Terrible Swift Sword (46 page)
Read Terrible Swift Sword Online
Authors: Joseph Wheelan
Warned by W. H. C. King, editor of the pro-Democrat
New Orleans Times
, that more Louisiana blacks than whites were registering, Johnson ordered Sheridan to keep open the registration period past June 30, Sheridan's closing date. When he extended it until July 15, Johnson urged him to continue registration until August 1. Sheridan refused, knowing that the reason for the extensions was to register more ex-Rebels under Stanbery's more liberal rules.
New Orleans Times
, that more Louisiana blacks than whites were registering, Johnson ordered Sheridan to keep open the registration period past June 30, Sheridan's closing date. When he extended it until July 15, Johnson urged him to continue registration until August 1. Sheridan refused, knowing that the reason for the extensions was to register more ex-Rebels under Stanbery's more liberal rules.
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OF THE FIVE DISTRICT commanders in the South, only Sheridan removed civilian officials. The other four seldom interfered in Southern civil affairs, and some of them openly opposed the Reconstruction policies.
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In New Orleans, Sheridan's actions and Congress's Reconstruction program were “bitterly and violently” denounced. He added to his unpopularity when the municipal government refused to investigate allegations of official malfeasanceâand he reacted by firing the city comptroller, treasurer, surveyor, city attorney, and twenty-two aldermen. Sheridan then began removing officials in the outlying parishesâone of them a justice of the peace who prohibited black witnesses from testifying at a murder trial. Then, he purged the jury lists of everyone who was ineligible to vote.
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As Sheridan's removals piled up, Grant's support for the tough little general never wavered. “Every loyal man in this country admires your courage in civil affairs, as they did your military career,” Grant wrote to Sheridan in May 1867.
Grant had quietly distanced himself from Johnson when the president's policies restored former Rebels to power. Even before Congress passed Reconstruction Act No. 1, Grant, with War Secretary Stanton's backing, had taken steps to protect loyalists from biased prosecution in the South, and he had authorized federal intervention when civilian authorities ignored local violence.
Grant and Stanton found themselves increasingly at odds with Johnson but in step with Congress. In appreciation of their support, Congress enacted the Command of the Army and Tenure of Office acts, which shielded Grant and Stanton from arbitrary dismissal by Johnson. Grant, Stanton, and Sheridan had become the Radical Republicans' most reliable agents of Reconstruction.
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SHERIDAN DEPLORED JOHNSON'S “DETERMINATION not to execute but to obstruct” Congress's Reconstruction program. His obstructionism, Sheridan wrote, “aroused among the disaffected element new hopes of power and place, hopes of being at once put in political control again . . . . just as if there had been no war.”
Pushing back against the president's refusal to carry out Congress's directives, Sheridan stretched his authority as far as he could. After the riot, he announced that former Union soldiers would comprise half of New Orleans's police force. He also integrated New Orleans's public transportation systemâthe first civil rights action of its kind in the South. Since before the war, blacks had been permitted to ride only in horse-drawn cars bearing a star. But in the spring of 1867, some blacks began riding in the unmarked cars reserved for whites. When the transit companies complained, Sheridan refused to interveneâmany of his troops were blackâand the separate conveyances were abandoned.
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Sheridan's cold war along the Mexican border had helped doom Maximilian's regime, but his aggressive tactics did not subdue the unreconstructed Rebels in Louisiana and Texas, Confederate states that had emerged from the war largely intact and unbowed. Instead of taming the rebellious elements, Sheridan's increasingly harsh measures only generated greater hostility, requiring yet more draconian actions.
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THE LOUISIANA LEVEE BOARD disbursed millions of dollars in contracts, mainly to the commissioners' deserving supporters. In the spring of 1867, the levee commissioners' terms expired. The legislature, which had just appropriated $4 million for levee improvements, extended the board members' terms.
Governor James Wells, however, wished to utilize the $4 million to enhance his political influence, and so he pocket vetoed the extension and appointed his own board. Wells and the legislature approached Sheridan and asked him to choose between the dueling boards.
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Sheridan pursued a course that managed to outrage both parties: he appointed his own board and dismissed the other two.
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Sheridan pursued a course that managed to outrage both parties: he appointed his own board and dismissed the other two.
Wells angrily appealed to President Johnson, but Johnson would not overrule Sheridan. War Secretary Stanton, however, directed Sheridan to suspend his action until Stanton had read Sheridan's report on the affair.
