The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1886-10-20
Mr.. DAVIS MAKES RET0RE.
REpLYlNG TO TIE sLtApEas oI CEN.
". e. SHERMAN.

Facts a. 10 the Late War Between the states
The Baltimore Sun prints letter, five
columns in length, from ex-FreSldent
Jefferson Davis in relation to the long
standing controversy between himself
and General W. T. Sherman. The let
ter is dated Beauvoir, Miss, September
%, 1886, and begins as follows:
cat various times, and from many OF
my friends, have been asked to furnish
reply to Gen. W. 7. Sher11an's So
called report to the War Department,
which the United States Senate ordered
printed as Executive Document No. 36,
Forty-eiglth Congress, second session.
I have been compelled by many causes
to postpone reply to these invitations,
and have in some instances declined, for
the time being, to undertake the labor.
A continuing sense of the great injustice
done NE and the people l represented,
by the Senate making the malicious as
sault Of General Sherman q public docu-
ment, and giving to his SANDER tue I'M
portance which necessarily attaches to
an executive communication to the Sen-
ate, has recently caused the request for
reply by me to be pressed with very
great earnestness. For this reason |
have decided to furnish q reply fer pub
ication in the Baltimore Sun. The his
tory of my public LIE bears evidence
that I did all in my power to prevent the
war; that I did nothing to prccipltate
the collision; that did not seek the post
of Chief Executive, but a ,vised my
friends that I preferred not to I'LL it.
That history General Sherman may SIAN
derously assail by his statements, bat he
cannot alter its consistency; nor can the
Republicans Of the Senate change its IN
broken story of faithful service to the
Union of the Constitution until, by the
command of my sovereign State, with
drew as her ambassador from the United
States Senate For al acts of my public
life as President Of the Confederate
States I am responsible at the bar Of
history, and must accept her verdict,
which shall do without the least appre-
hension that it will be swayed from the
truth by the malicious falseheods Of
General Sherman, even when stamped
as an executive document by the Cnited
States Senate.
Mr.. Davis then recites the statement
made by General Sherman before a gath
ering of ex-Union soldiers Ill 1854, th&t
he (Sherman) had seen u letter from
Mr.. Davis to United States Senator, n
which he Davis said that he would
turn Lees army against any State that
might attempt to secede from the South
ern Confederacy.' Mr., Davis then
quotes his letter to the St. Louis tsepub-
lean, printed at that time, denying the
truth of Shern1an,s statement and the
interviews had subsequently by reporters
with Sherman, to whom lhe latter said:
"This is an affair between two gentle
men. I VIII take my time about It and
write to Mr.. Davis myself. Ne viii set
tie the matter between us.
"It is hardly necessary for NE to say, "
continued Mr. Davis, ''that General
Sherman did not write to NE, and we
had not settled the matter between us,
otherwise than I settled it by dcnounc-
ipg his statement as false and himself as
slanderer. There the matter would
have rested, so far as | was concerned.
But when the War Department Of the
United States was made the custodian OF
his SANDER and Republican Senators De-
came its endorsers, and the statements
made at Frank Blair Post were lifted
into official importance, it became a duty
alike to myself and to the people l rep
resented to follow the slanaers with my
denial and to expose alike its author and
his endorsers.
Mr.. Davis reviews at length the pro-
gress of the controversy, reciting the de-
nial Of every Senator from the Southern
States that he had received such Q letter
as that spoken OF by Sherman, and ac'
cusing Sherman of first trying to substl,
tute letter from Alexander H. Stephens
TO Herschel V. johnson for the alleged
Davis letter; then of representing that
the Davis letter was lost IN the confusion
of the rebellion archives in the War De
partnent, and finally of pretending thai
he had seen the alleged letter at Raleigh
n, c., and intimating that it was ad
dressed to Governor Vance. Mr.. Davi:
Quotes the published denial of Governo!
Vance that he had ever received such
letter from him, and says:
ssAIy alleged Raleigh letter has neve
been found. Sherman says it was sen
to Nashville, Savannah, Washington an|
St. Louis, and may have been tina' .
burned in Chicago in the great fire o
1871. But in its travels no other person
but Sherman saw it; not a single office
at any headquarters has been produced
who read it, and it passes belief that L
the excitement OF the closing days Of tn
war and during my imprisonment, ..whel
every letter OF mine was carefully eN
amined to find evidence upon which Il
convict and destroy me, not an officer a
all these headquarters should have rea'
that letter. Every fair-minded man mus
therefore conclude that General Sherman
stated at the Grand Army Post wilfu
and deliberate falsehood, and that h
motive had It's inspiration in that mea
notice which has characterized his act
and writing in other respects toward th
Southern people. The so-called histor
cal statement concerning the publ
policy of the Executive Department {
the Confederate States, as Sherman
letter to the War Department is heade
in that executive document, opens Wit
the following statement: That | Colel
mani had seen papers which convince
me that even Mr. Davis, President OF Il
Southern Confederacy, had, during IL