the focus of the Reconstruction Act’s enforcement. Until Congress could reconvene, he took personal responsibility. When Edward Ord, commanding in Arkansas and Mississippi, said that pursuant to Stanbery’s ruling he intended to register everyone who took the required oath, whether he perjured himself or not, Grant pulled him up short. The attorney general’s opinion was merely his own personal view, said Grant. “My opinion is that it is the duty of the Board of Registration to see that no unauthorized person is allowed to register.”32 To Pope and Sheridan, he was even more direct. “Enforce your own construction of the Military Bill until ordered to do otherwise,” he told Pope in Atlanta. “The opinion of the attorney general has not been distributed to district commanders in language or manner entitling it to the force of an order.”33 To Sheridan he said simply that the attorney general’s views were not controlling unless the argument was convincing.34 In effect, Grant was doing everything he could to limit the effect of Stanbery’s ruling. As Adam Badeau noted, “the situation was approaching mutiny on one side, or else treason on the other.”35
Congress did not leave Grant out on a limb for long. Confronted with Johnson’s intransigence, the House and Senate met in special session in July to plug the loopholes opened by Stanbery’s ruling. On July 13 Congress passed the Third Military Reconstruction Act, officially setting aside the attorney general’s opinion. Johnson vetoed the measure July 19, and Congress overrode the president that same day.36 Under the act, the Southern state governments were made subordinate to the military district commanders—who were given explicit authority to remove civil officials and appoint replacements. Voter registration boards were authorized to reject potential voters believed to have perjured themselves concerning their prior allegiance; future opinions of the attorney general were declared nonbinding; and Grant was given oversight responsibility to insure that the Reconstruction Acts were faithfully enforced. “The responsibility, the fidelity, the sagacity of General Grant,” said the New York Times, “constitute the only guarantee vouchsafed to us for the adequate enforcement of the conditions dictated by Congress in the spirit in which they were conceived.”37
In its haste to escape the sweltering heat of a Washington summer, Congress failed to heed Grant’s advice that the district commanders be protected by statute from the president’s removal power. The commander in chief’s authority to appoint officers in the military was the last weapon in Johnson’s arsenal, and, as Grant feared, when Congress adjourned the president unlimbered it. His first target was Sheridan. Little Phil was proving as aggressive in reconstructing Texas and Louisiana as he had been in the Shenandoah. On July 30, with Grant’s approval, he deposed the governor of Texas, holding him responsible for the upsurge of violence in the state. Then, in quick succession he removed a majority of the New Orleans city council, the city treasurer, and the chief of police. This was too much for Johnson. On August 1 he summoned Grant to the White House and informed him that he intended to relieve Sheridan. Not only that, but with Congress in recess he planned to remove Stanton as well. Would Grant take over Stanton’s duties as secretary of war ad interim? he asked.38
Grant was taken by surprise. Rumors of Sheridan’s removal had been swirling for weeks, and it was an open secret that Johnson wanted to rid himself of Stanton, the only member of the cabinet who supported the Reconstruction Acts. Yet Grant did not believe the president would move so quickly. Confronted with Johnson’s determination, he protested vigorously. Then he returned to his office and put his objections in writing. Stanton, he said, had earned the confidence of the country, and was protected by the spirit if not the letter of the Tenure of Office Act. Sheridan had proved himself to be a brilliant commander during the war and was the most effective military administrator in the South. “He has had difficulties to contend with which no other District Commander has encountered.” To remove the two men would send shock waves through the country, said Grant. He warned Johnson that the people of the North would be outraged. “I would not have taken the liberty of addressing the Executive of the United States thus but from a sense of duty feeling that I know I am right in this matter.”39
Johnson evidently believed that by convincing Grant to replace Stanton he would deflect much of the criticism. He also recognized that Grant’s acceptance of the post would tarnish his appeal to the Republicans and make it less likely that he would be the party’s presidential nominee. Johnson might be willful and sometimes out of control, but he was also cunning. He was counting on Grant’s popularity to shield the administration, while at the same time he was undermining the general’s base of support. Whether Johnson assumed Grant would make a difference in the cabinet is less clear. Grant and Stanton were not close, and there was a history of friction between them.40 But on Reconstruction the two saw eye to eye. Most historians have assumed that Johnson considered Grant a political neophyte who, with Stanton out of the way, could be manipulated to suit the president’s purpose.41
Johnson had not anticipated that Grant would refuse the post. The president delayed several days and then on August 5 wrote Stanton asking for his resignation.42 Stanton declined. “Public considerations of a high order . . . constrain me not to resign the office of Secretary of War before the next meeting of Congress,” he told the president.43 Stanton was determined to sit tight. But if the president persisted, Stanton advised Grant to take his position. That would prevent Johnson from appointing someone more objectionable, and it would mitigate the danger that Reconstruction would be scuttled.44
Johnson also discussed the matter with Grant. On August 11 he informed the general in chief that he definitely intended to remove Stanton, and he asked once more if Grant would take the post. This time Grant did not refuse. Was there any substantial point of disagreement between them? the president asked. “Nothing personal,” Grant replied, but he said they disagreed on the Fourteenth Amendment and the Reconstruction Acts. This came as no surprise to Johnson. He accepted Grant on that basis and instructed his secretary to deliver his letter of dismissal to Stanton.45
Johnson’s letter, dated August 12, was in strict conformity to the Tenure of Office Act. Stanton was “suspended” until Congress reconvened, and was instructed to transfer his files and records “to General U. S. Grant, who has this day been authorized and empowered to act as Secretary of War ad interim.”46 Stanton denied the president’s authority to suspend him without the Senate’s consent, but yielded “under protest.”47 Grant thereupon walked across the street from army headquarters to the War Department and took over Stanton’s office on a temporary basis.III Both Grant and Stanton recognized the move was necessary, but it was awkward nevertheless. Stanton was bitter that the change had actually come to pass. Grant tried to pull the sting. “In notifying you of my acceptance,” he wrote, “I cannot let the opportunity pass without expressing my appreciation of the zeal, patriotism, firmness, and ability with which you have ever discharged the duty of Secretary of War.”48
As Johnson anticipated, Grant’s acceptance of Stanton’s post sent tremors through the Republican party. The New York Independent lamented that the general in chief “appears to have become a cat’s paw for the President.”49 St. Louis journalist Carl Schurz, writing to his wife, said Grant had taken “the only step which could prevent him from becoming President.”50 Henry D. Cooke, brother of financier Jay Cooke, made a special trip to Washington to sound Grant out. Afterward he wrote Senator John Sherman that the general’s motives were pure. “I have no doubt that Grant’s object was to prevent a general sweep of the military Reconstruction District Commanders, and the substitution of obstructionists.”51
That was certainly one of Grant’s concerns and not without reason. On August 17 Johnson prepared orders relieving Sheridan and replacing him with George Thomas, then commanding the Department of the Cumberland.52 Removing Sheridan and substituting Thomas was a calculated move by the president. In peace as in war, Old Slow Trot was solid and dependable. His military reputation was unblemished and his seniority placed him near the top of major generals on active duty. He could be counted on to do his duty, but unlike Sheridan he would not press his adversaries relentlessly. And he was a Virginian. Even more important, however, the removal of Sheridan would send an important message through the South.