Sheridan wrote the report on June 3, and on the day that he sent it to Stanton, he removed Governor Wells from office, having grown weary of Wells's “obstructions” of his attempts to reorder Louisiana's civil affairs. “If you will sustain me in this strong and just course I have taken,” Sheridan wrote to Grant, “I think this State will come into the Union without any opposing party or part of the Secession element.”
A loyal Unionist, Wells had been elected in 1865 with the Democrats' help, and he had supported Johnson's lenient postwar reconciliation. But when defiant former Confederates took control of the legislature, the governor repeatedly clashed with them over black suffrage, the state constitutional convention, and other issues. At the same time, Wells opposed many of the Reconstruction Act measures that Sheridan was implementing. The governor's independent positions angered both sides.
Sheridan removed Wells because he had failed to punish the perpetrators of the New Orleans riot and had replaced Unionists with ex-Rebels in state government. “His conduct has been as sinuous as the mark left in the dust by the movement of a snake,” Sheridan told Stanton. Louisiana Democrats were not unhappy to see him go. The Democrat-leaning
New Orleans Times
punned, “All's well that ends Wells.”
New Orleans Times
punned, “All's well that ends Wells.”
Wells did not make a graceful exit; he locked himself in the governor's office, emerging only when one of Sheridan's staff officers threatened to drag him out. Sheridan replaced Wells with Benjamin Flanders, who unequivocally supported Congress's Reconstruction program.
In his report to Grant, Sheridan explained that he was pursuing “a bold and firm course” in Louisiana because it was the only way that Reconstruction could succeed there. Grant assured Sheridan that he, Stanton, and Northern public opinion approved of Sheridan's conduct.
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JOHNSON HAD BEEN SEEKING a pretext for replacing Sheridan since he had swept out the mayor, aldermen, and other officials in March. On April 5, Grant had warned Sheridan that at the White House there was “a disposition to remove [him],” while adding, “Both the Secretary of War and myself will oppose any such move as will the mass of the people.”
Sheridan knew that by firing Governor Wells, he had possibly provoked a final showdown with Johnson, who tended to act “with all the boldness and aggressiveness of his peculiar nature”âa description that also happened to fit Sheridan.
In July, the president sent Brigadier General Lovell Harrison Rousseau to New Orleans to monitor Sheridan's actions. Sheridan complained to Grant on August 3 that Rousseau, without authority, had interfered with Sheridan's command and even suggested his removal, allegations that Rousseau denied to Grant after Sheridan's letter appeared in New York newspapers.
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SHERIDAN COULD NO LONGER disguise his animosity toward the former Confederates who resisted his Reconstruction measures. To his former military aide, Frederick Newhall, Sheridan wrote, “If I am disliked, it is because I cannot and will
not cater to rebel sentiment.” It was of no consequence to him whether “the Southern States were readmitted tomorrow or kept out for twenty years. . . . . The more I see of this people the less I see to admire.”
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not cater to rebel sentiment.” It was of no consequence to him whether “the Southern States were readmitted tomorrow or kept out for twenty years. . . . . The more I see of this people the less I see to admire.”
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Sheridan's dislike of Texas had grown especially, and he did little to conceal it. He refused to allow a formal funeral procession in Galveston for Confederate general Albert Sydney Johnston when his remains were landed there, en route to Austin for burial. When Galveston citizens paid homage by marching in silence, Sheridan fired Galveston's mayor.
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He complained to Governor James Throckmorton that Texas authorities were refusing to prosecute people who attacked and robbed Unionists and blacks. To Grant, Sheridan wrote, “The condition of Freedmen and Union men in remote parts of the State is truly horrible. The Government is denounced; the Freedmen are shot and Union men are persecuted if they have the temerity to express their opinion. . . . . My own opinion is that the trial of a white man for the murder of a Freedman in Texas would be a farce.”
The situation was especially egregious in northeastern Texas. “It is currently reported in their counties that the object of the Governor in calling for troops for the frontier is to get the soldiers removed from the interior, so that there could be no interference in the perpetration of these fiendish activities,” Grant wrote. Federal troops were no longer effective in Texas, Grant said; in Brownsville, citizens fired on a squad of soldiers. “The great number of murders of union men and freed men in Texas, not only as a rule unpunished but uninvestigated, constitutes what is practically a state of insurrection,” Grant informed Stanton. “I would recommend the declaration of martial law in Texas.”
