If that does no good, it will not be my fault. If the President insists on taking a wrong course, in spite of all, he should not be surprised if, later, I take the field against him with the entire artillery that I am now collecting. He will find the guns rather heavy; but I still hope that it will not be necessary.
TO PRESIDENT JOHNSON
New Orleans, Sept. 5, 1865.
Private.
The enclosed paragraph[1] is clipped from one of to-day's
New Orleans papers. I cannot deny that it was a painful
surprise to me. You remember that I did not seek the
mission on which I am at present employed. I accepted
it thinking that I could render the country some service.
The paragraph has the appearance of coming from one
of the Government offices. The charge that I reported
the information I gathered, to newspapers and not to
you, is certainly unjust. You must have received my
elaborate reports from every State I visited, and I am
conscious of having done everything I could, to inform
myself well, and to bring to your notice whatever I thought
could be of interest and service to the Government.
That I have written some letters to newspapers is true; but in those letters I gave nothing that ought to have been kept secret. I think there could be no harm in my publishing incidents, anecdotes and observations that were
- ↑
“GEN. CARL SCHURZ TO BE RECALLED
“Washington, Aug. 22.
“It is understood that the course of General Schurz, now travelling in the South by orders from the Government, does not meet the approval of the President; and it is expected that he will be recalled soon. It is alleged that he writes for Northern newspapers his impressions of what he has seen, and publishes opinions as to what policy ought to be pursued towards the Southern States instead of making his reports directly to the War Department for the information of the President.”
