The desired occasion for impeachment was furnished by Johnson's attempt to get Edwin M. Stanton, the Secretary of War, out of the Cabinet. Stanton held radical views and was at no time sympathetic with or loyal to Johnson, but he loved office too well to resign along with those cabinet members who could not follow the President in his struggle with Congress. He was seldom frank and sincere in his dealings with the President, and kept up an underhand correspondence with the radical leaders, even assisting in framing some of the reconstruction legislation which was designed to render Johnson powerless. In him the radicals had a representative within the President's Cabinet. Wearied of Stanton's disloyalty, Johnson asked him to resign and, upon a refusal, suspended him in August, 1867, and placed General Grant in temporary charge of the War Department. General Grant, Chief Justice Chase, and Secretary McCulloch, though they all disliked Stanton, advised the President against suspending him. But Johnson was determined. About the same time he exercised his power in removing Sheridan and Sickles from their commands in the South and replaced them with Hancock and Canby. The radicals were furious, but Johnson had secured at least the support of a loyal Cabinet. The suspension of Stanton was reported to the Senate in December, 1867, and on January 13, 1868, the Senate voted not to concur in the President's action. Upon receiving notice of the vote in the Senate, Grant at once left the War Department and Stanton again took possession. Johnson now charged Grant with failing to keep a promise either to hold on himself or to make it possible to appoint some one else who would hold on until the matter might be brought into the courts. The President by this accusation angered Grant and threw him with his great influence into the arms of the radicals. Against the advice of his leading counselors Johnson persisted in his intention to keep Stanton out of the Cabinet. Accordingly on the 21st of February he dismissed Stanton from office and appointed Lorenzo Thomas, the Adjutant General, as acting Secretary of War. Stanton, advised by the radicals in Congress to "stick," refused to yield possession to Thomas and had him arrested for violation of the Tenure of Office Act. The matter now was in the courts where Johnson wanted it, but the radical leaders, fearing that the courts would decide against Stanton and the reconstruction acts, had the charges against Thomas withdrawn. Thus failed the last attempt to get the reconstruction laws before the courts. On the 22nd of February the President sent to the Senate the name of Thomas Ewing, General Sherman's father-in-law, as Secretary of War, but no attention was paid to the nomination.