William Boynton, Sherman's Historical Raid

[271] in a formal report, after he had been expressly ordered by the President not to carry out these identical views. Throughout this controversy of General Sherman's own raising and pressing, there was no attempt by the War Department to assume unlawful authority over the General of the Army, nor had there been any other limitations placed upon his power than the law imposes. The case was simply this: The Secretary of War had been guided by the law as it exists. General Sherman had constantly protested against the law in the case, and, so far as he could, ignored it. The whole trouble on his side was this: He had not been regarded as Commander-in-Chief, and had not been allowed to command the army as such. Instead of exercising his authority under the law and in accordance with the terms of his commission—that is, ‘under the direction and during the pleasure of the President, to command the armies of the United States’—he insisted upon being allowed to exercise that authority as if both law and commission read, ‘under the direction and according to the pleasure of W. T. Sherman.’