itor, professing the greatest zeal for the Union
cause and devotion to the National Government, had published, in
a city under martial law, a confidential letter from the President,
the commander-in-chief of the army, to the commanding general of
that department. The ever kind and indulgent President was only
too willing to overlook such an offense on the part of one who
professed to be a friend of the Union. But a soldier could not
overlook such an outrage as that upon his commander-in-chief, and
upon the cause he was sworn to defend. Though his respect for a
free press be profound, there are some kinds of freedom which must,
in time of war, be crushed, even though the soldier himself may
also be crushed. A soldier who is not ready to meet his fate in
that way, as well as in battle, is not fit to command.

ASSIGNMENT TO THE DEPARTMENT OF THE MISSOURI

In President Grant's order of March, 1869, assigning the general
officers to commands, the Department of the Missouri again fell to
my lot. I relieved Lieutenant-General Sheridan, who took command
of the Division of the Missouri, and removed his headquarters from
St. Louis to Chicago, which then became for the first time the
principal military center of all the Western country. These
arrangements were intended to be as nearly permanent as practicable,
so that all might have a period of comparative rest after the eight
years of war and strife. I then reverted, for the first time in
those eight years, to the thoughts and ambitions of my youth and
young manhood, for I had grown much older in that time. First was
the ambition, inherited from my grandfather McAllister, to acquire
a farm big enough to keep all the neighbors at a respectful distance.
In company with my brother and another officer, I bought in Colorado
a ranch about ten miles square, and projected some farming and
stock-raising on a large scale. My dream was to prepare a place
where I could, ere long, retire from public life and pass the
remainder of my days in peace and in the enjoyment of all those
out-of-door sports which were always so congenial to me. But events
"over which I had no control" soon defeated that scheme. That,
like all the other plans of my own invention, came to naught. The
ranch was sold, and I got out of it, as I always tried to do, about
as much as I had put in.

Upon a suggestion from General Henry J. Hunt, the famous chief of
artillery, when