Today in History:

263 Series I Volume XLVII-III Serial 100 - Columbia Part III

Page 263 Chapter LIX. CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. -UNION.

WASHINGTON, April 21, 1865.

Hon E. M. STANTON,

Secretary of War:

I have received and just completed reading the dispatches borough by special messenger from General Sherman. They are of such importance that I think immediate action should be taken on them and that it should be done by the President in council with his whole cabinet. I would respectfully suggest whether the President should not be notifield and all his cabinet, and the meeting take place to-night.

U. S. GRANT,

Lieutenant-General.

WAR DEPARTMENT,

Washington City, April 21, 1865.

Lieutenant-General GRANT:

GENERAL: The memorandum or basis agreed upon between General Sherman and General Johnston having been submitted to the President, they are disapproved. You will give notice of the disaspproval to General Sherman and direct him to resume hostilities at the earliest moment. The instructions given to you by the late President Abraham Lincoln on the 3rd of March by my telegraph of that date, addressed to you, express substantially the views of President Andrew Johnson and will be observed by General Sherman. A copy is herewith appended. The President desires that you proceed immediately to the headquarters of General Sherman and direct operations against the enemy.

Yours, truly,

EDWIN M. STANTON,

Secretary of War.

WAR DEPARTMENT,

March 3, 1865.

Lieutenant-General GRANT:

The President directs me to say to you that he wishes you to have no conference with General Lee, unless it be for the capitulation of General Lee's army or on some minor and purely military matter. He instructs me to say that are not to decide, disciss, or confer upon any political question. Such question the President holds in his own hands, and will submit them to no military conferences or covnentions. Meantime you are to press to the utomost your military advantages.

EDWIN M. STANTON,

Secretary of War.


HEADQUARTERS ARMIES OF THE UNITED STATES,
Washington, D. C., April 21, 1865.

Major General W. T. SHERMAN,

Commanding Military Division of the Mississippi:

GENERAL: The basis of agreemententered into between yourself and General J. E. Johnston for the disbandment of the Southern army and the extension of the authority of the General Government over all the


Page 263 Chapter LIX. CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. -UNION.