Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1865-05-05
The Cincinnati Commercial ON Sec
~, ~ retary GastmrOn.N

tAfM retary Stanton.
The Cincinnati Commercial Of Monday COM
tnentcd on Secretary STANToN's dispatch
accompanying the SHERMAN-JoH
peace treaty with deserved severity. This
is specimen of the manner in which The
Commercial felt constrained to speak of Sec
retary STANTON in this connection:
So glaring was the impropriety of some
of the paragraphs that have recently reach
ed us over the signature of Edwin Nj. STAN
ton, that we seriously doubted their gen
uineness, and .hesitated to publish them,
fearing that, by some mysterious accident
i'm the telegraph office, that which the Sec
retary of War had written for the public
information, had been mixed with the sem
sation specials of a New York reporter in
Washington. The following is a passage
of the responsible paternity OF which,
though it came in an official bulletin, we
were incredulous, until all room for doubt
was removed: tlss.E E
"The orders of General Sherman to Cen
eral Stoneman, to withdraw from Salisbury
and join him, will probably open the way
for Davis to escape to Mexico or Europe
with his plumber" "l MY" f'n ~
This The Neto York Tribune appropriately
classifies with "the stuff that fools are ted
on" and says to its readers, in commenting
on the silly letter about General Sherman,
written at Richmond and published in The
London Times ~ 't'1f
"I.et MS not be frightened out of our COM
mon sense by such hobgoblns as these, eUen
if such high authority as the War Department
assures the country that The removal Of a mill
tdry force from little uilldge in a spdrsely pop
ulated region Of North Carolina opened the gates
| Of lerico, too thousand miles doodb TO the es-
cape Of JET. Davis" L.-
| Further, to show how little weight at
taches to the probabilities that the Secre-
| tary of War conjures from his heated imag-
| nation, and thrusts upon the country, we
quote from rebel dispatch, dated Augusta,
Ca, April IL, as follows: .'l ..4' 'Fl
salisbury, N. c., was reoccupied by our
troops on the 18th. The Yankees did not
do much damage in the place." ',,h
This is simple news dispatch. The reb-
els could have had no interest in deceiving
any one about the date of their re-occupa-
| tion of the place, and it is undoubtedly au-
thentic. So it appears that Salisbury was
| in possession of the rebels after the retire
ment of Stoneman, four days before Sher-
man was accused of withdrawing him from
that place.
But the inconsiderate personal attacks
upon General Sherman are of less conse-
quence than some other things to which our
attention is forcibly directed, and for which
we are indebted to the inconsiderate course
of the Secretary of War. Whether the
weapons he has been placing in the hands
of the chiefs of the Copperheads will bear
an edge, may be seen in the following spec
linen, which we take from The Dayton En-
pire:
KEEP IT BEFORE THE PEoPLE-That the
Secretary of War declares that rebels while
in their most prosperous condition. were
not only willing, without further fighting,
to surrender their arms, disperse their ar
mics, admit the Federal Courts and other
authority within their States, restore the
Union, dissolve the Confederacy, yield to
the Constitution, obey the laws and take
oaths ofallegiance to the United States, but
to do better than this; but that the late Ad-
ministration deliberately, repeatedly and
solemnly rejected their propositions. See
Stanton's official dispatch of April %,
1861" p,
In the list of nine reasons "among many"
assigned for the rejection of the Sherman
memorandum, the following was the 8th:
sit gave terms that had been deliberately,
repeatedly and solemnly rejected by Pres
ident Lincoln, and better terms than the
rebels had ever asked i'll their most pros
porous condition" ''.
1t can not be disputed that The Empires
Interpretation of this text is admissible, but
there is to be observed, in this connection,
the fact that the nine reasons for the repu-
diation of the North Carolina conference,
while universally accepted as official were
not actually included in the war bulletin
over the signature of the Secretary of War,
but were an appendix to it.
If they were not the Secretary's own pro-
duction, it is time he took the benefit of de-
nying them, for the people, as the case
stands, must ask themselves whether they
have suffered from an unparalleled and aw-
full delusion as to the necessity Of the war,
or whether Secretary Stanton has been so
eager to make up case against General
Sherman as to be needless of the truth. We
know, however, for the whole history of
the country for four years. with the excep-
tion of this single item, is in proof, that the
rebels never asked any terms, or would ac
cept any, Inconsistent with the recognition
and independence Of the Southern Confed-
eracy, until they asked them of Sherman.