Page:Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs (Volume Two).djvu/98

Rh officer of the war. He gave Sheridan credit for two supreme qualities—great care in his plans and great vigor in execution.

Yet, although the President acted upon a sound basis of opinion, the choice left a painful impression upon his memory.

General Thomas and General Lee were alike in personal appearance, and they resembled each other in their mental characteristics. In one important particular they differed—General Thomas had no respect for State-Rights doctrines. He was a native of Virginia, but there were no indications in his testimony, nor were there rumors, that he had ever hesitated in his course when the rebellion opened.

He exhibited a peculiarity not uncommon among loyal men in the South—a disposition to deprive those who had been engaged in the rebellion of the right of suffrage.

General Thomas was examined by the Committee on Reconstruction January 29, and February 2, 1866. He was then in command of the Military Division of the Tennessee which included the States of Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi. It was the main object of the committee to obtain information as to the public sentiment touching the treatment of the negroes and the re-establishment of civil government in the States that had been in rebellion. The Union sentiment was stronger in Tennessee than in any other State of the Confederacy. The inhabitants of the mountainous districts of eastern and middle Tennessee had been loyal from the opening of the contest in 1860 and 1861. Yet in 1866 General Thomas advised the committee that it would “not be safe to remove the national troops from Tennessee, or to withdraw martial law; or to restore the writ of habeas corpus to its full extent.” At that time the peace of eastern Tennessee was disturbed by family feuds and personal quarrels, the outcome of political differences.