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In April, when the murder rate soared, Sheridan had forwarded a communication from Colonel Griffin recommending Governor Throckmorton's removal. In his attached note, Sheridan told Grant, “I feel like Griffin on this subject, that he ought to be removed.” But the violence had then receded, and Sheridan did not act. By July, however, the situation had become as impossible as ever, with the murders of large numbers of blacks and federal soldiers.
On July 24, Sheridan informed Grant that he wanted to shake up the civil government. “The laws are executed by those who hate the government and the military commander who is ordered to protect persons and property of its loyal citizens.” He said he would initially make the changes “progressively, but if this does not make a change for the better, I will be forced to make many.”
In a telegram on July 30, Grant assured Sheridan that he was free to “make such removals from civil offices, and appointments to fill vacancies, as you may deem necessary to secure a thorough practical execution of the laws of Congress in Texas.”
That day, Sheridan removed Governor Throckmorton, and named Unionist E. M. Pease as his successor.
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That day, Sheridan removed Governor Throckmorton, and named Unionist E. M. Pease as his successor.
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PRESIDENT JOHNSON WAS BUSY trying to fire Stanton for carrying out Congress's Reconstruction policies. Grant protested to Johnson that Stanton had done nothing wrong and, moreover, was protected by the Tenure of Office Act.
But Johnson had long ago stopped listening to people who disagreed with him, and he demanded Stanton's resignation. When Stanton refused to submit it, Johnson suspended him and appointed Grant interim war secretary. It wasn't the last of Stanton, whose removal, return, and refusal to be turned out a second time would provide the impetus for impeachment proceedings against Johnson the following spring.
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With Stanton out of the way, Johnson turned to Sheridan, who, after removing Throckmorton, had proceeded to dismiss Shreveport, Louisiana's mayor and aldermen. On August 17, the president ordered Grant to reassign Sheridan to the Department of the Missouri. Grant objected, melodramatically urging,
in the name of a patriotic people who have sacrificed Hundreds of thousands of loyal lives, and Thousands of Millions of treasure to preserve the integrity and Union of this Country, that this order be not insisted on. It is unmistakably the expressed wish of the Country that Gen. Sheridan should not be removed from his present Command. . . . . I beg that their voice may be heard. Gen. Sheridan has performed his civil duties faithfully and intelligently. His removal will only be regarded as an effort to defeat the laws of Congress. It will be interpreted by the unreconstructed element in the South . . . . as a triumph. It will embo[ld]en them to renew opposition to the will of the loyal Masses, believing that they have the Executive with them.
Johnson penned a long response in which he rejected each of Grant's arguments in turn, while reminding Grant that he was exercising his constitutional power as commander in chief. Sheridan's administration of the Fifth Military District, the president declared, “has, in fact, been one of absolute tyranny, without reference to the principles of our government or the nature of our free institutions . . . . a resort to authority not granted by law.”
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The news of Sheridan's dismissal got mixed reviews in the New Orleans press. The
Times
was glad to be rid of him and his “close adherence to the requirements of Congress.” The
Bee
, resigned to the Radicals' reshaping the South either quickly or “little by little,” favored the former approach. “General Sheridan sees the work
that he has to do and does it promptly. That much is decidedly in his favor.” The
Crescent
clearly regretted Sheridan's departure. “He has been daily more and more commending himself to general appreciation, as well as by the candor, directness and vigor with which he proceeds to his objects, as by the judicious character of some of his appointments.”
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Times
was glad to be rid of him and his “close adherence to the requirements of Congress.” The
Bee
, resigned to the Radicals' reshaping the South either quickly or “little by little,” favored the former approach. “General Sheridan sees the work
that he has to do and does it promptly. That much is decidedly in his favor.” The
Crescent
clearly regretted Sheridan's departure. “He has been daily more and more commending himself to general appreciation, as well as by the candor, directness and vigor with which he proceeds to his objects, as by the judicious character of some of his appointments.”
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SHERIDAN REFLECTED THAT HE had “tried to guard the rights of everybody in accordance with the law” but acknowledged that his removal came as a relief. “I was not loath to go. The kind of duty I had been performing in Louisiana and Texas was very trying under the most favorable circumstances,” but it was made worse by “the obstructions which the President placed in the way from persistent opposition to the acts of Congress as well as from antipathy to me.”
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