Before transmitting the orders, Johnson asked Grant for his opinion. Once again Grant told the president that to replace Sheridan would be a mistake. “General Sheridan has performed his civil duties faithfully and intelligently. His removal will only be regarded as an effort to defeat the laws of Congress. It will be interpreted by the unreconstructed element in the South as a triumph. It will embolden them to renewed opposition, believing they have the Executive with them.”53
Johnson was visibly annoyed. Sheridan’s rule in Louisiana and Texas, the president replied, “has been one of absolute tyranny. He has rendered himself exceedingly obnoxious by the manner in which he has exercised the powers conferred by Congress, and still more by a resort to authority not granted by law.” Grant was instructed to transmit the order placing Thomas in command without further delay.54
As it turned out, Thomas wanted no part of the arrangement. He was suffering from a liver ailment and was undergoing treatment in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. When he learned of his assignment, he fired off an immediate protest to Grant. Sheridan, he said, could do a far better job in Louisiana and Texas than he could. “Knowing my sentiments, I fear the reconstruction of those states will be very much retarded, if it does not fail altogether, by appointing me to that Command.” Thomas said the interests of the service would be “eminently more advanced by permitting me to remain in my present command . . . than to place me where I could be of no use whatever.”55
Grant did not pass Thomas’s protest on to Johnson. Instead, he gave the president a telegram from the medical director of the Department of the Cumberland noting Thomas’s ill health and asserting that it would be a great risk for him to go to New Orleans.56 Johnson reluctantly agreed, but he did not back away from his determination to relieve Sheridan. The following week he told Grant to send Winfield Scott Hancock to Louisiana and have Sheridan replace Hancock at Fort Leavenworth. Hancock, like Thomas, had impeccable Civil War credentials. He was also a lifelong Democrat and less likely than either Sheridan or Thomas to press Reconstruction vigorously.
With Sheridan out of the way, Johnson turned to the Carolinas. General Daniel Sickles had also offended Southern whites with his vigorous enforcement of the Reconstruction Acts, and Johnson decided that he too must go. Grant was ordered to replace him with Major General Edward R. S. Canby, a capable professional officer but a cautious commander unlikely to rile the Carolina establishment.57
Again Grant protested. This time he challenged the president directly. The Third Reconstruction Act, he said, gave him the responsibility to see that the laws of Congress were enforced in the South. Grant agreed that as commander in chief it was the president’s prerogative to name the district commanders. But he insisted upon his right to be consulted “as to the Agents who are to aid me.” Furthermore, he said, “I emphatically decline yielding any of the powers given the General of the Army by the laws of Congress.”
In Grant’s surprisingly harsh words, the relief of Sheridan and Sickles could only be interpreted as an attempt by the president to “defeat the laws of Congress for restoring peace, Union and representation to the ten States now not represented.” That was deplorable, he said, because the people “had come to look upon the reconstruction policy of the country as settled whether it pleased them or not.”58
Grant subsequently withdrew the letter, but he and Johnson were on a collision course. On August 29, acting under the authority vested in him by the Third Reconstruction Act, Grant issued Special Orders No. 429 forbidding the new district commanders from restoring civilian officials deposed by their predecessors.59 The following day his staff released to the press Grant’s letter of August 17 protesting Sheridan’s removal. “Every word is golden,” proclaimed the Army and Navy Journal. The Philadelphia North American noted that the letter placed “Grant before the country in his true light as the earnest and reliable adherent of the Congressional policy of Reconstruction and as the determined opponent of the reactionary policy upon which Johnson has been bent.” The Hartford Courant said approvingly, “Grant is a Radical all over.”60
Just to be sure the president got the message, Grant distanced himself from Johnson’s cabinet. He was a soldier, not a politician, he told the president, and he was uncomfortable when partisan issues were discussed. Besides, he had not been confirmed by the Senate and was only holding office until Congress reassembled. Most important, Grant did not want to be linked to decisions with which he disagreed. He attended the cabinet meetings to which he was summoned, submitted the papers that required the concurrence of his colleagues or the approval of the president, but he retired as soon as his business was completed. As plainly as he could, Grant was indicating that he was not in accord with the administration and did not wish to be identified with it.61
The principal issue that separated Grant from Johnson was the treatment of the South. Grant’s determination to see that the Reconstruction Acts were enforced was colored by his desire to bring the Southern states back into the Union as quickly as possible. At the same time he wished to ensure that the rights of the freedmen were protected. He was also concerned about the army’s prolonged involvement in civil affairs. “The best way to secure a speedy termination of Military rule,” he wrote Ord in Vicksburg, “is to execute all the laws of Congress in the spirit in which they were conceived, firmly but without passion. Politicians should be perfectly satisfied with the temperate manner in which the Military have used authority thus far, but if there is a necessity for continuing too long there is great danger of a reaction against the Army.”62
Johnson’s opposition to Reconstruction was in part constitutional and in part political, buttressed by virulent racial prejudice. In constitutional terms, Johnson believed the Southern states had never left the Union and that with the surrender of the Confederate government they were entitled to immediate admission to Congress, with its attendant rights and privileges. Politically, he recognized that the Democrats could not retain the presidency or capture Congress without the votes of the South.
