In thus relying on the strength of their position the upholders of law
realized that there might be fighting, and even severe fighting, but it
must be remembered that the Law and Order party loved fighting. It was
part of their education and of their pleasure and code. No wonder that
they viewed with equanimity and perhaps with joy the beginning of the
Vigilance movement of 1856.
The leaders of the Law and Order party chose as their military commander
William Tecumseh Sherman, whose professional ability and integrity in
later life are unquestioned, but whose military genius was equaled only
by his extreme inability to remember facts. When writing his _Memoirs_,
the General evidently forgot that original documents existed or that
statements concerning historical events can often be checked up. A mere
mob is irresponsible and anonymous. But it was not a mob with whom
Sherman was faced, for, as a final satisfaction to the legal-minded, the
men of the Vigilance Committee had put down their names on record as
responsible for this movement, and it is upon contemporary record that
the story of these eventful days must rely for its details.
CHAPTER XIV
THE STORM BREAKS
The Governor of the State at this time was J. Neely Johnson, a
politician whose merits and demerits were both so slight that he would
long since have been forgotten were it not for the fact that he occupied
office during this excitement.
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