236 



CONGRESS. (DAVIS AND SHERMAN.) 



tion be passed it will necessitate, upon my part 

 at least, the public avowal (I was a member of 

 the Confederate States Senate) that I opposed 

 with all my force measures which were advo- 

 cated by Mr. Davis, and which I thought were 

 not for the public welfare of the Confederacy, 

 and it will necessitate the avowal also that I 

 believe, as an overwhelming majority of the 

 Southern people who risked and lost all in that 

 terrible struggle to-day believe, and will al- 

 ways believe, that Jefferson Davis was as true 

 and loyal to the cause which he espoused as 

 ever was wife to husband, as ever was relig- 

 ious votary to the God he worshiped. He 

 made mistakes unquestionably, and who would 

 not ? Met and surrounded by unparalleled dif- 

 ficulties and dangers, arrayed against him the 

 highest talent of the Confederate States in the 

 persons of political leaders, who would not 

 have been mistaken in the terrible ordeal 

 through which he passed? But I should hold 

 myself to be recreant and dastard, false to the 

 memories of the past, all that is left to us, 

 false to my hopes in the future as an honor- 

 able man, if I did not state here and now that 

 General Sherman is mistaken in the assertion 

 that the people of the Confederate States did 

 not sympathize with their leader in that terri- 

 ble conflict. I say nothing of its merits, I say 

 nothing of its history, I simply make an avowal 

 here in behalf of an absent man, who has suf- 

 fered much, whatever may be thought of his 

 past history, and who is entitled to this avowal 

 from one who shares with him to-day the re- 

 sponsibility of that struggle and its results." 



In support of the resolution, Mr. Sherman, of 

 Ohio, said: 



"Mr. President, I should not have said a 

 word about this matter, being restrained by a 

 sense of personal delicacy on account of my 

 relation with one of the gentlemen named in 

 the resolution, but for the fact that Senators 

 on the other side of the house seem to regard 

 this as a mere personal controversy between 

 two citizens. I know it will be very much a 

 matter of surprise to Gen. Sherman to learn 

 that this is a controversy between himself and 

 Jefferson Davis. He says in the correspond- 

 ence that he does not know Jefferson Davis ; 

 he did not see him when he was Secretary of 

 War, he was then not in the army, and he 

 never has had any personal relations with him 

 whatever. Therefore, there was no contro- 

 versy of a personal character between them. 

 On the other hand, Gen. Sherman, a citizen 

 of St. Louis, attends by invitation the Frank 

 Blair Grand Army post, composed of soldiers, 

 their wives and families. In the course of 

 that meeting, entirely impromptu, without any 

 preparation, he is called upon in pursuance of 

 their customs to make a speech, and he does 

 so a brief speech, the contents of which were 

 substantially stated in the public prints in St. 

 Louis. 



" The allegations contained in that speech, as 

 published in the papers and as mentioned in 



the statement by Gen. Sherman now in the 

 War Department, are that he regarded Jeffer- 

 son Davis not only as a rebel but as a con- 

 spirator, and that he saw not only letters but 

 papers captured during the war, and especially 

 while he was marching in his well-known 

 march through Georgia, which tended to show 

 that Jefferson Davis while the war was pro- 

 gressing had abandoned his State-rights doc- 

 trines and had become practically a dictator in 

 the South. That was in substance the state- 

 ment made by Gen. Sherman without the 

 slightest personal reference to Jefferson Davis 

 as a man, but only referring to him as the 

 leader of the great army and the great cause 

 which these soldiers had endeavored to over- 

 throw by superior force. That was the state- 

 ment. As to any personal controversy between 

 these two persons, there was nothing of the 

 kind evinced, except Gen. Sherman did insist 

 that he had the historical right to class Jeffer- 

 son Davis as a conspirator and a traitor. Did 

 that make a personal quarrel between Jeffer- 

 son Davis and W. T. Sherman ? Far from it. 

 I might in the same way make a personal 

 quarrel with all the descendants of Benedict Ar- 

 nold by stating the historical fact about him. 



"What followed? Mr. Davis, seeing this, 

 and becoming angered by it, writes a very bit- 

 ter article, not to Gen. Sherman, but to some 

 newspaper in which he saw the publication, 

 in which he said substantially Gen. Sherman 

 makes a false statement stronger language 

 even, substantially that Gen. Sherman lied; 

 gives him the lie. This was not addressed to 

 Gen. Sherman. Gen. Sherman, who had the 

 honor to command the Army of the United 

 States, and had been, to say the least, a con- 

 spicuous actor in the great military events ot 

 the war, and who was still in every sense an 

 officer of the army subject to the orders of the 

 President of the United States at any time, 

 who may be court-martialed and subjected to 

 the laws of war, did not respond by a letter to 

 Jefferson Davis, or by sending his views to a 

 public print and thus getting into a newspaper 

 wrangle. He did exactly the opposite of that. 

 As an officer of the army he gave to his mili- 

 tary superior the reasons and evidence, which 

 justified every observation that he had made, 

 and deposited this in the public records, as he 

 was bound to do. 



" If an officer of the army of the United 

 States, whether retired or not, has put upon 

 him any insult whatever, which among gentle- 

 men would be regarded as a matter of re- 

 proach, he is bound in honor and by his mili- 

 tary rank to make an explanation to the proper 

 authorities to show that the imputation upon 

 his honor is not correct, and that he only did 

 what he was justified in doing in speaking of 

 a historical character. That is what General 

 Sherman did. That is the letter that he sent, 

 after careful preparation, to the department. 

 I have read that letter. There is not a word 

 of personal unkindness to Jefferson Davis or 