Above all, however, Johnson was dedicated to white supremacy. In his mind, his task as president was to rescue the Southern states from “Negro rule.” His third annual message to Congress left little doubt that Johnson saw Reconstruction primarily in racial terms.63 “The subjugation of the States to negro domination would be worse than the military despotism under which they are now suffering.” Not only were blacks “utterly ignorant of public affairs,” but “negroes have shown less capacity for government than any other race of people.” If they were given the right to vote, the Southern states would sink into barbarism: “All order will be subverted, all industry cease, and the fertile fields of the South [will] grow up into a wilderness.” Johnson said that of all the dangers the United States had yet encountered, “none are equal to those which must result from the success of the effort now making to Africanize the half of our country.”64
By autumn Johnson recognized that Grant would not yield on Reconstruction. Once again the president decided to send for Sherman. Perhaps he could convince the scourge of Atlanta to take over the War Department.65 Johnson, who had never served in the military, attributed to Sherman the same motives of ambition and self-seeking that he encountered daily in politics. He failed to understand the loyalty that soldiers often share, and he totally misread the special bond between Sherman and Grant. When Sherman received Johnson’s order to report to Washington, the first thing he did was to alert Grant.66 When he arrived in Washington, he went directly to Grant’s office. He stayed in the capital as Grant’s houseguest, took his meals with the family, and was thoroughly briefed on the political situation by the time he called on the president. As Sherman anticipated, Johnson indicated that he would like him to supersede Grant as acting secretary of war. The discussions carried over for several days. Johnson did his best to convince Sherman, but Cump made it plain that he wasn’t interested in a cabinet post and would certainly not be used against Grant.67 The problem, Sherman wrote his wife afterward, was that “the president don’t comprehend Grant.” There was not yet an open breach between the two, but “it is manifest there is not a cordial understanding.”68
Congress reconvened in early December with Johnson on the defensive. Impeachment proceedings had begun in the House charging Johnson with failure to enforce the Reconstruction acts, and Thaddeus Stevens had introduced legislation to suspend the president pending a trial. Johnson was determined to resist. Where did the army stand? More precisely, where did the general in chief stand? To find out, Johnson called on Grant at the War Department. By now, Grant had come to detest Johnson, but his duty was clear. He told the president he would resist any effort to depose or arrest him prior to the conclusion of an impeachment trial. The constitutional process would be protected. Grant then took it upon himself to inform congressional Republicans of his view and at that point the Stevens bill faded into obscurity.69
The most critical issue facing the president was Stanton’s removal as secretary of war. Under the Tenure of Office Act, Johnson was required to submit to the Senate his reasons for the suspension within twenty days of the meeting of Congress. If the Senate concurred, that ended the matter. But if it failed to do so, “such officer so suspended shall forthwith resume the functions of his office.”70
On December 12, 1867, Johnson dutifully complied with the statute. Drafted by Stanbery, the White House message put Stanton’s removal in the best possible light. It stressed the president’s responsibility as chief executive, his need for advisers in whom he had confidence, and (ironically) Grant’s able performance as secretary of war ad interim.71 Johnson’s case was a strong one, and initially his message was well received. Once again, however, the president proved to be his own worst enemy. Rather than strike a conciliatory stance, Johnson resumed his offensive against Reconstruction in the South.
The situation on the Gulf Coast drew the president’s attention first. When Hancock assumed command in New Orleans, he initially issued orders nullifying many of Sheridan’s policies and declaring the state’s civil authority paramount.72 Grant immediately reversed him, but Johnson sent a special message to Congress tacitly censuring Grant and urging that Hancock be given a vote of thanks.73 The lawmakers greeted the message with astonishment. Congressman John Covode of Pennsylvania asked if it were a hoax; Washburne offered an amendment to condemn Johnson for removing Sheridan; and the Washington Daily Chronicle called the president’s message a “direct taunt in the face of Congress.”74
The following week Johnson replaced two more military district commanders with more conservative generals whom he thought would follow Hancock’s example. In the Georgia-Alabama-Florida district, Pope was removed to make way for George Meade, and in Mississippi and Arkansas, Ord was replaced by Alvan C. Gillem, a personal friend of the president’s.75 “The removal of the District Commanders must embarrass reconstruction very much, if it does not defeat it under the Congressional plan,” a Republican editor wrote Congressman James A. Garfield.76 A member of the Georgia constitutional convention informed Charles Sumner that the removal of Pope doomed Reconstruction “because of the persistent opposition of A. Johnson and the encouragement of Rebels to oppose the letter and spirit of the Acts themselves.” Georgia Republican Foster Blodgett wrote Senator William P. Fessenden of Maine that the rebels were rejoicing at the removal of Pope. Another Southern Unionist wrote, “It is pitiful to see Congress floundering along, from one expedient to another, vainly endeavoring to tie the hands which they should have chopped off years ago.”77
