“HEADQUARTERS FIFTH MILITARY DISTRICT,
“NEW ORLEANS, La., June 3, 1867.

“SIR:  I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your telegram of this date in reference to the Levee Commissioners in this State.

“The following were my reasons for abolishing the two former boards, although I intended that my order should be sufficiently explanatory: 

“Previous to the adjournment of the Legislature last winter it passed an act continuing the old Levee board in office, so that the four millions of dollars ($4,000,000) in bonds appropriated by the Legislature might be disbursed by a board of rebellious antecedents.

“After its adjournment the Governor of the State appointed a board of his own, in violation of this act, and made the acknowledgment to me in person that his object was to disburse the money in the interest of his own party by securing for it the vote of the employees at the time of election.

“The board continued in office by the Legislature refused to turn over to the Governor’s board, and each side appealed to me to sustain it, which I would not do.  The question must then have gone to the courts, which, according to the Governor’s judgment when he was appealing to me to be sustained, would require one year for decision.  Meantime the State was overflowed, the Levee boards tied up by political chicanery, and nothing done to relieve the poor people, now fed by the charity of the Government and charitable associations of the North.

“To obviate this trouble, and to secure to the overflowed districts of the State the immediate relief which the honest disbursement of the four millions ($4,000,000) would give, my order dissolving both boards was issued.

“I say now, unequivocally, that Governor Wells is a political trickster and a dishonest man.  I have seen him myself, when I first came to this command, turn out all the Union men who had supported the Government, and put in their stead rebel soldiers who had not yet doffed their gray uniform.  I have seen him again, during the July riot of 1866, skulk away where I could not find him to give him a guard, instead of coming out as a manly representative of the State and joining those who were preserving the peace.  I have watched him since, and his conduct has been as sinuous as the mark left in the dust by the movement of a snake.

“I say again that he is dishonest, and that dishonesty is more than must be expected of me.

“P.  H. SHERIDAN,
“Major-General, U. S. A.

“Hon. E. M. STANTON,
“Secretary of War, Washington, D. C.”

The same day that I sent my report to the Secretary of War I removed from office Governor Wells himself, being determined to bear no longer with the many obstructions he had placed in the way of reorganizing the civil affairs of the State.  I was also satisfied that he was unfit to retain the place, since he was availing himself of every opportunity to work political ends beneficial to himself.  In this instance Wells protested to me against his removal, and also appealed to the President for an opinion of the Attorney-General as to my power in the case; and doubtless he would have succeeded in retaining his office, but for the fact that the President had been informed by General James B. Steadman and others placed to watch me that Wells was wholly unworthy.