Adam Badeau, Grant in peace: from Appomattox to Mount McGregor, a personal memoir

[107] removal of Stanton and Sheridan. The two officers who were substituted were, however, thoroughly imbued with the feeling of their predecessors and of Grant. They all believed the law paramount to the will of any one man, and proceeded to execute the law in the spirit in which it had been conceived.

Hancock, who followed Sheridan, was the only one who took a different stand. He did all in his power to thwart the Congressional policy and to support the President. He issued proclamations in direct contradiction of the spirit of the Reconstruction measures, revoked important orders of Sheridan that had been approved by Grant, and defied the popular feeling of the North. Grant repeatedly overruled him, though the President made every effort to uphold him; but the laws had by this time been so contrived that there was no possibility of frustrating their intention if Grant exercised his full authority; and this he did not hesitate to do. Hancock in a few months asked to be relieved, and his request was granted.

The struggle with the President, however, continued. Johnson lost no opportunity to attempt to control events and maintain his own authority in opposition to that of Congress, and Grant steadily pursued his task of carrying out the Reconstruction measures as the recognized law of the land.

All this while as Secretary of War, Grant was obliged to attend Cabinet meetings and was frequently present at discussions and arrangements the purpose and tenor of which he entirely disapproved. This finally became so disagreeable to him that he requested the President to excuse him from the purely political duties of a member of the Government. He represented that as an officer of the army he might be called upon to serve under different Presidents holding opposite views, and although he was always ready to obey legal orders or to execute legal measures, it was not