No sooner were these engagements reported in Washington than they were repudiated. However they might have accorded with, or might have transcended, the sentiments of him who had been president only a few days before, they by no means accorded with the views of Andrew Johnson, who was president at that time, and still less with the views of the secretary of war, who well represented the vengeful element of the country. Accordingly Mr. Stanton at once annulled them by an order, which he followed up by a bulletin containing ten reasons in support of the order. This document was immediately published in the newspapers, and was so vituperative and insulting towards Sherman[61] that the general, who naturally did not feel himself a fitting object for insolence at this season of his fresh military triumphs, soon afterward showed his resentment; at the grand parade of his army, in Washington, he conspicuously declined, in the presence of the President and the notabilities of the land, to shake the hand which Secretary Stanton did not hesitate then and there to extend to him,--for Stanton had that peculiar and unusual form of meanness which endeavors to force a civility after an insult. But however General Sherman might feel about it, his capitulation had been revoked, and another conference became necessary between the two generals, which was followed a little later by still another between Generals Schofield and Johnston. At these meetings the terms which had been established between Generals Grant and Lee were substantially repeated, and by this "military convention" the war came to a formal end on April 26, 1865.