present 18,578; the effective total, or fighting force, 14,179. On the 7th of April, the date of the last return I can find, the effective total of the cavalry was 5,440. But between the 7th and 26th April it was greatly reduced by events in Virginia and apprehensions of surrender. In South Carolina we had Young's division of cavalry, less than one thousand, besides reserves and State troops-together much inferior to the Federal force in that State. In Florida, we were as weak. In Georgia, our inadequate force had been captured at Macon. In Lieutenant-General Taylor's department, there were no means of opposing the formidable army under General Canby, which had taken Mobile; nor the cavalry under General Wilson, which had captured every other place of importance west of Augusta. The latter had been stopped at Macon by the armistice, as we had been at Greensboro', but its distance from Augusta being less than half of ours, that place was in its power. To carry on the war, therefore, we had to depend upon the Army of the Tennessee alone. The United States could have brought against it twelve or fifteen times its number in the armies of Generals Grant, Sherman, and Canby. With such odds against us, without the means of .procuring ammunition or repairing arms, without money or credit to provide food, it was impossible to continue the war except as robbers. The consequence of prolonging the struggle would only have been the destruction or dispersion of our bravest men, and great suffering of women and children by the desolation and ruin inevitable from the marching of two hundred thousand men through the country. Having failed in an attempt to obtain terms giving security to citizens as well as soldiers, I had to choose between wantonly bringing the evils of war upon those I had chosen to defend, and averting those calamities with the confession that hopes were dead, which every thinking Southern man had already lost. I therefore stipulated with General Sherman for the security of the brave and true men committed to me on terms which also terminated hostilities in all the country over which my command extended, and announced it to your Governors by telegraph as follows: "The disaster in Virginia, the capture by the enemy of all our workshops for the preparation of ammunition and repairing of arms, the impossibility of recruiting our little army, opposed to more than ten times its number, or of supplying it, except by robbing our own citizens, destroyed all hope of successful war. I have therefore made a military convention with Major-General Sherman to terminate hostilities in North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. I made this convention to spare the blood of this gallant little army, to prevent further suffering of our people by the devastation and ruin inevitable from the marches of invading armies, and to avoid the crime of waging a hopeless war." J. E. JOHNSTON. GENERAL SHERMAN'S EXAMINATION BEFORE THE CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE ON THE CONDUCT OF THE WAR, RELATIVE TO HIS CONFERENCE WITH GENERAL JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. MAJOR-GENERAL SHERMAN being sworn and examined : By the Chairman Q. What is your rank in the army? A. I am majorgeneral in the regular army. Q. As your negotiation with the rebel General Johnston, in relation to his surrender, has been the subject of much public comment, the committee desire you to state all the facts and circumstances in regard to it, or which you wish the public to know. A. On the 15th day of April last I was at Raleigh, in command of three armies, the Army of the Ohio, the Army of the Cumberland, and the Army of the Tennessee; my enemy was General Joseph E. Johnston, of the Confederate army, who commanded fifty thousand men, retreating along the railroad from Raleigh, by Hillsboro', Greensboro', Salisbury, and Charlotte. I commenced pursuit by crossing the curve of that road in the direction of Ashboro' and Charlotte. After the head of my column had crossed the Cape Fear River at Aven's Ferry, I received a communication from General Johnston, and answered it, copies of which I most promptly sent to the War Department, with a letter addressed to the secretary of war, as follows: HEADQUARTERS MILITARY DIVISION OF THE MISSISSIPPI, General U. S. GRANT and Secretary of War: I send copies of a correspondence to you with General Johnston, which I think will be followed by terms of capitulation. I will grant the same terms General Grant gave General Lee, and be careful not to complicate any points of civil policy. If any cavalry has retreated towards me, caution them to be prepared to find our work done. It is now raining in torrents, and I shall await General Johnston's reply here, and will prepare to meet him in person at Chapel Hill. I have invited Governor Vance to return to Raleigh with the civil officers of his State. I have met ex-Governor Graham, Messrs. Badger, Moore, Holden, and others, all of whom agree that the war is over, and that the States of the South must resume their allegiance, subject to the Constitution and laws of Congress, and must submit to the national arms. This great fact was admitted, and the details are of easy arrangement. W. T SHERMAN, Major-General. I met General Johnston, in person, at a house five miles from Durham's Station, under a flag of truce. After a few preliminary remarks he said to me, since Lee had surrendered his army at Appomattox Court-house, of which he had just been advised, he looked upon further opposition by him as the greatest possible of crimes; that he wanted to know whether I could make him any general concessions; any thing by which he could maintain his hold and control of his army, and prevent its scattering; any thing to satisfy the great yearning of their people. If so, he thought he could arrange terms satisfactory to both parties. He wanted to embrace the condition and fate of all the armies of the Southern Confederacy to the Rio Grande, to make one job of it, as he termed it. I asked him what his powers were,-whether he could command and control the fate of all the armies to the Rio Grande. He answered that he thought he could obtain the power, but he did not possess it that moment; he did not know where Mr. Davis was, but he thought if I could give him the time, he could find Mr. Breckinridge, whose orders would be obeyed everywhere, and he could pledge me his personal faith that whatever he undertook to do would be done. I had had frequent correspondence with the late President of the United States, with the secretary of war, with General Halleck, and with General Grant, and the general impression left upon my mind was, that if a settlement could be made, consistent with the Constitution of the United States, the laws of Congress, and the proclamation of the President, they would not only be willing, but pleased to terminate the war by one single stroke of the pen. I needed time to finish the railroad from the Neuse Bridge up to Raleigh, and thought I could put in four or five days of good time in making repairs to my road, even if I had to send propositions to Washington. I therefore consented to delay twenty-four hours, to enable General Johnston to procure what would satisfy me as to his authority and ability, as a military man, to do what he undertook to do. I therefore consented to meet him the next day, the 17th, at 12 o'clock noon, at the same place. We did meet again; after a general interchange of courtesies, he remarked that he was then prepared to satisfy me that he could fulfil the terms of our conversation of the day before. He then asked me what I was willing to do. I told him, in the first place, I could not deal with anybody except men recognized by us as "belligerents," because no military man could go beyond that fact. The attorney-general has since so decided, and any man of |