MEMPHIS, August 26th,
1862.
Dear Brother:
. . . Gradually the practice has come into my original
proposition that none but discharged soldiers should go home, or wounded men.
All others should be in regimental hospitals, or hospitals established near at
hand where as they convalesce they can join. Although from the President down
to the lowest Brigadier orders to this effect have been issued, yet there are
hundreds trying to get their brothers and sons home. I know full well the
intense desire to get home, but any army would be ruined by this cause alone.
McClellan has 70,000 absent from his army. Some were sick, but certainly not
over 20,000; with the other 50,000 our country might have been saved the
disgrace of a retreat from Richmond, for it has resolved itself into that. At
last all have come to the conclusion that we are at war, and great as the draft
has been on your population, don’t suppose you outnumber the South yet. All
their people are armed and at war. You hear of vast armies at Richmond, at
Chattanooga and threatening New Orleans, whilst the whole country is full of
guerilla bands numbering hundreds. All the people are armed. A year ago we
could have taken them unprepared, but they have used the year to buy all kinds
of arms and munitions of war and wherever we go we find them well prepared.
They seem to have left this quarter. I am glad of the new levies and only
regret the loss of the year. The present operations in Virginia and Kentucky
are all important. . . .
Affectionately,
W. T. SHERMAN.
SOURCE: Rachel Sherman Thorndike, Editor, The
Sherman letters: correspondence between General and Senator Sherman from 1837
to 1891, p. 159-60
No comments:
Post a Comment