have an operator during this inspection who had possession of this
cipher to enable me to telegraph to my division and to the War
Department without my dispatches being read by all the operators along
the line of wires over which they were transmitted. Accordingly I
ordered the cipher operator to turn over the key to Captain Cyrus B.
Comstock, of the Corps of Engineers, whom I had selected as a wise and
discreet man who certainly could be trusted with the cipher if the
operator at my headquarters could.

The operator refused point blank to turn over the key to Captain
Comstock as directed by me, stating that his orders from the War
Department were not to give it to anybody--the commanding general or any
one else. I told him I would see whether he would or not. He said that
if he did he would be punished. I told him if he did not he most
certainly would be punished. Finally, seeing that punishment was certain
if he refused longer to obey my order, and being somewhat remote (even
if he was not protected altogether from the consequences of his
disobedience to his orders) from the War Department, he yielded. When I
returned from Knoxville I found quite a commotion. The operator had
been reprimanded very severely and ordered to be relieved. I informed
the Secretary of War, or his assistant secretary in charge of the
telegraph, Stager, that the man could not be relieved, for he had only
obeyed my orders. It was absolutely necessary for me to have the
cipher, and the man would most certainly have been punished if he had
not delivered it; that they would have to punish me if they punished
anybody, or words to that effect.

This was about the only thing approaching a disagreeable difference
between the Secretary of War and myself that occurred until the war was
over, when we had another little spat. Owing to his natural disposition
to assume all power and control in all matters that he had anything
whatever to do with, he boldly took command of the armies, and, while
issuing no orders on the subject, prohibited any order from me going out
of the adjutant-general's office until he had approved it. This was
done by directing the adjutant-general to hold any orders that came from
me to be issued from the adjutant-general's office until he had examined
them and given his approval. He never disturbed himself, either, in
examining my orders until it was entirely convenient for him; so that
orders which I had prepared would