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States.
It is also to be observed that the agreement contains no direct reference to the question of slavery; requires no concessions from us in regard to it, and leaves it subject to the Constitution and Laws of the United States and of the several States just as it was before the war.’
Mr. Benjamin,
Secretary of State, summed up the terms as follows:
‘The Military Convention made between General Johnston and General Sherman is, in substance, an agreement that if the Confederate States will cease to wage war for the purpose of establishing a separate government, the United States will receive the several States back into the Union, with their State Governments unimpaired, with all their Constitutional rights recognized, with protection for the persons and property of the people, and with a general amnesty.’
Mr. George Davis,
Attorney-General, wrote:
‘Taken as a whole, the convention amounts to this, that the States of the Confederacy shall re-enter the old Union upon the same footing on which they stood before seceding from it.’
In the light of these opinions, how unjust does
General Sherman's attack upon the memory of
Secretary Stanton appear!
General Sherman relates that at the first meeting with
Johnston, after the rejection of these terms, the latter, ‘without hesitation agreed to, and we executed’ the final terms.
But even these were drawn up by
General Schofield, and this officer, during the subsequent absence of
General Sherman, also made supplementary terms with
Johnston, which were found to be necessary to complete the details of the surrender.
From all of which it appears that the records tell a very different story of the negotiations with
General Johnston from that contained in the Memoirs.
