HEADQUARTERS MILITARY
DIVISION OF THE MISSISSIPPI.
IN THE FIELD, ATLANTA, Aug.
12, 1864.
SCHUYLER COLFAX, Esq.,
South Bend, Ind.
My Dear Sir:
John Sherman has sent me your letter of Aug. 2d, in which
you intimate a wish that certain nine regiments of Indiana troops should be
ordered where they can be furloughed so as to vote in the fall elections.
Of course it is impossible. I have not now troops enough to
do what the case admits of without extra hazard, and to send away a single man
would be an act of injustice to the remainder. I think you need not be
concerned about the soldiers’ vote. They will vote, — it may not be in the
coming election, — but you may rest assured the day will come when the soldiers
will vote, and the only doubt is if they will permit the stay-at-homes to vote
at all.
I hope you will be elected; but I do think the conscript-law
is the only one that is wanted for the next few years, and if the President
uses it freely he can checkmate the Copperheads, who are not in favor of being
governed by Jeff Davis, but are afraid to go to the war. Their motives are
transparent. Jeff Davis despises them more than you do, and if he prevails in
this war he will deal with Copperheads with infinitely more severity than he
will with men who fight for their country and for principle.
I am, etc.,
W. T. SHERMAN,
Major- General.
SOURCE: Rachel Sherman Thorndike, Editor, The
Sherman Letters: Correspondence Between General and Senator Sherman from 1837
to 1891, p. 238-9
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