The Laurens advertiser. (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973, 1886-10-20
MIR. DAVIS MAKES RETORT,
REPLYING 70 TIIE ISLANDERS OF GEN.
w. n. SHERMAN.

puu prints IL lebUeT, uVt
columns in length, from ex-Presiden
Jefferson Davis in relation to the LONG
standing controversy between himsel
and General w. Il. Sherman. The let
ter is dated Beauvoir, Miss, September
23, 1886, and begins as follows:
sat various times, and from many ot
my friends, L have been asked to furnish
u reply to Gen. w. Il. Sherman's SO.
called report to the Wan Department,
which the United States Senate ordered
printed as Executive Document No. SO,
Forty-eighth Congress, second session.
L have been compelled by many causes
to postpone a reply TO these invitations,
anu nave Ill some instances declined, for
the time being, to undertake the labor.
a continuing sense of the great Injustice
done me n the people l represented.
by the Senate making the malicious as,
sault OF General Sherman II public docu-
ment, and giving to his Islander The i'm
portance which necessarily attaches TO
an executive communication to the Sen
ate, has recently caused the request for
n reply by me to DO pressed with very
great earncstncss. For this reason I
have decided to furnish a reply for pub
LEGATION in the Baltimore Sun. The his
tory of my public life bears evidence
that L did all i'll my power to prevent the
war; that l did nothing to prccipitate
the collision; that | did not seek tho post
OF Chief Executive, but a,yisod my
friends that | preferred not to fill it.
That history General Sherman NAV SIAN
derously assail by his statements, but he
cannot alter its consistency; nor can the
Republicans OF the Senate change its I'M
broken story of faithful service to the
Union of tho Constitution until, by the
command OF my sovereign State, J. with
drew as her ambassador from the United
States Senate. For all acts of my public
life as President Of the Confederate
States l am responsible at the bar of
history, and must accept her verdict,
which / shall do without tho least appre-
hension that it will be swaycd from the
truth by the malicious ~fnlschoods of
General Sherman, even when stamped
as an executive document by the United
States Senate.
Mr.. Davis then recitcs the statement
made by General Sherman before a gath
cring OF ex-Union soldiers in 1854, that
IN yin az i4'NNt SAtll ~ lCllNf from
Mr.. Davis to IL United States Senator, i'm
which he Davis said that he "would
turn Lees army against any State that
might attempt to scccde from the South
ern Confederncy." Mr.. Davis then
quotes his letter to the ST. Louis Rcpub-
lican, printed at that time, denying the
truth of Sherman's statement and the
interviews had subsequently by reporters
with Sherman, TO whom the latter said:
"This is an affair between two gentle.
men. l will take my time about it and
write to MIR. Davis myself. We will set
tie the matter between us"
cit is hardly necessary for me to say"
continued Mr.. Davis, 'that General
Sherman did not write to me, and we
had not settled tho matter between us,
otherwise than | settled it by dcnounc-
ing his statement rs false and himself MS
n slanderer. There the matter would
have rested, so far as l was concerned.
But when the Wan Department of the
United States was made the custodian of
his slander and Republican Senators be-
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 | rep
resented to follow the ISLANDERS with my
denial and to expose alike its author and
his endOrscrs."
Mr.. Davis reviews at length the pro-
gress of the controversy, reciting the de-
NAL of every Senator from the Southern
States that he had received such u letter
as that spoken of by Sherman, and &C
cusing Sherman of first trying to substi-
tute a letter from Alexander III. 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
partment, and finally of pretending that
he had seen the alleged letter ut Raleigh,
N. c., and intimating that it was adj
dressed to Governor Vance. Mr.. Davis
quotes the published denial of Governor
Vance that he had ever received such n
letter from him, and says:
envy alleged Raleigh letter has never
been found. Sherman n y it was sent
to Nashville, Savannah, Washington and
st. Louis, and may have been finally
burned in Chicago in the great fire of
1871. But in its travels no other person
but Sherman saw it; not u single officer
at any headquarters has been produced
who read it, and ii passes belief that in
the excitement of the closing days of the
war and during my imprisonment, when
every letter of mine was carefully ex-
amined to find evidence upon which to
convict and destroy me, mo- an officer at
all these headquarters should have read
that letter. Every fair-minded man must
therefore conclude that General Sherman
stated at the Grand Army Post q wiliul
and deliberate falsehood, and that his
motive had it's inspiJation in that mean
notice which has characterized his acts
and writing in other respects toward the
Southern people. The so-callod histori-
cal statement concerning the public
policy of the Executive Department OF
the Confederate States, as Sherman's
letter to the War Department is headed
In that executive document, opens with
the following statement: That / (Sher.
man) had seen papers which convinced
me that even Mr.. Davis, President OF the
Southern Confedcracy, had, during the
progress OF the war, changed his States
rights doctrines, and had threatened to