John Harrison Wilson, The life of Charles Henry Dana

[244] war, to bring them together. It was stated by the press, and afterwards in Sherman's Memoirs, that when Sherman passed by Stanton to take his place on the reviewing stand, the latter proffered his hand and the former refused it. This statement is confirmed by Colonel du Pont, who was on the reviewing stand, and perhaps by others, but Dana always contended in conversation with me that Sherman was “entirely mistaken.” That “the secretary made no motion to offer his hand or to exchange salutations, but as the general passed merely gave him a slight inclination of the head equivalent to a quarter of a bow.”

A more dramatic account of this incident is given in the life of Stanton,¹ in which it is alleged that Sherman “shook hands with all until he came to Stanton, when he turned away.” This, it is said, brought a call for Stanton which was followed by cheers and a recognition he would not otherwise have received. It is further sail that afterwards, while a military commission of which Sherman was a member was in session at the War Department, Stanton invited Sherman into his private room, where they had an official conversation, but there is not the slightest evidence that they were ever again on friendly terms. Stanton, it will be remembered, did not long survive the war, and Sherman's sense of injury was too acute to be followed shortly by forgiveness. They were, indeed, naturally antagonistic, and now that the war was over and Stanton soon to return to civil life, there was no special reason why they should be friends.

Dana always regarded McPherson as an officer of first-class ability, not so brilliant as Sherman, but in every way a capable and loyal subordinate, who understood his profession down to the minutest details. He was for some