Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1869-04-23
The Surrender OF GEN. Commentaries
frnm General Gherrnan

The Surrender OF GEN. Johnston-Letter
from General Sherman.
To the editor Of the Tribune.
SIR: In your issue of yesterday is a
notice of Mr.. Healy's picture representing
the interview between Mr.. Lincoln, Gen.
eral Grant, Admiral Porter, and myself.
which repeats substantially the account
published some time ago in Wilkes's Spirit
of the Times. explanatory of that inter
view, and attributing to Mr.. Lincoln him
self the paternity of the terms to General
Johnston's army at Durham, in April
1866.
I am glad you have called public atten
ton to the picture itself, because l. feel q
personal interest that Mr.. Healy should be
appreciated as one of our very best Ameri-
can artists. But some friends here think
by silence may be construed as willing to
throw off on Mr.. Lincoln the odium OF
those terms. If there be any odium, which
doubt, surely would not be willing that
the least show of it should go to Mr. Lin
coins memory, which ! hold in too much
veneration to be stained by anything done
or said by me. I understand that the sub.
stance of Mr.. Wilkes's original article was
compiled by him after railroad CONVEX.
sation with Admiral Porter, who was pres
ent at that interview as represented in the
picture, and who made q note of the con-
versation Immediately after We separated.
He would be more likely to have preserved
the exact words used on the occasion 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 i'm,
preston left on my mind after we
parted. The interview was III March,
nearly month before the final catastro-
phe; and it was my part of the plan of
operations to move the army, reinforced
by Scho1iell, then at Goldsboro', N. c., to
Burkesville, Va, when Lee would have
been forced to surrender in Richmond
The true move left TO him was hasty
Abandonment Of Richmond, Join his force
to Johnsou's, and strike me in the open
country. The only question was -
Could | sustain this joint attack till Genl
Grant came up in pursuit I Was conf
dent could; but at the very moment of
our conversation General Grant was NOV
ing General Sheridan's heavy force of cav
airy to his extreme left, to prevent the
very contingency. Mr. Lincoln, in hear
ing us speak Of final bloody battle,
which I then thought would fall on me
near Raleigh, did exclaim more than once,
that blood enough had already been shed,
andh hoped that the war would end without
any more. We spoke of what was to be
done with Davis, other party leaders, and
the rebel army and he left me under the
impression that all he asked of us was to
dissipate these armies, and get the soldiers
back to their homes anyhow, the quicker
the better, leaving him free to apply the
remedy, and the restoration of civil law
He Mr.. Lincolu) surely left upon my
mind the impression warranted by Admi-
raj Porter's account, that he had long
thought Of his course of action when the
rebel armies were out of the way, and that
he wanted to get civil governments reor-
gained at the south, the quicker the bet
ter, and strictly conforming with our gen
eral system.
I had been absent so long that L pre-
sumed, of course, that Congress had enac-
ted 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 obtuse; and all 1 aimed
to do was to remit the rebel army surren-
dering to me to the conditions of the laws
of the country as they existed. At the time
of Johnston's surrender at Durham, I drew
up the terms with my own hand. Brock
inridge 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 proceeded to make his escape from
the country, "a course that [ believe Mr..
Lincoln wished that Mr.. Davis should have
succeeded in effecting, as we'll as all the
other leading Southern politicians, against
whom public Indignation always turned
with a feeling far more intense than against
Generals Lee, Johnston and other purely
military men.
repeat that, according to my memory,
Mr.. Lincoln did not expressly name any
special terms of surrender, but he was in
that kindly and gentle frame of mind that
would have induced him to approve fully
what did, excepting, probably, he would
have interlined some notifications, such
as recognizing his several proclamations
as we'll as the laws of Congress,
which would have been perfectly right and
acceptable to me and to all parties.
1 dislike to open this or any other old
question, and do it for the reason stated,
viz lest I be construed as throwing off on
Mr.. Lincoln what his friends think should
be properly borne by me alone.
If i'll the original terms [ had, as L GER
tainly meant, included the proclamations
of the President, they would have covered
the Slavery question and all the real State
questions which caused the war and had
not Mr.. Lincoln been assassinated at that
very moment, believe those 6 terms "
would have taken the usual course OF APP
proval, modification, or absolute di5ap-
proval. and been returned to me, like hum
dreds of other official acts, without the
clamor and unpleasant contro-
versies so unkindly and unpleasantly thrust
lpon me at the time.
I am truly yours,
W. T. SHERMAN, General.
Washington. d. O., April II, 1869.
The Cuban ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS to tn e
People OF the United States.
New YORK, April 15.-Senor j. Valienta,
agent of the Cuban revolutionists, has is
mod on o15rocs RI fha Aroorioo,, ,,aopIa