field. As soon as possible I started to get away, to
leave Sherman quite free and untrammelled.

At Goldsboro', on my way back, I met a mail, containing the last
newspapers, and I found in them indications of great excitement in the
North over the terms Sherman had given Johnston; and harsh orders that
had been promulgated by the President and Secretary of War. I knew that
Sherman must see these papers, and I fully realized what great
indignation they would cause him, though I do not think his feelings
could have been more excited than were my own. But like the true and
loyal soldier that he was, he carried out the instructions I had given
him, obtained the surrender of Johnston's army, and settled down in his
camp about Raleigh, to await final orders.

There were still a few expeditions out in the South that could not be
communicated with, and had to be left to act according to the judgment
of their respective commanders. With these it was impossible to tell
how the news of the surrender of Lee and Johnston, of which they must
have heard, might affect their judgment as to what was best to do.

The three expeditions which I had tried so hard to get off from the
commands of Thomas and Canby did finally get off: one under Canby
himself, against Mobile, late in March; that under Stoneman from East
Tennessee on the 20th; and the one under Wilson, starting from Eastport,
Mississippi, on the 22d of March. They were all eminently successful,
but without any good result. Indeed much valuable property was destroyed
and many lives lost at a time when we would have liked to spare them.
The war was practically over before their victories were gained. They
were so late in commencing operations, that they did not hold any troops
away that otherwise would have been operating against the armies which
were gradually forcing the Confederate armies to a surrender. The only
possible good that we may have experienced from these raids was by
Stoneman's getting near Lynchburg about the time the armies of the
Potomac and the James were closing in on Lee at Appomattox.

Stoneman entered North Carolina and then pushed north to strike the
Virginia and Tennessee Railroad. He got upon that road, destroyed its
bridges at different places and rendered the road useless to the enemy
up to within a few miles of Lynchburg. His approach caused the
evacuation of that city about the time we were at Appomattox, and was
the cause of a commotion w