Stung by the reaction in the South, Senate Republicans recognized that Johnson, by deft use of his appointing authority, was on the verge of overturning Reconstruction. Conservative senators who had been willing to give the president the benefit of the doubt on the removal of his secretary of war began to have second thoughts. Senate leaders also came to realize that if Stanton were not reinstated, Johnson would be free to ask Grant to step down and could then replace him with a critic of Reconstruction.78 The mood in the Senate shifted against the president. On January 10, 1868, to the capital’s surprise, the Committee on Military Affairs issued a report vindicating Stanton and recommending his reinstatement.79
The administration was stunned by the committee report. What had been a remote possibility began to look inevitable. Rather than sustain the president in his choice of advisers, the Senate was moving to reinstate Stanton. That evening Grant reread the Tenure of Office Act. To his astonishment he learned that if the Senate should fail to concur with the secretary’s removal, Stanton would be immediately restored to office. If Grant failed to vacate the position, he was subject to a $10,000 fine and a five-year jail term.IV The next morning, Saturday, January 11, Grant closeted himself with his staff to discuss the implications. Sherman, who was back in Washington—this time at Grant’s request to chair a board revising the Articles of War—also attended. Grant said he had intended to hold the office of secretary of war until Johnson had time to find a suitable replacement, but the provisions of the act made that impossible. If the president wished to violate the law, that was his privilege. But he, Grant, did not intend to do so. If the Senate ordered Stanton reinstated, he would immediately step down. Sherman inquired whether Grant had informed Johnson of his decision. Grant said he had not, but would go to the White House that afternoon and do so.80
At 4 P.M. Grant entered the president’s office. Johnson received him cordially, and for the next hour the two discussed the situation. Their recollections of the conversation differ substantially. Grant said he told the president that if the Senate refused to concur with Stanton’s suspension, he could no longer serve as secretary of war ad interim. “I went to the President for the sole purpose of making this decision known and did so make it known.” Later Grant wrote that “a doubt never entered my mind about the President fully understanding my position.”81 Johnson, who tried to argue Grant out of leaving, maintained that no decision was reached and that the two men agreed to meet again to discuss the issue.82 The chances are that both Grant and Johnson correctly reported their understanding of the discussion. Grant, in the quiet, crisp manner that was his military hallmark, had spoken with the clarity of command. Insofar as he was concerned, that ended the matter. Johnson, with a lifetime in politics, thought in more subtle shades. He heard what Grant said, but assumed that the decision was not final and that he could convince the general to remain.83
The next afternoon, Sunday, January 12, Sherman called on Grant at his I Street home. Sitting in the library before a blazing fire, the two men discussed the situation once again. Grant repeated his determination not to remain in office. Neither man was enthusiastic about Stanton returning and Sherman suggested that Johnson be urged to appoint Governor Jacob D. Cox of Ohio as secretary of war. Cox was a moderate Republican and a former major general of volunteers with a superb war record.V He had not been critical of Johnson in the past, and his term as governor was about to expire. Sherman had already canvassed a number of senators and reported that Cox would be easily confirmed. Grant was enthusiastic. He knew Cox from the war, thought he would be acceptable to the army, and although he had opposed Negro suffrage, believed they could work together on Reconstruction. Most important, it would extricate Grant from an untenable position and would provide Johnson with a means of replacing Stanton with the Senate’s concurrence.
The generals spent the rest of the day drumming up support for Cox.84 Sherman’s father-in-law, former senator Thomas Ewing, Sr., lent a hand, telling the president that if he nominated Cox, his choice was certain to be ratified. Senator Reverdy Johnson of Maryland delivered a similar message. The president told both that he had a high opinion of Cox, but gave no intimation that he intended to act on their advice.
Early Monday morning Grant and Sherman met once again. Sherman reported that Johnson was apparently not going to send Cox’s name forward. Grant, disappointed, asked Cump to go at once to the White House and repeat the proposal, saying that Grant not only approved, but was enthusiastic about the possibility. Sherman dutifully walked across to the executive mansion and was admitted to see the president shortly after eleven. When he mentioned Cox, Johnson indicated that he did not intend to appoint him. Sherman told Grant afterward that since the president had obviously thought about it, “I did not deem it proper for me further to urge the matter, only stating that I thought General Cox in every way qualified, and that I knew from you personally that his appointment would be most acceptable.”85
Why Johnson declined to nominate Cox is unclear. Presidential biographers have suggested that stubbornness played a part: Johnson balked at having a cabinet choice dictated to him.86 Others have suggested that the president wanted to test the Tenure of Office Act in the courts and to do so he needed Stanton in the picture. A third possibility is that Johnson was deliberately seeking a showdown with the Senate, believing public opinion was on his side. Or it may be that Johnson didn’t fully appreciate what Grant had said on Saturday and simply assumed he would stay on.87
Grant did not see the president Monday. Late in the afternoon the Senate broke a halfhearted Democratic filibuster and voted 33–6 to approve the committee report and reinstate Stanton. To Grant the statute was clear: his term as secretary of war ad interim expired with the Senate vote.
