ication that he had done so. I was then on my way to Nashville
myself, and remained over a day in Washington, hoping that Thomas
might still move. Of course I was gratified when I learned that
he had moved, because it was a very delicate and unpleasant matter
to remove a man of General Thomas's character and standing before
the country; but still I had urged him so long to move that I had
come to think it a duty. Of course in sending you to relieve
General Thomas, I meant no reflection whatever upon General Schofield,
who was commanding the Army of the Ohio, because I thought that he
had done very excellent service in punishing the entire force under
Hood a few days before, some twenty-five miles south of Nashville.
Very truly yours,

"U. S. Grant
"(_per_ Frank F. Wood)."

GRANT'S INTENTIONS IN SENDING LOGAN

"New York, February 23, 1884.
"Gen. John A. Logan, U. S. Senate, Washington, D. C.

"Dear General: Since I have been confined to my room I have
conducted all my correspondence through a secretary, who is a
stenographer, and he takes my dictation to the office and writes
the letters out there as dictated, and by my direction signs my
name. I intended that the letter which I wrote to you should be
brought back to me for my own signature, and I sign this myself to
show my entire responsibility for the one which you have just
received, and which I hope was satisfactory to you.

"Very truly yours,
"U. S. Grant."

The passion and prejudice begotten in the minds of Thomas's soldiers
and their friends by injustice, real or fancied, done or proposed
to be done to him by his superiors in rank, have rendered impossible
any calm discussion of questions touching his military career.
There is not yet, and probably will not be in our lifetime, a proper
audience for such discussion. But posterity will award justice to
all if their deeds have been such as to save their names from
oblivion.

Time works legitimate "revenge," and makes all things even. When
I was a boy at West Point I was court-martialed for tolerating some
youthful "deviltry" of my classmates, in which I took no part
myself, and was sentenced to be dismissed. Thomas, then already
a veteran soldier, was a member of the court, and he and one other
were the only ones of thirteen members who declined to recommend
that the sentence be remitted. This I learned in 1868, when I was
Secretary of War. Only