The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-12-22
DAYS AFTER WAR
 7 BETWEEN STATES
Some "Reminiscences of the
 Great Struggle
GENERAL OTIS WRITES
Absence in South of Civil Law Imme- diately Following War Was Cause of Inconvenience-Marriage
 Licenses Not Obtainable
Gen. H. G. Otis in tne Century Maga

Gen H. C.. Otis in t,le Century Msga-
 zine.
 Incidents within my personal knowledge illustrate the inconvenicnce caused by the total absence of civil law in the south at that juncture. In June. 1865, l was serving as provost marshall at the town of Harrisonburg. in the Valley of the Shenandoah, with instructions to pre- serve order..pgather up various sorts of United States military property scat tered through tho country. arrest outlaws and uarauders and receIve the surren- der of, and give paroles to bands of scattered Confederate soldiers, who had not been 'in'' at the all compelling sur render at Appomattox courthouse two months before The country was honey combed with stragglers, and I was bur dened with my unique task.
 Civil government being nonexistent. there was not even authority for tho is suance of marriage licenses and for th. performance of like civic duties. One day. in this emergency. I received a personal application from an ardent Virginia swain, who announced that he wished to get married and appealed to mo for iu- .tructions as to how to go about the tender though untimely task Rising to the occasion I told him that would Is !. sue him a, license. and accordingly did so in my capacity as e captain of the United States volunteers. and for the ? time being provost marshal for that dis. trict. wrote out tho necessary author ity, observing no forms, empowering any minister of the gospel, or any former jus tice of the peace under the Confederacy, to perform the ceremony. Then I sent , the happy lover on hit way rejoicing, and assumed that the knot was tied with due solemnity. that the couple would live happily ever after and rear family of Virginia children.
 The Convention at Philadelphia
 Two great national conventions were held in the year 1s66. ono at Pittsburg and the other at Philadelphia. The latter. being on September B. was made up in large measure of southern 1oyalists and other civilians, among whom the tide of patriotism ran high. It made a tremen . dous impression upon tho country and upon the recalcitrart and dissatisfied south. Among the delegates were Ralph Waldo Emerson. James Russell Lowell. Oliver Wendell Holmes, John G. Whit tier il governors and eight United States senators. Among the thousands of unionists whom met there was James A. Garfield. who had won his spurs as a major general in the field, who subse- ouently served in tho House of Repre- sentatives, became President, and died that tragic death which history has sadly recorded. In his joyousness and geniality |. he seemed to me like great overgrown boy While masses of shouting, cheering an, Ringing men were parading through Indepepdence Square, within the sound of the Liberty Bell, that bis man passed his arms affectionately about the shoulders of young soldier. whom he did not know, and strode proudly along as though the latter had been his lifelong friend. It was enough for Garfield to know that the other was a comrade. l was tho obscure young soldier.
 Stanton Removed From Office
 In 1887 an act of Congress was passed depriving the President of the power to issue an amnesty prot lamation, which he overrodo. His disposition and his plans to defy Congress and pursue his own meth cd of reconstructing tho south caused Congress to deprive him of the command of the army a bold act, the constitution ality of which might well be disputed at any stage but which illustrates the al- most desperate frame of mind in which Congress then was. Johnson's continued defiance was met by tho enactment into law of tho tenure oe office bill wfich prevented him from making . change in his cabinet, his own official household.
 These strained relations between the President and Congrcss, which had ex- isted for more than two years, reached an open rupture on February 2, 1868, when tho President informed tho Senate that he had removed Edwin NJ stanton as Secretary of War, contrary to the ten- ,1re of office act. The House at once adopted a resolution. by a vote of 122 to AT (not voting ID to ''impeach Andrew Johnson, President of the United States. of high crimes and misdemeanors."
 Saved by One Senatorial Vote
 James G. Blaine, fin his Twenty Years in Congress-" says that. in adopting this resolution of impeachment Congress act ed hastily; but it Is the opinion of many still living that he d.d not consider the precedent circumstances, which. as much as the removal of Stanton. led 122 con- gressmen to cast their votes for impeach- ment Still, it was probably fortunate for the nation that Johnson was saved fro mimpeachment by one<senatorial yota. If Johnson had been impeached Ben Wade of Ohio, a fcarless republican statesman. would have become President. Wade was radical of the radicals, who always had the courage of his convic tions. He probably would have given the whole force of his administration to the plan of Thaddeus Stevens to organize the south into territories and govern it qs such, yet granting the states readmis- sion to the unison gradually and on stipu- lated terms. The people of the north were so enraged over the assassination of Lincoln and the continued efforts O. the southern states to nullify the Thir- teenth amendment that they might then have approved the Stevens plan of re- construction. At this day, nearly half century after Appomatox. it seems best that neither the Johnson plan nor the Stevens plan did prevail.