You will not obey the direct order of the President,
but will obey his indirect order. If, as you say, there has been a
practice in the War Department to issue orders in the name of the
President without his direction, does not the precise order you have
requested and have received change the practice as to the General of
the Army? Could not the President countermand any such order issued to
you from the War Department? If you should receive an order from that
Department, issued in the name of the President, to do a special act,
and an order directly from the President himself not to do the act, is
there a doubt which you are to obey? You answer the question when you
say to the President, in your letter of the 3d instant,[44] the Secretary
of War is "my superior and your subordinate," and yet you refuse
obedience to the superior out of a deference to the subordinate.
Without further comment upon the insubordinate attitude which you
have assumed, I am at a loss to know how you can relieve yourself
from obedience to the orders of the President, who is made by the
Constitution the Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, and is
therefore the official superior as well of the General of the Army
as of the Secretary of War.
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