HDQRS. MILITARY DIVISION OF THE MISSISSIPPI,
In the Field,
Savannah, January 12, 1865.
Major-General
HALLECK:
MY DEAR FRIEND: I
received yours of January 1* about the "negro." Since Mr. Stanton got
here we have talked over all matters freely, and I deeply regret that I am
threatened with that curse to all peace and comfort — popularity; but I trust
to bad luck enough in the future to cure that, for I know enough of “the people”
to feel that a single mistake made by some of my subordinates will tumble down
my fame into infamy.
But the nigger?
Why, in God's name, can't sensible men let him alone? When the people of the
South tried to rule us through the negro, and became insolent, we cast them
down, and on that question we are strong and unanimous. Neither cotton, the
negro, nor any single interest or class should govern us.
But I fear, if you
be right that that power behind the throne is growing, somebody must meet it or
we are again involved in war with another class of fanatics. Mr. Lincoln has
boldly and well met the one attack, now let him meet the other.
If it be insisted
that I shall so conduct my operations that the negro alone is consulted, of
course I will be defeated, and then where will be Sambo?
Don't military
success imply the safety of Sambo and vice versa? Of course that
cock-and-bull story of my turning back negroes that Wheeler might kill them is
all humbug. I turned nobody back. Jeff. C. Davis did at Ebenezer Creek forbid
certain plantation slaves — old men, women, and children — to follow his
column; but they would come along and he took up his pontoon bridge, not
because he wanted to leave them, but because he wanted his bridge.
He and Slocum both
tell me that they don't believe Wheeler killed one of them. Slocum's column
(30,000) reports 17,000 negroes. Now, with 1,200 wagons and the necessary impedimenta
of an army, overloaded with two-thirds negroes, five-sixths of whom are
helpless, and a large proportion of them babies and small children, had I
encountered an enemy of respectable strength defeat would have been certain.
Tell the President
that in such an event defeat would have cost him ten thousand times the effort
to overcome that it now will to meet this new and growing pressure.
I know the fact
that all natural emotions swing as the pendulum. These southrons pulled Sambo's
pendulum so far over that the danger is it will on its return jump off its
pivot. There are certain people who will find fault, and they can always get
the pretext; but, thank God, I am not running for an office, and am not
concerned because the rising generation will believe that I burned 500 niggers
at one pop in Atlanta, or any such nonsense. I profess to be the best kind of a
friend to Sambo, and think that on such a question Sambo should be consulted.
They gather round
me in crowds, and I can't find out whether I am Moses or Aaron, or which of the
prophets; but surely I am rated as one of the congregation, and it is hard to
tell in what sense I am most appreciated by Sambo — in saving him from his
master, or the new master that threatens him with a new species of slavery. I
mean State recruiting agents. Poor negro — Lo, the poor Indian! Of course,
sensible men understand such humbug, but some power must be invested in our
Government to check these wild oscillations of public opinion.
The South deserves
all she has got for her injustice to the negro, but that is no reason why we
should go to the other extreme.
I do and will do
the best I can for negroes, and feel sure that the problem is solving itself
slowly and naturally. It needs nothing more than our fostering care. I thank
you for the kind hint and will heed it so far as mere appearances go, but, not
being dependent on votes, I can afford to act, as far as my influence goes, as
a fly wheel instead of a mainspring.
With respect, &c., yours,
W. T. SHERMAN.
_______________
* General Halleck's copy is dated December 30, 1864; see
Vol. XLIV, p. 836.
SOURCE: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of
the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I Volume
47, Part 2 (Serial No. 99), p. 36-7
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