HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE UNITED STATES,
WASHINGTON, D.C., July 8, 1871.
Dear Brother:
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I saw General Grant when he was here some days ago, and we
talked about . . . and my published declination of a nomination by either
party. I told him plainly that the South would go against him en masse, though
he counts on South Carolina, Louisiana, and Arkansas; but I repeated my
conviction, that all that was vital at the South was against him, and that
negroes were generally quiescent and could not be relied on as voters when
local questions become mixed up with political matters. I think, however, he
will be renominated and re-elected, unless by personally doing small things, to
alienate his party adherence of the North. . . .
My office has been by law stript of all the influence and
prestige it possessed under Grant, and even in matters of discipline and army
control I am neglected, overlooked, or snubbed. I have called General Grant's
attention to the fact several times, but got no satisfactory redress.
The old regulations of 1853, made by Jeff Davis in hostility
to General Scott, are now strictly construed and enforced; and in these
regulations the War Department is everything, and the name of General,
Lieutenant-General, or Commander-in-Chief even, does not appear in the book.
Consequently, orders go to parts of the army supposed to be under my command,
of which I know nothing till I read them in the newspapers; and when I call the
attention of the Secretary to it, he simply refers to some paragraph of the
Army Regulations. Some five years ago there was a law to revise these
Regulations, and to make them conform to the new order of things, and to utilize
the experiences of the war. A Board was appointed here in Washington, composed
of Sherman, Sheridan, and Auger, that did so revise them, and they were
submitted to Congress with the approval of General Grant; but no action was
taken. But now a new Board is ordered to prepare another set, and this Board is
composed of a set of officers hardly qualified to revise the judgment of the
former Board. I propose patiently to await the action of this Board, though now
that war is remote, there is little chance of Congress giving the army a
thought at all; and if these new regulations were framed, as I suppose, to
cripple the power of the General, and to foster the heads of staff departments,
I will simply notify the President that I cannot undertake to command an army
with all its staff independent of the Commander-in-Chief, and ask him. to allow
me quietly to remove to St. Louis, to do such special matters as may be
committed to me by the President, and leave the Army to be governed and
commanded as now, by the Secretary of War, in person. This cannot occur for
twelve months. . . .
I have said nothing of this to anybody, and will not do
anything hasty or rash; but I do think that because some newspapers berate
Grant about his military surroundings, he feels disposed to go to the other extreme.
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Affectionately,
W. T. SHERMAN.
SOURCE: Rachel Sherman Thorndike, Editor, The
Sherman Letters: Correspondence Between General and Senator Sherman from 1837
to 1891, p. 331-2