WASHINGTON, January 2d,
1863.
My Dear Brother:
We are watching with the most eager interest the progress of
your expedition. We all hope its success will brighten the gloom cast by
operations here. If the Mississippi can only be opened and Texas and Arkansas
detached it will be a gleam of hope by which I can see the end of the war. Without
an outlet to the South and West and with such a blockade as we can easily keep
up, the Southern Confederacy cannot exist. This will settle the cotton
question, for Texas and Arkansas can with the free labor that can easily be
thrown there grow enough cotton for the world — another ground of hope. Banks
and yourself I regard as the best officers we have. . . .
I have always believed in you even when you were under a
cloud: If you and Banks can act harmoniously and actively together you are able
to do more than any two men in the continent.
By the way, Banks is a reserved man, not from pride or over
self-confidence, but from the defects of a limited education and from a
sensitiveness this unnecessarily gives him. The more you know him the better
you will like him. He and I are warm friends. We became early attached in his
famous contest for speaker when I first entered Congress. Although new in
political life, I stuck to him when his prospects were dark, and ever since
then there has been a sincere friendship between us, although we have not often
met. This feeling I know will warm him towards you, and his abilities will
excite your respect. I write this in anticipation of your meeting and having to
co-operate with him. . . .
This Government has to be maintained and I now look to you
and Banks as the “men of promise.” I do
not favor the Bankrupt Law as you suppose, and I can’t conceive how you got
that idea unless because I presented petitions. I am occasionally asked for
letters to you. I generally decline, except where refusal would wound a valued
friend.
Affectionately yours,
JOHN SHERMAN
SOURCE: Rachel Sherman Thorndike, Editor, The
Sherman letters: correspondence between General and Senator Sherman from 1837
to 1891, p. 177-8
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