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General Grant is instructed, in writing, not to obey any order from the War Department, assumed to be issued by the direction of the President, unless such order is known by the General commanding the armies of the United States to have been authorized by the Executive. Grant responded, on January 30th, that he had been informed by the Secretary of War that he (the Secretary) had not received from the Executive any order or instructions limiting or impairing his authority to issue orders to the army as had theretofore been his practice under the law and the customs of the Department, and that while this authority to the War Department was not countermanded it would be satisfactory evidence to him (the General) that any orders issued from the War Department by the formal direction of the President were authorized by the Executive. This was coming very nearly up to the {168} line between obedience and disobedience on the part of the General of the army toward the constitutional Commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States. The General must have himself felt that he was on rather shaky ground, for in the closing paragraph of his letter of February 11th he disclaimed any intention of disobeying
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But this was still an ambiguous situation. Who was to determine whether an order of the President to the General was legal or not? If the President, then there was no need of qualifying the word
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by the word