That evening there was a levee at the White House. Grant did not plan to attend, but Julia, with a number of houseguests in tow, insisted on going and finally coaxed the general into accompanying them. When they arrived, Johnson grasped Grant’s hand cordially and the two men spoke amiably for a few minutes. Neither mentioned the action on the Senate floor or Grant’s decision to vacate the War Office. Afterward, Grant told Julia he “really felt embarrassed” because the president had been so cordial.88
The next morning Grant went to the War Department at his usual time. He went directly to the secretary’s office, bolted one door from the inside, locked the other from the outside, and turned the key over to the army’s adjutant general, whose office was down the corridor. “I am to be found at my office at army headquarters,” said Grant.89 He then wrote immediately to the president, enclosing an official copy of the Senate’s resolution reinstating Stanton. “My functions as Secretary of War, ad interim, ceased from the moment of the receipt of the within notice,” said Grant.90
What happened next took everyone by surprise. Grant had assumed that Stanton would contact him before returning to his office—permitting the general to gather his papers and close out business, just as he had done for Stanton when the secretary was suspended in August.91 That would still give Johnson time to find a replacement, allowing Grant to comply with the law while assisting the president to dump Stanton with the Senate’s concurrence. Unfortunately, Stanton made a bizarre rush into the breach. Upon receiving notice of the Senate’s action, he laid plans for a swift return to the War Department. Within minutes of the time Grant turned over the key, Stanton was back in his office, doing business as usual. First off, he peremptorily ordered Grant to report and be informed that he was back. Upset by this unexpected turn of events, Grant made his way across the street to the War Department, only to be further upset by the secretary’s brusque manner of receiving him. Whatever doubts Grant may have had about Stanton’s suitability as secretary of war came rushing back with a vengeance. As one scholar has noted, if Grant had known what Stanton intended, he probably would not have turned over the keys in the first place.92
Grant’s surprise that Stanton was back was nothing compared to the shock Johnson suffered. Summoning Grant to a meeting of the cabinet that afternoon, he asked for an explanation. Addressing the general as “Mr. Secretary,” the president peppered him with questions. Grant stood to reply. Firmly but politely he told the president that he was no longer the acting secretary of war and was present only because he had been invited. He reminded Johnson of their previous conversation. Grant said he had made it clear on Saturday that if the Senate voted to reinstate Stanton, he would step down. When the Senate acted, he did so. He was surprised that Stanton had moved so quickly to reoccupy the office, but he had nothing to do with that. Finally, Grant pointed out that both Sherman and Reverdy Johnson had called on the president to suggest that Governor Cox be nominated for the post. If Johnson had wanted to head Stanton off, he should have sent Cox’s name forward.93
Johnson was excited and indignant. He asserted that the Tenure of Office Act was unconstitutional and that Grant was under no obligation to obey it. If he was convicted for violating it, Johnson grandly announced that he would personally pay the fine and serve the jail sentence.94 The president then accused Grant of duplicity, suggesting that he had gone back on an earlier promise to hold the office until a suitable replacement could be found. Grant replied that he had given the president due notice that he did not intend to violate the statute. The discussion ended. Grant asked to be excused and walked out.95
The next morning the National Intelligencer, a Washington daily sympathetic to the administration, carried an account of the exchange between Johnson and Grant. Obviously primed by the White House, the article alleged that Grant had deceived the president and was working in collusion with Stanton. When Grant read the article, he was furious. Taking Sherman with him, he went to the White House to demand a correction. “The President received us promptly and kindly,” Sherman wrote afterward. “We were all seated. Nobody in the room but the President, [Grant], and myself.”96 When Grant called the president’s attention to the article, Johnson claimed he had not read it. “Well,” the general replied, “the idea is given there that I have not kept faith with you.” Grant restated his efforts to give Johnson time to make another appointment, noting once again that it was Stanton’s unexpected return that had upset everything. Sherman noted that the president seemed “gratified and pleased” by Grant’s explanation. At the conclusion of the conversation, Grant observed that just because Stanton was back in his old office, it did not automatically make him secretary of war, any more than if he were at home in his private library. Grant suggested that the president issue an order stating that “we of the Army are not bound to obey the orders of Mr. Stanton as Secretary of War.” Sherman reported that Johnson liked the idea and agreed to do so. Sherman also liked the idea. “I thought that your explanation, that Mr. Stanton’s being in a particular room did not make him lawful secretary of war, was conclusive,” he told Grant.97
At this point Johnson could have repaired the rift with Grant, worked around Stanton until he found a replacement acceptable to the Senate, and retained control of the situation. Instead, he chose to challenge Grant’s credibility. It was a fight he could not win. As the New York Tribune observed, “In a question of veracity between a soldier whose honor is as untarnished as the sun, and a President who has betrayed every friend, and broken every promise, the country will not hesitate.”98
For the next two weeks the press was filled with the quarrel. Leaks from the White House cascaded across the nation’s front pages. Democratic journals declared that Grant had “acted a part inconsistent with his honor as a gentleman.” False allegations resurfaced that Grant was drinking heavily; the New York Times outlandishly reported a capital rumor that Johnson had become so enraged that he broke a chair over Grant’s head.99 Stung by the president’s campaign, Grant decided it was time to protect himself. He was perfectly willing to circumvent Stanton if the president directed it, but given Johnson’s recent behavior the general thought it prudent to have those instructions on paper. “I have the honor, very respectfully, to request to have, in writing, the order which the President gave me verbally . . . to disregard the orders of the Hon. E. M. Stanton,” Grant wrote on January 24.100 Johnson procrastinated. Rather than go on record, the president turned once again to Sherman. Hope sprang eternal in Johnson’s breast, but Grant’s old comrade offered no succor. As decorously as he could, Sherman deflected the president’s overture and said that what he really wanted to do was return to St. Louis and settle down. For the past ten years, Cump told Johnson, he had not been at home more than thirty days out of every three hundred and sixty-five.101
On January 28 Grant, who was fast losing his patience, repeated his request for written instructions. His anger was evident. “I am compelled to ask these instructions in writing, in consequence of the many and grave misrepresentations, affecting my personal honor, circulated through the press for the last fortnight, purporting to come from you, the President, of conversations which occurred either with the President privately, or in Cabinet meeting . . . What is written admits of no misunderstanding,” Grant told the president.102
Taking that as his cue, the general proceeded to set down his own version of recent events. Grant was not yet ready to break with the president, but he was laying down an artillery barrage just in case. He reminded Johnson of their January 11 meeting, of his clearly expressed determination to step aside if the Senate voted to reinstate Stanton, and of the suggestion that Governor Cox be nominated in Stanton’s place. He concluded with a restatement of what had occurred at the cabinet meeting on January 13, and explicitly rejected the press reports inspired by the White House.
