Marines vindicated

[David Lockmiller]

I was reading last night in Doris Kearns Goodwin's wonderfully-researched and well-written book "Team of Rivals" that two days after President Lincoln wrote the following order, General Grant issued to him an invitation which he immediately accepted.

Order Annulling Sentence of Benjamin G. and Franklin W. Smith


March 18, 1865

I am unwilling for the sentence to stand and be executed, to any extent in this case. In the absence of a more adequate motive than the evidence discloses, I am wholly unable to believe in the existence of criminal or fraudulent intent on the part of one of such well established good character as is the accused. If the evidence went as far toward establishing a guilty profit of one or two hundred thousand dollars, as it does of one or two hundred dollars, the case would, on the question of guilt, bear a far different aspect. That on this contract, involving from one million to twelve hundred thousand dollars, the contractors should attempt a fraud which at the most could profit them only one or two hundred, or even one thousand dollars, is to my mind beyond the power of rational belief. That they did not, in such a case, strike for greater gains proves that they did not, with guilty, or fraudulent intent, strike at all. The judgment and sentence are disapproved, and declared null, and the accused ordered to be discharged.

March 18. 1865 A. LINCOLN

Doris Kearns Goodwin wrote:

In late March, Lincoln, Mary, and Tad, journeyed to City Point to visit General Grant. For Lincoln, the eighteen-day sojourn was his longest break from Washington in four years. Grant had issued the invitation at the suggestion of his wife, Julia, who had been struck by constant newspaper report of "the exhausted appearance of the President." Grant worried at first about the propriety of issuing an invitation when the president could visit without waiting "to be asked," but on March 20, he wrote a note to Lincoln: "Can you not visit City Point for a day or two? I would like very much to see you and I think the rest would do you good." Delighted with the idea, Lincoln asked the Navy Department to make arrangements for a ship to carry him south.

("Team of Rivals" - pages 707 -711 make for good reading)

I say: "Thank you, Julia Grant!"