his statement that he induced Johnston to give up his arms, under a promise of protection, while his real intention was to prosecute him to the extent of the lawall will stand against Sherman's reputation as an honorable man to the last syllable of recorded time. He has deliberately made his own record, and he is to be held responsible at the bar of history for it. I am not aware, nor have I ever heard, that Sherman anywhere, at any time, sought to redeem the pledge he made at Durham's station. Not so the great soldier, his superior. There was not a moment, from the surrender at Appomattox court-house until his death, that the heart of Grant was not full of generosity to his late foes. If Lincoln had lived, the people would have been saved great suffering; but Lincoln dead, Grant stood "like a stonewall" between the soldiers, who had his parole, and the blood-hounds baying on their track. There was a mature, deliberate, carefully concocted plan to indict, try, convict and punish Lee. The President of the United States instructed the Judge of the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia to secure the indictment of President Davis and Gen. Lee for treason.* In May, 1866, accordingly, an indictment was found. against the commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, and a motion made for a bench warrant for his arrest. Lee inclosed a copy of the newspaper notice of these transactions to Grant, then the General in command of the armies of the United States. *Chase's Decisions, p. 1. Without a moment's hesitation or an instant's doubt, Grant addressed a letter to the President of the United States, insisting, in fiery terms, that it was a question of his honor, of his faith, that all proceedings against Lee should be promptly suppressed, and, upon some discussion raised, intimated that his resignation was the alternative to a refusal of his demand. So peremptory a demand admitted of no paltering, and the proceeding against Lee was suspended. Shortly afterward, another officer, included in the terms of the Durham convention, which Grant had signed, was arrested in Baltimore on an indictment for overt acts of treason committed at the battle of Gettysburg. Gen. Johnston, with the officer who had been arrested, waited on Grant at army headquarters at Washington, and claimed the protection of the parole. Grant at once wrote to the President of the United States, insisting, in the clearest and most emphatic terms, that all Confederate soldiers embraced in the terms of the convention, were entitled to be protected from molestation to person or property in any manner, and that the public faith of the United States was pledged to this course of action. * *See Appendix A. THE CHAPTER XV. THE RECORD OF SHERMAN'S DRAGONNADE. HE introduction of the account of the barbarous proceedings during the campaign from Atlanta to Goldsboro is necessary, because to form a proper estimate of the character and career of Johnston, he must be seen by the light of contemporaneous sentiments and feelings, and of surrounding circumstances. His stature can best be measured by that of his comrades, or his adversaries. In the midst of the most cruel and barbarous war that has been waged in Christendom among Christians for three centuries, he never lost his poise. He was always the knightly soldier, the Christian warrior, and no man or woman or child ever lived who could say that Johnston cost them one tear. His soul was as clear, his hands as unstained as any knightly pilgrim of tradition, or of fable. Like Lee, he never for an instant yielded to the clamor of revenge, of hate, and of folly, that filled the air with demands for "retaliation, no quarter, and the black flag." Like Davis, his soul abhorred all cowardly and cruel measures. When a distinct retaliation, for a distinct crime, could have the effect of preventing a repetition of it, or when a threat of retaliation was necessary to save the commissioned officers of the army or navy of the Confederacy from an ignominious death, Gen. Johnston approved of applying the remedy promptly and vigor ously. But there is not an incident in his whole career as soldier for which his countrymen, Federal or Confederate, need now to blush. Posterity is a relentless judge. History is an unerring arbiter, and the truth, the facts, have been recorded here, so that all the actors concerned in these events may have meted out to them the justice of the final judgment of men; with the other we dare not meddle. But it is right and expedient that men should be held responsible in this world for conduct, so that their example, and their fate may deter future generations from imitating them. It is believed that no American general, suppressing future resistance to Government by armed force, will ever instigate or countenance or permit such barbarities as were perpetrated during this dragonnade of these States. Washington did not do it in putting down the whiskey insurrection in Pennsylvania, nor did Lincoln in dispersing Shay's rebellion in Massachusetts. Says McMaster: "Lincoln's march from Boston to Springfield was conducted with the greatest regard for the feelings and property of the inhabitants."* Washington's march, from Carlisle to Bedford, and thence to Parkinson's Ferry, was conducted with discipline and humanity. Their troops were old soldiers of the Revolution, or soldiers' sons. They never dreamed of such a sentiment, that an invaded people should be left"only eyes to weep.” It is hoped that no future American soldier will feel, or utter such a one. *McMaster's "People of the United States," Vol. I, p. 319. |