CAMP BEFORE VICKSBURG,
April 3, '63.
My Dear Brother:
I received your long letter from Mansfield, for which I am
much obliged. You certainly have achieved an envious name in the Senate, and I
confess I am astonished at your industry and acquirements. I readily understand
how, in a revolution of the magnitude that now involves us all, older men
should devolve on you and the younger school of men the legislation and
experiments necessary to meet a state of facts so different from the common run
of events. The Finance Bill and Conscription Acts of the late Congress in my
judgment may keep the management of the affairs of the nation in the hands of
the Constitutional Government. Anything short of them, the war would have
drifted out of the control of President and Congress. Now if Mr. Lincoln will
assume the same position that Davis did at the outset, he can unite the
fighting North against the fighting South, and numerical force systematized
will settle the war. I know the impatience of the people, but this is one of
the lessons of war. People must learn that war is a question of physical force
and courage. A million of men engaged in peaceful pursuits will be vanquished
by a few thousand determined armed men. The justice of the cause has nothing to
do with it. It is a question of force. Again we are the assailants, and have to
overcome not only an equal number of determined men, however wrongfully
engaged, but the natural obstacles of a most difficult country. . . .
They [i.e. newspaper
correspondents] are unknown to me, appear in disguise of sutlers' clerks,
cotton thieves and that class of vultures that hang around every army. I never
saw or heard of Knox till he had published his falsehoods; and when I did send
for him, and he admitted how false he had been, he enunciated the sentiment
that his trade was to collect news — he must furnish reading matter for sale,
true, if possible; otherwise, false. . . .
It is absurd to say these correspondents relieve the anxiety
of parents, friends, &c. My soldiers write constantly and receive immense
numbers of letters. This is right, and if newspapers will report only local
matters and discuss matters within their knowledge, parents and families would
not be kept half frantic with the accounts of sickness, death, massacres,
&c., of their children and relatives. We have hundreds of visitors from
every quarter to examine our camps, because correspondents represented us as
all dying, when the truth is no army was ever better provided for and supplied.
We are camped on narrow slips of levee and ground, because all else is under
water. To get on dry ground we must go back to Memphis or Helena. . . .
McPherson is a splendid officer. Grant is honest and does
his best. I will do as ordered. I will suggest little, as others talk of my
failing to take Vicksburg and I want them to try a hand. . . .
Affectionately,
W. T. SHERMAN.
SOURCE: Rachel Sherman Thorndike, Editor, The
Sherman letters: correspondence between General and Senator Sherman from 1837
to 1891, p. 196-8
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