divide these appointments up among the religious churches, with which you dare not contend.”  The army officers were consequently relieved of their “civil offices,” and the Indian agencies were apportioned to the several religious churches in about the proportion of their—­supposed strength—­some to the Quakers, some to the Methodists, to the Catholics, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, etc., etc.—­and thus it remains to the present time, these religious communities selecting the agents to be appointed by the Secretary of the Interior.  The Quakers, being first named, gave name to the policy, and it is called the “Quaker” policy to-day.  Meantime railroads and settlements by hardy, bold pioneers have made the character of Indian agents of small concern, and it matters little who are the beneficiaries.

As was clearly foreseen, General U. S. Grant was duly nominated, and on the 7th of November, 1868, was elected President of the United States for the four years beginning with March 4, 1869.

On the 15th and 16th of December, 1868, the four societies of the Armies of the Cumberland, Tennessee, Ohio, and Georgia, held a joint reunion at Chicago, at which were present over two thousand of the surviving officers and soldiers of the war.  The ceremonies consisted of the joint meeting in Crosby’s magnificent opera-house, at which General George H. Thomas presided.  General W. W. Belknap was the orator for the Army of the Tennessee, General Charles Cruft for the Army of the Cumberland, General J. D. Cox for the Army of the Ohio, and General William Cogswell for the Army of Georgia.  The banquet was held in the vast Chamber of Commerce, at which I presided.  General Grant, President-elect, General J. M. Schofield, Secretary of War, General H. W. Slocum, and nearly every general officer of note was present except General Sheridan, who at the moment was fighting the Cheyennes in Southern Kansas and the Indian country.

At that time we discussed the army changes which would necessarily occur in the following March, and it was generally understood that I was to succeed General Grant as general-in-chief, but as to my successor, Meade, Thomas, and Sheridan were candidates.  And here I will remark that General Grant, afterward famous as the “silent man,” used to be very gossipy, and no one was ever more fond than he of telling anecdotes of our West Point and early army life.  At the Chicago reunion he told me that I would have to come to Washington, that he wanted me to effect a change as to the general staff, which he had long contemplated, and which was outlined in his letter to Mr. Stanton of January 29,1866, given hereafter, which had been repeatedly published, and was well known to the military world; that on being inaugurated President on the 4th of March he would retain General Schofield as his Secretary of War until the change had become habitual; that the modern custom of the Secretary of War giving military orders to