US Presidency
1868

With an order so clearly ambiguous as that of the President here referred to, it was my duty to inform the President of my interpretation of it and to abide by that interpretation until I received other orders. Disclaiming any intention, now or heretofore, of disobeying any legal order of the President distinctly communicated, I remain, very respectfully, your obedient servant, U. S. GRANT, General. WAR DEPARTMENT, Washington City, January 27, 1868. General U. S. GRANT, Commanding Army United States. It has been represented to this Department that in October last a military commission was appointed to settle upon some general plan of defense for the Texas frontiers, and that the said commission has made a report recommending a line of posts from the Rio Grande to the Red River. An application is now pending in this Department for a change in the course of the San Antonio and El Paso mail, so as to send it by way of Forts Mason, Griffin, and Stockton instead of Camps Hudson and Lancaster.