Sherman added his voice to Grant’s. Uncle Billy was still in Washington putting the final touches on his report revising the Articles of War, and on January 30 he called on Johnson in a last-ditch effort to smooth things over. The president, he found, was not interested. Johnson again offered Sherman the War Department and, failing that, suggested the creation of a new military command for him in the East with headquarters in Washington. Cump wouldn’t bite. He told Johnson that if the political atmosphere in Washington could ruffle the equanimity of someone so guarded and so prudent as Grant, “what will be the result with one so careless, so outspoken as I am. Washington, never.”103
By writing forcefully to the president, Grant hoped to lure Johnson to put his position on record. The president rose to the bait. On January 31, the White House delivered Johnson’s response to Grant’s letter. “My recollection of what transpired is diametrically the reverse of your narration,” wrote the president. Johnson then gave his own version of events, suggesting that Grant had collaborated with Stanton to allow the secretary to regain his office, and again accusing Grant of duplicity.104 With Johnson’s letter, the battle was joined.
Grant replied on February 3 recounting his dealings with Stanton and for all practical purposes calling the president a liar. “I here reassert the correctness of my statements in [my letter to you of January 28], anything in yours in reply to the contrary notwithstanding.” Grant’s prose was sharp. “The course you would have it understood I agreed to pursue,” he told Johnson, “was in violation of the law. The course I did pursue, and which I never doubted you fully understood, was in accordance with the law.” Having made clear that he was not going to cooperate with the president in evading the will of Congress, Grant counterattacked: “And now, Mr. President, where my honor as a soldier and integrity as a man have been so violently assailed, pardon me for saying that I can but regard this whole matter, from the beginning to the end, as an attempt to involve me in the resistance to the law, for which you hesitated to assume the responsibility in orders, and thus to destroy my character before the country.”105
The exchange between Grant and Johnson quickly became public knowledge. Congress asked for the correspondence, and Grant won the nation’s support hands down. “General Grant has driven his pen through the President like a spear,” the New York Independent reported. Another New York daily, calling the affair “a paltry personal wrangle,” noted that Grant’s reputation had not been damaged in any way. “It simply adds another to the proofs his whole career has afforded, that he obeys the law and is content with doing his duty.”106 Radical Republicans were beside themselves. When Thaddeus Stevens saw Grant’s letter, he rejoiced. “He is a bolder man than I thought him,” declared the High Priest of Radicalism.107 A Midwestern Republican told Washburne that the exchange “has imparted a ground swell to the tide of [Grant’s] popularity.” The abolitionist National Anti-Slavery Standard, not always in Grant’s corner, praised the general effusively: “The correspondence is altogether creditable to the great soldier. It will relieve the anxieties of the American people as to his real status.” When the dust settled, it remained for the New York Times to sum up the episode: “General Grant’s heavy guns have almost completely silenced the small artillery of his traducers.”108
The letters that passed between Grant and Johnson ended any possibility of reconciliation. Before the exchange, Grant had sought to preserve an outward appearance of harmonious subordination to the president. When the publication of their correspondence tore away that facade, the two men became implacable enemies. Aside from the most formal communications, contact between them ceased. Grant was not yet a candidate for president. But as Adam Badeau observed, the general’s letter of February 3 was “a stroke of political genius; it made any candidate other than Grant impossible for the Republicans. Of course, Grant might and probably would have been President had the correspondence never occurred; but the letter made his nomination and election certain.”109
With Stanton hanging on and Grant estranged, Johnson was now isolated from the army. Yet again he turned to Sherman. Advisers close to the president warned him that Uncle Billy would not take a position that placed him at odds with Grant, but Johnson persisted, created a new military division,VI ordered Sherman to it, and sent his brevet nomination for four-star general to the Senate. Sherman was appalled. “I never felt so troubled in my life,” he wrote Grant. “Were it an order to go to Sitka, to the Devil, to do battle with rebels or Indians, you would not hear a whimper from me. But it comes in such a questionable form that, like Hamlet’s Ghost, it curdles my blood.”110 Sherman immediately wired his brother to fight his promotion on the Senate floor, loosed a blizzard of letters to friends in Washington asking them to intervene, and then wrote Johnson to decline the post. Sherman told the president that he had no desire to be placed in a position opposed to Grant. “Our relations have always been most confidential and friendly, and if unhappily any cloud of difficulty should arise between us, my sense of personal dignity and duty would leave me no alternative but resignation.”111
Confronted with Sherman’s opposition, Johnson had no alternative but to abandon his plans and retract his orders. Before doing so, however, he made a final, desperate effort to entice George Thomas to take the post. On February 22, and without informing Thomas, Johnson sent his name to the Senate with a recommendation that he be promoted to brevet lieutenant general and brevet general. Like Sherman, Thomas had no desire to go to Washington. “Whilst sincerely thanking you for the proposed compliment,” he wired the president, “I earnestly request you to recall the nomination. I have done no service since the war to deserve so high a compliment, and it is now too late to be regarded as a compliment if confirmed for services during the war.”112
Johnson had run out of options. He could not whip Grant in the court of public opinion, he could not outflank him with Sherman and Thomas, and he could not remove him without violating an act of Congress. At this point the president turned his attention back to Stanton. If he were going to have any influence on the army, it would have to be through a new secretary of war. This is where Johnson made the mistake that almost brought him down. Rather than replace Stanton with a new appointee acceptable to the Senate, he tried to bull his way through, defy the Tenure of Office Act, and confront Congress with a fait accompli.
