The PRESIDENT.
SIR: I am in receipt of yours of yesterday, calling my attention to
a correspondance between yourself and General Grant published in the
Chronicle newspaper, and especially to that part of said correspondence
"which refers to the conversation between the President and General
Grant at the Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, the 14th of January," and
requesting me "to state what was said in that conversation."
In reply I submit the following statement: At the Cabinet meeting on
Tuesday, the 14th of January, 1868, General Grant appeared and took his
accustomed seat at the board. When he had been reached in the order of
business, the President asked him, as usual, if he had anything to
present.
In reply the General, after referring to a note which he had that
morning addressed to the President, inclosing a copy of the resolution
of the Senate refusing to concur in the reasons for the suspension of
Mr. Stanton, proceeded to say that he regarded his duties as Secretary
of War _ad interim_ terminated by that resolution, and that he could not
lawfully exercise such duties for a moment after the adoption of the
resolution by the Senate; that the resolution reached him last night,
and that this morning he had gone to the War Department, entered the
Secretary's room, bolted one door on the inside, locked the other on the
outside, delivered the key to the Adjutant-General, and proceeded to the
Headquarters of the Army and addressed the note above mentioned to the
President, informing him that he (General Grant) was no longer Secretary
of War _ad interim_.
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