e funeral.

We buried our companion in beautiful Arlington, the choicest spot
in America for the last resting-place of a soldier. It was a bright
summer's day, and the funeral ceremonies, both religious and
military, were the most impressive I have ever seen. As a special
tribute of respect to my brother soldier, a staff officer in uniform
was sent to meet and escort the archbishop who came to celebrate
the funeral mass.

The death of General Sheridan placed me in a position which I had
never anticipated--that of senior officer on the active list of
the army. The President had known little of me either officially
or personally, and I had some grave differences with the Secretary
of War upon subjects of great importance in my estimation, though
doubtless less in his. I had defended as well as I could, and with
some persistence, what I then believed and now know was the right,
but had been worsted, as a matter of course. It is due to the
Honorable Secretary to say that he disclaimed, many months later,
ever having knowingly given his sanction to the document announcing
one of the military doctrines which I had so persistently but
ineffectually combated. But I did not know that in August, 1888,
and he did not then know that he had been thus betrayed. Hence I
thought it quite improbable that a general holding opinions so
radically opposed to those of the Secretary of War would be called
to the command of the army. But I quietly waited in Washington
for the President's orders, neither seeking nor receiving any
opportunity for explanation of the supposed irreconcilable difference
with the Secretary of War. What occurred in that secret council-
chamber of the commander-in-chief, where the fate of so many anxious
soldiers has been sealed, I have never known or inquired; but in
no great length of time came the President's order assigning me to
the command of the army,--six or seven hours, as I afterward learned,
after it was received in the War Department and given to the press.

DEPLORABLE CONDITION OF THE WAR DEPARTMENT

It is not too much to say that the condition of the War Department
at that time was deplorable. It was the culmination of the
controversy respecting the relations between the administration
and the command which had lasted, with slight intermissions, for
forty years. It is not my purpose to go into the history of that
long controversy, but only to state briefly