ANDREW JOHNSON.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, February 10, 1868.

General U.S.  GRANT,

Commanding Armies of the United States, Washington, D.C.

GENERAL:  The extraordinary character of your letter of the 3d instant[35] would seem to preclude any reply on my part; but the manner in which publicity has been given to the correspondence of which that letter forms a part and the grave questions which are involved induce me to take this mode of giving, as a proper sequel to the communications which have passed between us, the statements of the five members of the Cabinet who were present on the occasion of our conversation on the 14th ultimo.  Copies of the letters which they have addressed to me upon the subject are accordingly herewith inclosed.

You speak of my letter of the 31st ultimo[36] as a reiteration of the “many and gross misrepresentations” contained in certain newspaper articles, and reassert the correctness of the statements contained in your communication of the 28th ultimo,[37] adding—­and here I give your own words—­“anything in yours in reply to it to the contrary notwithstanding.”

When a controversy upon matters of fact reaches the point to which this has been brought, further assertion or denial between the immediate parties should cease, especially where upon either side it loses the character of the respectful discussion which is required by the relations in which the parties stand to each other and degenerates in tone and temper.  In such a case, if there is nothing to rely upon but the opposing statements, conclusions must be drawn from those statements alone and from whatever intrinsic probabilities they afford in favor of or against either of the parties.  I should not shrink from this test in this controversy; but, fortunately, it is not left to this test alone.  There were five Cabinet officers present at the conversation the detail of which in my letter of the 28th [31st[37]] ultimo you allow yourself to say contains “many and gross misrepresentations.”  These gentlemen heard that conversation and have read my statement.  They speak for themselves, and I leave the proof without a word of comment.

I deem it proper before concluding this communication to notice some of the statements contained in your letter.

You say that a performance of the promises alleged to have been made by you to the President “would have involved a resistance to law and an inconsistency with the whole history of my connection with the suspension of Mr. Stanton.”  You then state that you had fears the President would, on the removal of Mr. Stanton, appoint someone in his place who would embarrass the Army in carrying out the reconstruction acts, and add: 

“It was to prevent such an appointment that I accepted the office of Secretary of War ad interim, and not for the purpose of enabling you to get rid of Mr. Stanton by withholding it from him in opposition to law, or, not doing so myself, surrendering it to one who would, as the statements and assumptions in your communication plainly indicate was sought.”