MANSFIELD, OHIO, Sept. 3, 1887.
Dear Brother: Your letter of the 27th came as I was starting for the Ohio Fair. From thence I went to Lancaster, and found all well. . . My trip to the Pacific over the Canadian Railroad was a great success. We travelled 7000 miles without fatigue, accident, or detention. We stopped over at the chief points of interest, such as Toronto, Montreal, Sudbury, Port Arthur, Winnipeg, Calgary, Banff, Donald, Glacier House, Vancouver, Victoria, Seattle, and Tacoma, and yet made the round trip within the four weeks allowed. We did not go to Alaska, because of the fogs and for want of time. The trip was very instructive, giving me an inside view of many questions that may be important in the future. The country did not impress me as a desirable acquisition, though it would not be a bad one. The people are hardy and industrious. If they had free commercial intercourse with the United States, their farms, forests, and mines would become more valuable, but at the expense of the manufactures. If the population of Mexico and Canada were homogeneous with ours, the union of the three countries would make the whole the most powerful nation in the world. I am not so sure but this would be a good thing to do. . . .
SOURCE: Rachel Sherman Thorndike, Editor, The Sherman Letters: Correspondence Between General and Senator Sherman from 1837 to 1891, p. 376-7
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