Johnson first tapped the chief clerk of the War Department, John Potts, to succeed Stanton, but Potts wanted nothing to do with the scheme. The president then turned to a longtime fixture in Washington society, the aging and garrulous Major General Lorenzo Thomas, former adjutant general of army. Thomas was well past his prime but he detested Stanton (the feeling was mutual), and he agreed to throw in with the president. On February 21, Johnson provided Thomas with written orders relieving Stanton and appointing him to be the new secretary of war.113 Neither the cabinet nor Johnson’s Democratic supporters in Congress were informed beforehand.114
That afternoon Thomas delivered the president’s letter to Stanton. Grant was with the secretary at the time, and Stanton, in Grant’s presence, asked Thomas for time to consider whether he would obey. Thomas left the room briefly, Grant urged Stanton to stick to his post, and the secretary, fortified by the general in chief’s presence, subsequently advised Thomas that he would not yield. News of the encounter flashed through Washington like wildfire. Republicans in Congress rushed to the War Department to urge Stanton to resist. Charles Sumner sent his famous oneword telegram, “Stick,” and Grant took the necessary measures to secure the War Department against all comers. Late that afternoon the Senate went into executive session and shortly before 9 P.M. passed a resolution reaffirming that the president had no right to relieve Stanton.115 In the House, Representative John Covode offered a motion to impeach Johnson for high crimes and misdemeanors. The House adjourned before action could be taken, but on Monday February 24, it voted 128–47 to approve the resolution. Then the House appointed a committee to draw up specific charges.116, VII
During most of Johnson’s impeachment trial Grant remained a passive observer. He was summoned to give testimony about his conversation with the president, and did so without any show of animosity.117 Many of Grant’s supporters were initially reluctant to support impeachment for fear it might jeopardize the general’s chances for election. Should Johnson be removed, and since the office of vice president was vacant, Benjamin Wade of Ohio, a fire-eating Radical who was president pro tempore of the Senate, would become president. Some worried that once in the White House he might be able to corral the necessary convention support to deny Grant the nomination. The general was unconcerned. “Impeachment seems to grow in popularity,” he wrote Sheridan at the end of March, “and indications are that the trial will not be protracted.”118
Grant supported conviction because (among other things) he thought Johnson created too much turbulence in his wake. Writing to his old friend Charles Ford, the general allowed as how he thought the president’s removal would “give peace to the country.”119 Newspapers put Grant’s position in stark terms of policy. The New York Tribune quoted him as saying “the acquittal of Mr. Johnson would threaten the country, especially the South, with revolution and bloodshed.”120 But it was Senator John B. Henderson of Missouri to whom Grant may have confided his deepest reason. Riding alongside Henderson on a streetcar shortly before the vote, Grant said, “I would impeach him because he is such an infernal liar.”121
Johnson survived impeachment by one vote. Thirty-five senators voted to convict and nineteen to acquit: one short of the constitutional two thirds required to remove the president from office. Seven Republicans joined the Senate’s twelve Democrats in voting to dismiss the charges. In an ironic twist of fate, Grant played a pivotal role in securing Johnson’s acquittal. The moderate Republicans who voted no were all “Grant men.”VIII They were reluctant to make Wade president, yet they were also determined that if Johnson remained in office he not interfere with Reconstruction. It was James Grimes of Iowa who struck the deal with the president whereby Johnson pledged that if acquitted he would abide by the statutes and take no rash action. Convinced of Johnson’s sincerity, Grimes passed the word to his colleagues that they could vote for acquittal without fear of the consequences.122 Grimes also suggested that Johnson appoint a new secretary of war acceptable to the Senate. After some additional prodding the president settled on Major General John Schofield, a protégé of Grant who headed the military district of Virginia. Schofield was the last of the original five military commanders in the South. He had just replaced the governor of Virginia and was fresh from the state convention that had adopted a new constitution.123
Schofield was approached by William Evarts, Johnson’s principal defense lawyer, the afternoon of April 21 at the Willard Hotel. Schofield said he would have to ask Grant, with whom he was having dinner that evening. The general in chief made it clear that he favored Johnson’s impeachment, but said he had no objection to Schofield accepting the post. Schofield saw Evarts again that evening, then Grant again, and finally accepted, on condition that Johnson commit himself to the enforcement of the Reconstruction Acts. Johnson agreed, and Schofield’s name was sent to the Senate on April 25, 1868. By concurring in Schofield’s appointment, Grant helped to provide the moderate Republican votes that acquitted Johnson.124, IX
On May 20, four days after Johnson’s acquittal, the Republican convention convened in Chicago. Eight thousand people jammed Crosby’s Opera House to watch the Grand Old Party nominate Grant. Bishop Matthew Simpson, Radical leader of the Methodist Church, opened with a prayer. Carl Schurz of Missouri gave the keynote address, a ringing appeal for justice to the Union men and freedmen of the South. A platform embodying those demands was quickly adopted. Then Major General John “Black Jack” Logan, back in Congress from his old district in Illinois, but now as a Republican, rose to place Grant’s name in nomination. No other candidate was offered, and the convention unanimously made Grant its nominee. For vice president, the delegates picked House Speaker Schuyler Colfax on the fifth ballot, passing over Benjamin Wade and a host of favorite sons.
In Washington Grant went quietly about his duties. Up to the hour of the convention he had given no indication of any interest in the nomination.125 While he was being acclaimed in Chicago, he was working at his desk at army headquarters. Across the street in the War Department, Stanton sat by the telegraph awaiting news. As soon as Grant’s nomination was confirmed, the secretary rushed over to the general’s office. “I had never seen Stanton there before,” wrote Badeau, “but this time he did not send for Grant.”
“General,” Stanton exclaimed, “I have come to tell you that you have been nominated by the Republican party for President of the United States.” Grant received the news in silence and stolidly accepted Stanton’s congratulations. “There was no shade of exaltation or agitation on his face, not a flush on his cheek, nor a flash in his eye,” Badeau remembered. “I doubt whether he felt elated, even in those recesses where he concealed his innermost thoughts.”126
That night there was celebration throughout the country. Senator John Sherman caught the mood: “Your nomination,” he told Grant, “was not made by our party but by the people, and in obedience to the universal demand that our candidate should be so independent of party politics as to be a guarantee of peace and quiet.”127
The following evening, a great procession formed on Pennsylvania Avenue, headed by the marine band, and marched to serenade the nominee. Congressman George Boutwell of Massachusetts introduced Grant as “the next president of the United States.” The general responded with his first political speech.
