General Grant Refuses President Johnson's Diplomatic Request

President Andrew Johnson

Wikimedia Commons

In October 1866 the relationship between General-in Chief Ulysses S. Grant and President Andrew Johnson was deteriorating rapidly. Johnson and Grant’s differences in their outlook on Reconstruction was becoming more evident. That month, President Johnson concocted a scheme to push Grant out of the way by sending him on a diplomatic mission to Mexico so that Grant would cease to be an obstacle to his Reconstruction policies.

The wounds of the Civil War were still fresh in 1866, and like Johnson and Grant’s own political views, there were deep divisions between Congress and President Johnson over Reconstruction. By vetoing important civil rights legislation passed by Congress, Johnson’s policies emboldened former Confederates at the expense of loyal African Americans and their white allies. His hostility towards African Americans was well known. Johnson wanted a quick reconstruction of the former Confederate states that excluded African American participation in electoral politics. The majority of Congress wanted a slow reconstruction that remade the former Confederate states through laws and constitutional amendments that expanded basic rights for African Americans such as the right to testify in court, sit on juries, own property, and make contracts. During these battles, both sides tried to determine which side General Grant was on since as General-in-Chief, he had a key role in implementing Reconstruction policy. Grant felt that his duty as a soldier was to implement federal policy while avoiding partisan politics. This would become more difficult for Grant as the feud between Congress and President Johnson intensified.

Grant was brought into the fray that August when he reluctantly accompanied President Johnson on his infamous “Swing Around the Circle” tour through several northern cities in anticipation of that year’s upcoming midterm elections. In this tour Johnson defended his policies and lambasted the 14^th Amendment, which guaranteed citizenship rights for African Americans, and verbally attacked his enemies in Congress. General Grant was so disgusted with Johnson’s speeches that he “plead illness and left the presidential party and returned to Washington alone.” He wrote to his wife Julia regarding his feelings, “I have never been so tired of anything before as I have been with the political stump speeches of Mr. Johnson. I look upon them as a national disgrace.” He also wrote to General Philip Sheridan in confidence expressing his concerns. He wrote that President Johnson, has become, “more violent with the opposition [Republican members of Congress] . . . but few people who were loyal to the Government during the rebellion seem to have any influence with him.” Grant continued to tell Sheridan that “we are fast approaching the point where he will want to declare the body [Congress] illegal, unconstitutional and revolutionary.”

It was at this point where President Johnson began to suspect that General Grant was a clear obstacle to implementing his policies and he began to toy with the idea of finding a replacement General-in-Chief who would be more sympathetic to his plans. The catalyst for this scheme was the upcoming fall election in Maryland. There the Democratic governor, Thomas Swann, was trying to oust state Republicans from power with the help of a new state voter registration law which gave thousands of Ex-Confederates in the state the right to vote. In October municipal elections, Baltimore city Republicans resisted this registration law and gained victory. The Governor then declared his intention to remove Republican voter registrars and police commissioners who shielded them for the upcoming November elections. Election violence in Maryland seemed a real possibility. President Johnson wanted to help Swann and the Democrats by sending in federal troops to “keep order.” For the scheme to work, however, he needed the cooperation of the General-in-Chief, and Johnson wasn’t so sure that Grant would go along with this plan.

General of the Army of the United States Ulysses S. Grant

Library of Congress

It was then when Johnson began to put his scheme in motion. Knowing Grant had immense popularity, he couldn’t just outright replace him. He settled on a plan to send Grant on a diplomatic mission to Mexico and in the meantime bring in General William T. Sherman to Washington to act as a temporary General-in-Chief. Johnson suspected that Sherman would be more favorable to his Reconstruction plans. He also knew that Grant was greatly interested in affairs in Mexico. However, Johnson was soon found out that neither Grant nor Sherman would cooperate. On October 18, 1866 as per Johnson’s request, Grant ordered Sherman to report to Washington but privately conveyed to Sherman his suspicions of Johnson’s intentions. Sherman complained that “the military ought to keep out of quasi-political offices . . . this is some plan to get Grant out of the way, and to get me here, but I will be a party to no such move.” Sherman remained loyal to Grant.

Johnson tried his best to send Grant to Mexico, yet Grant would have none of it. He was determined to stay in Washington through the November elections. He even cancelled plans to attend the Galena wedding of his aide, Colonel Orville Babcock, explaining, “it will not do for me to leave Washington before the elections.” Regarding Johnson’s request that he go to Mexico, Grant wrote in his excuse to President Johnson, “I have most respectfully to beg to be excused from the duty proposed. It is a diplomatic service for which I am not fitted either by education or taste. It has necessarily to be conducted under the State Department with which my duties do not connect me.” In this Grant cleverly rejected Johnson’s desires citing his duty as a soldier. Johnson tried to get Grant to accede in his request a final time at a cabinet meeting and again Grant refused. When his plan backfired, Johnson sent Sherman to Mexico and Grant remained in Washington, where he monitored events in Baltimore. Johnson pushed for troops to “intervene on the governor’s side to prevent violence” but Grant demurred, insisting that “this would produce the very result intended to be averted.” In the end the election went off peacefully, but Grant’s distrust of Johnson only grew after this attempt to use him for political ends.

Further Reading

Foner, Eric. Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution. New York: Harper Press, 1988.

John Y. Simon ed. The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant Volume 16: 1866. Carbondale Illinois. Southern Illinois University Press. 1988, pp 330-31, 337-38, 346-47.

Simpson, Brooks. Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861-1868. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991.

Simpson, Brooks. The Reconstruction Presidents. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1997.

Jean Edward Smith. Grant. New York. Simon and Schuster, 2001, pp 426-429.