MEMPHIS, March 12,
1864.
. . . Of all the expeditions sent out this spring mine has been
best conducted and most successful simply because of the secrecy and expedition
with which it was planned and executed. Had the enemy been informed of these in
advance by our prying correspondents I might have shared the fate of Seymour.2
He did not go forty miles from his base, whereas I went one hundred and eighty-two
miles. I have written Grant a long letter and begged him to adhere to his
resolution not to stay at Washington. He would not stand the intrigues of politicians
a week. He now occupies a dazzling height and it will require more courage to
withstand the pressure than a dozen battles. I wonder if you kept a certain despatch Halleck made me from Corinth in June 1862 and my answer from Moscow. I
foretold to Halleck his loss, and the fact that the man who won the Mississippi
would be the man. I wish you would hunt it up — I know I saw it among
your papers — and show it to Phil to satisfy him, however extravagant my early
assertions may have seemed, how they are verified by time. I feel that whilst
my mind naturally slights the events actually transpiring in my presence it
sees as clear as any one's the results to be evolved by time. Now Halleck has
more reserve book-learning and knowledge of men than Grant, and is therefore
better qualified for his present post; whereas the latter by his honesty,
simplicity, candor and reliance on friends, is better suited to act with
soldiers. I would rather occupy my present relation to the military world than
any other command and therefore must serve out this campaign which is to be the
test. All that has gone before is mere skirmishing. The war now begins, and
with heavy well-disciplined masses the issue must be settled in hard fought
battles. I think we can whip them in Alabama and it may be Georgia. . . . No
amount of poverty or adversity seems to shake their faith: niggers gone, wealth
and luxury gone, money worthless, starvation in view within a period of two or
three years, and causes enough to make the bravest tremble. Yet I see no signs
of let up — some few deserters, plenty tired of war, but the masses determined
to fight it out. . . .
2 In the previous month General Truman Seymour
had met defeat in Florida.
SOURCES: M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Editor, Home Letters of
General Sherman, p. 286-8. A full copy of this letter can
be found in the William
T Sherman Family papers (SHR), University of Notre Dame Archives
(UNDA), Notre Dame, IN 46556, Folder CSHR 2/12
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