care in his plans and
great vigor in execution.

Yet, although the President acted upon a sound basis of opinion, the
choice left a painful impression upon his memory.

General Thomas and General Lee were alike in personal appearance, and
they resembled each other in their mental characteristics. In one
important particular they differed--General Thomas had no respect for
State-Rights doctrines. He was a native of Virginia, but there was no
indication in his testimony, nor were there rumors, that he had ever
hesitated in his course when the rebellion opened.

General Thomas was examined by the Committee on Reconstruction January
29, and February 2, 1866. He was then in command of the Military
Division of the Tennessee which included the States of Kentucky,
Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi. It was the main object of
the committee to obtain information as to the public sentiment touching
the treatment of the negroes and the re-establishment of civil
government in the States that had been in rebellion. The Union
sentiment was stronger in Tennessee than in any other State of the
Confederacy. The inhabitants of the mountainous districts of eastern
and middle Tennessee had been loyal from the opening of the contest in
1860 and 1860. Yet in 1866 General Thomas advised the committee that
it would "not be safe to remove the national troops from Tennessee, or
to withdraw martial law; or to restore the writ of habeas corpus to
its full extent." At that time the peace of eastern Tennessee was
disturbed by family feuds and personal quarrels, the outcome of
political differences. In west Tennessee and in portions of middle
Tennessee there was a deep seated hostility to Union men, and
especially to Southern men who had served in the Union army.

General Thomas said of them: "They are more unfriendly to Union men
natives of the State of Tennessee or of the South, who have been in
the Union army, than they are to men of Northern birth."

At that time the contract system of labor had been introduced, and the
contracts were regarded as binding both by whites and blacks.

General Thomas advised the admission of Tennessee into the Union as a
State, and his advice was acted upon favorably by its admission in the
summer of that year. His recommendations were based upon the facts
that Tennessee had "repudiated the rebel debt, had abolished slavery,
had adopted the Constitutional amendment upon that subject, had pas