AT SEA, STEAMER Russia,
Monday, May 8, 1865.
We are now approaching Cape Henry and by nine o'clock
to-night will be at Old Point, where I expect to stop an hour or so to
communicate with Grant and then go on up to City Point and Petersburg to meet
my Army. I have been to Savannah, Charleston, and Wilmington on business
connected with past affairs, and now I am free to join my army proper. I have
seen the New York papers of April 24 and 28, but don't mind them much, for it
is manifest that some deviltry is on foot. The
telegram of Halleck endorsed by Stanton is the worst,1 but its falsity
and baseness puts them at my mercy, and in a few days look out for breakers.
This cause may delay me east a few days and I will likely accompany my Army up
to Washington. At all events from this time forth I can hear from you and write
to you. My latest letter is April 11, received at Raleigh. I want you to go
right along, attend the Fair, and I will join you wherever you may be as soon
as I can leave. We will probably all spend the summer together at Lancaster. At
Savannah, Charleston, Wilmington, and Morehead City, officers, soldiers,
sailors, and citizens paid me every sort of honor and respect, especially my
old soldiers, more especially when they heard they were down on me at
Washington. Now that the war is over, how brave and fierce have become the men
that thousand-dollar bounties, patriotism, the appeal of generals and others
would not bring out! How terribly energetic all at once Halleck became, to
break my truce, cut off “Johnston's Retreat” when he knew Johnston was halted
anxious to surrender and was only making excuses to keep his own men from
scattering, a thing I did not want, and a reason I reported to Halleck and
Stanton before my “Memorandum” went to Washington. Worst of all, his advice
that my subordinates, Thomas, Wilson, and Stoneman, should not obey my orders.
Under my orders, those Generals have done all they ever did in their lives, and
it sounds funny to us to have Halleck better my plans and orders. But of
all this hereafter. Go along as comfortably as you can. I am not dead yet, by a
long sight, and those matters give me new life, for I see the cause. A breach
must be made between Grant and Sherman, or certain cliques in Washington, who
have a nice thing, are gone up. I am glad Grant came to Raleigh, for he saw at
a glance the whole thing and went away more than satisfied. But heaven and
earth will be moved to kill us. . . . Washington is as corrupt as Hell, made so
by the looseness and extravagance of war. I will avoid it as a pest house. . .
The Gates of the Press can't prevail with my old army
against me, and in them I put my faith.
__________
1 This
telegram, sent out at the height of the dissatisfaction with the terms
between Sherman and Johnston, directed generals, subordinate to Sherman, to
disregard his orders.
SOURCES: M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Editor, Home Letters of
General Sherman, p. 350-2. 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 2/24
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