Gentlemen, being entirely unaccustomed to public speaking and without the desire to cultivate the power, it is impossible for me to find appropriate language to thank you for the demonstration. All I can say is, that to whatever position I may be called by your will, I shall endeavor to discharge its duties with fidelity and honesty of purpose. Of my rectitude in the performance of public duties you will have to judge for yourselves by the record before you.128
The week after the convention, General Joseph R. Hawley, its presiding officer, led a delegation to Washington to make a formal tender of the nomination to Grant and Colfax. The two candidates, their wives, and more than a hundred friends and supporters received the delegates in Grant’s I Street home. Dressed in black, the general stood while Hawley spoke, and then replied briefly expressing his thanks. In a formal letter written the next day, Grant accepted the nomination, endorsed the platform, and promised to administer the laws in accordance with the popular will. He closed with elegant simplicity: “Let us have peace.”129
I. Article I, Section 4 of the Constitution specified that Congress should convene each year on the first Monday in December “unless they shall by Law appoint a different Day.” The action by the 39th Congress marked the first time a new Congress did not convene initially in December. The constitutional requirement to meet in December was repealed by the Twentieth [“Lame Duck”] Amendment, adopted in 1933, which provides that the new Congress meet on January 3 immediately following the election.
II. On July 25, 1866, Grant was confirmed by the Senate as general of the army, an unprecedented four-star rank. Upon Grant’s promotion, Sherman was elevated to the lieutenant generalcy.
III. Army headquarters was located in the Winder Building on the west side of 17th Street opposite the White House. The War Department was on the east side of 17th, backing onto the grounds of the executive mansion. Grant did his best to keep his two positions distinct. He visited both offices daily, going first to the War Department, then to army headquarters. His staff did not accompany him to the War Department and he made no changes in department routine. Letters to the secretary of war went one place, those to the commanding general to another. Adam Badeau reports that when he was required to see Grant in his office as secretary of war, “I thought he received me with more formality than at other times; but on his return to his headquarters later in the day he threw aside the manner of a Cabinet Minister and was a soldier with his staff, as intimate and unrestrained as ever.” Badeau said he thought whenever anything came before Grant as secretary of war, he decided the matter as he thought Stanton would have done, whether he felt that way or not. Adam Badeau, Grant In Peace 109–10 (Hartford, Conn.: Scranton, 1887).
IV. Section 5 of the Tenure of Office Act provided: “That if any person shall, contrary to the provisions of this Act, accept any appointment to or employment in any office, or shall hold or exercise any such office or employment, he shall be deemed, and is hereby declared to be, guilty of a high misdemeanor, and upon trial and conviction thereof, he shall be punished therefor by a fine not exceeding ten thousand dollars or by imprisonment not exceeding five years, or both said punishments, in the discretion of the court.”
V. Born in Montreal and educated at Oberlin, Jacob D. Cox was one of the leading lawyers in Ohio when the Civil War began. He was also a brigadier general in the militia, and led the first troops who volunteered across the Ohio and up the Kanawha against Lee in 1861. Subsequently a division commander under Sherman, McPherson, and Thomas, he fought with distinction in Georgia and Tennessee, rising to become commander of the 23rd Corps in the Army of the Ohio during the battle for Atlanta. His spirited stand at the battle of Franklin, November 30, 1864, paved the way for Thomas’s smashing victory over Hood at Nashville two weeks later.
VI. On February 12, 1868, Johnson instructed Grant to create a new military division, “to be called the Division of the Atlantic, to be composed of the Department of the Lakes, the Department of the East, and the Department of Washington, and to be commanded by Lieutenant General William T. Sherman, with his headquarters at Washington.” 13 Johnson Papers 556.
VII. On Sunday, February 23, the president called the commander of the military district of Washington, Major General William H. Emory, to the White House to inquire about troop dispositions in the capital. Emory replied that no great changes had taken place, but that under the Military Appropriations Act any orders the president might have would have to come through General Grant. Johnson said the act was unconstitutional; Emory said that might be so, but he was bound by it. Trial of Andrew Johnson 233–36 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1868).
VIII. William Pitt Fessenden of Maine; Joseph F. Fowler, Tennessee; James W. Grimes, Iowa; John B. Henderson, Missouri; Edmund F. Ross, Kansas; Lyman Trumbull, Illinois; and Peter G. Van Winkle of West Virginia.
IX. Johnson’s trial in the Senate, like that of Justice Samuel Chase in 1805, provides compelling parallels to more recent proceedings. In both the Johnson and Chase trials, the House managers were partisan politicians who proved no match for the seasoned legal professionals deployed by the defense. President Johnson’s counsel—William Evarts, Benjamin R. Curtis, Henry Stanbery, and William S. Groesbeck—were men of outstanding character and ability who demonstrated effectively how little protection the Tenure of Office Act afforded Lincoln’s appointees. Evarts and Curtis were especially devastating in their arguments. Evarts subsequently served as secretary of state under Hayes; Curtis had been an associate justice of the Supreme Court (1851–1857) and played an important role in shaping the constitutional law of the era. (He dissented in Dred Scott.)
The House managers, Thaddeus Stevens, George Boutwell, Benjamin Butler, John Logan, Thomas Williams, James Wilson, and John Bingham, were shrill, unfocused, and too careless with the fine points of the law. As The Nation, which favored conviction, noted afterward, “The Managers were overmastered throughout in learning and ability. There is no way now in passing this over without notice. The contrast was patent to everybody throughout the trial and was a constant subject of comment.” 6 The Nation 404 (May 21, 1868).