Part 101

I knew it had been recommended to the President to send in the name of Governor Cox, of Ohio, for Secretary of War, and thus save all embarrassment--a proposition that I sincerely hoped he would entertain favorably; General Sherman seeing the President at my particular request to urge this on the 13th instant.

On Tuesday (the day Mr. Stanton reentered the office of the Secretary of War) General Comstock, who had carried my official letter announcing that with Mr. Stanton's reinstatement by the Senate I had ceased to be Secretary of War ad interim, and who saw the President open and read the communication, brought back to me from the President a message that he wanted to see me that day at the Cabinet meeting, after I had made known the fact that I was no longer Secretary of War ad interim.

At this meeting, after opening it as though I were a member of the Cabinet, when reminded of the notification already given him that I was no longer Secretary of War ad interim, the President gave a version of the conversations alluded to already. In this statement it was asserted that in both conversations I had agreed to hold on to the office of Secretary of War until displaced by the courts, or resign, so as to place the President where he would have been had I never accepted the office. After hearing the President through, I stated our conversations substantially as given in this letter. I will add that my conversation before the Cabinet embraced other matter not pertinent here, and is therefore left out.

I in no wise admitted the correctness of the President's statement of our conversations, though, to soften the evident contradiction my statement gave, I said (alluding to our first conversation on the subject) the President might have understood me the way he said, namely, that I had promised to resign if I did not resist the reinstatement. I made no such promise.

I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

U.S. GRANT, General.

HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE UNITED STATES,

January 30, 1868.

Respectfully forwarded to the Secretary of War for his information.

U.S. GRANT, General.

JANUARY 29, 1868.

As requested in this communication, General Grant is instructed in writing not to obey any order from the War Department assumed to be issued by the direction of the President unless such order is known by the General Commanding the armies of the United States to have been authorized by the Executive.

ANDREW JOHNSON.

General Grant to the President.

HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE UNITED STATES,

Washington, January 30, 1868.

His Excellency A. JOHNSON,

President of the United States.

SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the return of my note of the 24th instant, with your indorsement thereon, that I am not to obey any order from the War Department assumed to be issued by the direction of the President unless such order is known by me to have been authorized by the Executive, and in reply thereto to say that I am informed by the Secretary of War that he has not received from the Executive any order or instructions limiting or impairing his authority to issue orders to the Army, as has heretofore been his practice under the law and the customs of the Department. While this authority to the War Department is not countermanded it will be satisfactory evidence to me that any orders issued from the War Department by direction of the President are authorized by the Executive.

I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

U.S. GRANT, General.

HEADQUARTERS ARMY UNITED STATES,

January 30, 1868.

Respectfully forwarded to the Secretary of War for his information.

U.S. GRANT, General.

The President to General Grant.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, January 31, 1868.

General U.S. GRANT,