Sunday evening, 25 September, 1864.
. . . We had a
pleasant Club dinner yesterday. . . .
Sumner has toned down greatly since it seems certain that Lincoln is to be reelected.
His opinion of Lincoln “is at least not higher than it was three years ago.” An
officer, just from Atlanta, came in and told us some good stories of Sherman, —
and of the transportation department of the army. There has been a corps of six
thousand men detailed to keep the Rail Road from Nashville to Atlanta in order.
The bridge across the Chattahoochie, — a railroad bridge seven hundred and
eight feet long, and ninety-three feet high, was built in four days. The army
has been well supplied, in great measure with canned food; — “Yes,” said
Sherman, “I am perfectly satisfied with the transportation service, — it has
given us abundance of desecrated vegetables and consecrated milk.”
This as a pendant to
his recent letters. What a week this last has been for good letters! Two from
Lincoln, that are worthy of the best letter-writer of the time, — so simple,
manly, and direct; one from Grant, not less simple and straightforward,
clearing the air with its plain frankness from rumours and innuendoes, and
affording a most striking contrast to the letters which Mr. Lincoln was in the
habit of receiving from a former Commander-in-Chief; and two from Sherman,
masterpieces of strong sense in strong words. How his wrath swells and grows
till it bursts in “Tell that to the Marines,” and with what indignant
common-sense does he reject the canting appeal to God and humanity of the
Southern slave-drivers. He writes as well as he fights. . . .
SOURCE: Sara Norton
and M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Letters of Charles Eliot Norton,
Volume 1, p. 279-80
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