Military Reminiscences of the Civil War, vol 2 (November 1863-June 1865) | Page 4

to conference--Lee's surrender--The Greensborough meeting--Approach of Stoneman's cavalry raid--Vance's deputation to Sherman--Davis orders their arrest--Vance asserts his loyalty--Attempts to concentrate Confederate forces on the Greensborough-Charlotte line--Cabinet meeting--Overthrow of the Confederacy acknowledged--Davis still hopeful--Yields to the cabinet--Dictates Johnston's letter to Sherman--Sherman's reply--Meeting arranged--Sherman sends preliminary correspondence to Washington--The Durham meeting--The negotiations--Two points of difficulty--Second day's session--Johnston's power to promise the disbanding of the civil government--The terms agreed upon--Transmittal letters--Assembling the Virginia legislature--Sherman's wish to make explicit declaration of the end of slavery--The assassination affecting public sentiment--Sherman's personal faith in Johnston--He sees the need of modifying the terms--Grant's arrival.
CHAPTER L
THE SECOND SHERMAN-JOHNSTON CONVENTION--SURRENDER
Davis's last cabinet meeting--Formal opinions approving the "Basis"--"The Confederacy is conquered"--Grant brings disapproval from the Johnston administration--Sherman gives notice of the termination of the truce--No military disadvantage from it--Sherman's vindication of himself--Grant's admirable conduct--Johnston advises Davis to yield--Capitulation assented to, but a volunteer cavalry force to accompany Davis's flight--A new conference at Durham--Davis's imaginary treasure--Grant's return to Washington--Terms of the parole given by Johnston's army--The capitulation complete--Schofield and his army to carry out the details--The rest of Sherman's army marches north--His farewell to Johnston--Order announcing the end of the war--Johnston's fine reply--Stanton's strange dispatch to the newspapers--Its tissue of errors--Its baseless objections--Sherman's exasperation--Interference with his military authority over his subordinates--Garbling Grant's dispatch--Sherman strikes back--Breach between Sherman and Halleck--It also grew out of the published matter--Analysis of the facts--My opinion as recorded at the time.
CHAPTER LI
PAROLING AND DISBANDING JOHNSTON'S ARMY--CLOSING SCENES OF THE WAR IN NORTH CAROLINA
General Schofield's policy when left in command--Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation in force--Davis's line of flight from Charlotte, N. C.--Wade Hampton's course of conduct--Fate of the cabinet officers--Bragg, Wheeler, and Cooper--Issuing paroles to Johnston and his army--Greensborough in my district--Going there with Schofield--Hardee meets and accompanies us--Comparing memories--We reach Johnston's headquarters--Condition of his army--Our personal interview with him--The numbers of his troops--His opinion of Sherman's army--Of the murder of Lincoln--Governor Morehead's home--The men in gray march homeward--Incident of a flag--The Salisbury prison site--Treatment of prisoners of war--Local government in the interim--Union men--Elements of new strife--The negroes--Household service--Wise dealing with the labor question--No money--Death of manufactures--Necessity the mother of invention--Uses of adversity--Peace welcomed--Visit to Greene's battle-field at Guilford-Old-Court-House.

APPENDIX C
INDEX

MILITARY REMINISCENCES OF THE CIVIL WAR
CHAPTER XXVII
GRANT IN COMMAND--ROSECRANS RELIEVED
Importance of unity in command--Inevitable difficulties in a double organization--Burnside's problem different from that of Rosecrans--Cooperation necessarily imperfect--Growth of Grant's reputation--Solid grounds of it--Special orders sent him--Voyage to Cairo--Meets Stanton at Louisville--Division of the Mississippi created--It included Burnside's and Rosecrans's departments--Alternate forms in regard to Rosecrans--He is relieved--Thomas succeeds him--Grant's relations to the change--His intellectual methods--Taciturnity--Patience--Discussions in his presence--Clear judgments--His "good anecdote"--Rosecrans sends Garfield to Washington--Congressman or General--Duplication of offices--Interview between Garfield and Stanton--Dana's dispatches--Garfield's visit to me--Description of the rout of Rosecrans's right wing--Effect on the general--Retreat to Chattanooga--Lookout Mountain abandoned--The President's problem--Dana's light upon it--Stanton's use of it--Grant's acquiescence--Subsequent relations of Garfield and Rosecrans--Improving the "cracker line"--Opening the Tennessee--Combat at Wauhatchie.
It is very evident that, at the close of September, Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Stanton had become satisfied that a radical change must be made in the organization of the Western armies. The plan of sending separate armies to co-operate, as Rosecrans's and Burnside's had been expected to do, was in itself vicious. It is, after a fashion, an attempt of two to ride a horse without one of them riding behind. Each will form a plan for his own army, as indeed he ought to do, and when one of them thinks the time has come for help from the other, that other may be out of reach or committed to operations which cannot readily be dropped. It is almost axiomatic that in any one theatre of operations there must be one head to direct. [Footnote: Napoleon used to ridicule the vicious practice of subdividing armies in the same theatre of war. He called it putting them up in small parcels, "des petits paquets." Memoirs of Gouvion St.-Cyr, vol. iv.] In the present case it ought to have been evident to the authorities at Washington that as soon as Burnside occupied East Tennessee, both distance and the peculiar conditions of his problem would forbid any efficient cooperation with Rosecrans. The latter was the junior in rank, and knew that, whatever might be Burnside's generosity, there were many possible contingencies in such a campaign in which the War Department might find it the easy solution of a difficulty to direct the senior officer to assume the command of both armies. So long as matters went well, Rosecrans had little or no communication with Burnside; but as soon as the enemy began to show a bold front, he became impatient for assistance. The perplexities of his own situation made him blind to those of Burnside. This is human nature, and was, no doubt, true of both in varying degrees. Halleck,