The home journal. (Winchester, Tenn.) 1858-188?, 1869-05-06
A LEAF FROM HISTORY.
General Sherman's Late Letter on
General j. Il. JOhnsOn's
r Surrender.

oIk-Ah your issue OF yesterday Is
notice of Mr.. Healey's picture, repre-
senting the interview between Mr.. Lin
coin, General Grant, Admiral Porter
and myself, which repeats substantial
ly the account published some time
ago in "Wilkes' Spirit of the Times
explanatory Of the interview, and attri-
buting to Mr.. Lincoln himself the pa.
ternity Of the terms to General John
sons army ut Durham, in April, 1865.
lam glad you have called public at
tention to the picture itself, because /
feel o personal interest that Mr.. Heal
ey should be appreciated as one ofour
best American artists. But some
friends here thinks by Silence may be
construed as willing to throw off on
Mr.. Lincoln the odium of those terms
If there be any odium, which I doubt. /
surely would not be willing that the
least show of it should go to Mr.. Lin
coins memory, which hold in too
much vcncration to be stained by any
thing done or said by me. l under
stand that the substance Of Mr.. Wilkes
original article was compiled by HIM
after q railroad conversation with Adj
miral Porter, who was present at that
interview as represented in the picture,
and who made note of the conversa-
ton Immediately after We separated.
He would be more likely to have pre-
served the exact words used on the oc-
casion, than | who made no notes,
then, or since. cannot now even
pretend to recall more than the subjects
touched upon by the several parties,
and the impression left upon my mind
after we parted. The interview was in
March, nearly month before the final
catastrophe; and it was my part of the
plan of operations to move my army,
re enforced by Schofield, then at Colds
boro, North Carolina, to Burkesville,
Virginia, when Lee would have been
forced to surrender in Richmond. The
true move left to him was q hasty
abandonment of Richmond, join his
force to Johnson's, and strike me in
the open country. The only question
was could l sustain this joint attack
till General Grant came up in pursuit 7
1 was confident could but at the very
moment of our conversation General
Grant was moving General Sheridan
heavy force Of cavalry to his extreme
left. to prevent this very contingency.
Mr. Lincoln in hearing us speak Of a
final bloody battle which then thought
would fall on me near Raleigh, did ex-
claim mole than once that blood enough
had already been shed, and he hoped
the war would end without any more.
We spoke Of what was to be done with
Davis, other party leaders and the reb-
el army; and he left me under the i'm
preston that all he asked of US was to
dissipate these armies, and to get the
soldiers back to their homes, the quick
er the better, leaving him free to ap-
| ply the remedy, and the restoration OF
civil law. He (Mr. Lincoln) surely
left upon my mind the impression war
ranted by Admiral Porter's account,
that he had long thought of his course
of action when the rebel armies were
out of his way, and that he wanted to
get civil governments reorganized at
the South, the quicker the better, and
strictly conforming with our general
system.
had been absent so long that pre-
sumed of course, that Congress had
enacted all the laws necessary to meet
the event Of peace, SO long expected,
and the near approach Of which must
then have been seen by the most OBJ
tusc and all / aimed to do was to re-
nit the rebel army surrondering to me
the conditions of the laws of the coun-
try as they then existed. AT the time
of Johnson's surrender at Durham, /
drew up the terms with MY own hand.
Breckenridge had nothing at all to do
with them, more than to discuss their
effect, and he knew they only applied
to the military and he forthwith pro-
ceeded to make his escape from the
country, a course that l believe Mr..
Lincoln wished that Mr.. Davis should
have succeeded in efecting, as well rs
all the other leading Southern politi-
clans, against whom public indigna-
ton always turned with q feeling far
more intense than against Generals
Lee, Johnson, and other purely militia
ry men.
repeat, that according to my men,
DRY, Mr.. Lincoln did not expressly
name any specific terms Of surrender,
but he was in that kindly and gentle
frame of mind that would have induced
him to approve fully what I did, excep-
ting probably he would have interlined
some notifications, such - recogniz-
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