John Harrison Wilson, The life of Charles Henry Dana

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[364] published, and that by an accident of which the secretary was entirely unaware. Nor do I yet know whether this report has been withheld by General Grant, or has otherwise failed to reach the adjutant-general. It is the report of that part of the campaign between Atlanta and Savannah, and anybody can see that the secretary, instead of wishing to withhold it from the public, would only have been too anxious to lay before the people the definite account of military movements so remarkable and interesting.

With regard to Sherman's letters, the suppression of which is also charged by his friends, there are some of these, I am sorry to say, which instead of doing him credit and increasing his reputation with the public, would injure it very seriously. In one of them, for instance, addressed to General Grant, he says that if the secretary desires Jeff Davis to be arrested, he must send his bailiffs and detectives to do the job, because his soldiers are not to be employed on such business, but also adds that if the soldiers were to try to do it, they could not succeed, because Jeff has already got beyond their reach. Of course this was written some time before your troops had succeeded in taking him a prisoner. I presume, however, that nothing will come of all the excitement and discussion upon the question except that the public will become confirmed in the idea that Sherman, however brilliant as a soldier, is not to be trusted as a public man of sound and safe judgment. I am sorry for it on his account; but I cannot say that I really regret, on account of the country, the events which have taken him out of the category of possible candidates for the presidency.

I went down to Fortress Monroe the other day to see your prisoner committed to the casemate in which he is confined. He was marched ashore in the midst of a guard at the head of which were the troopers of Colonel Pritchard. General Miles, formerly of the Second corps, who has been sent to the fortress to take command during Jeff's incarceration, led him along by the left arm. Davis marched with as haughty and defiant an air as Lucifer, Son of the Morning, bore after he was expelled from heaven, and I was rather