Wednesday, April 8, 2020

Major-General William T. Sherman to “an Old Resident of St. Louis, Missouri,” September 8, 1864

IN THE FIELD, ATLANTA, GA., Sept. 8, 1864

DEAR SIR:—Yr kind note of Aug. 24 from Rochester, N. Y. reached me here and I am really thankful for the warm terms in which you write, and I know you will not feel the less kindly when you know we are inside Atlanta.  I don’t see why we cant have some sense about negroes as well as about horses, mules, iron, copper, etc.—but say nigger in the U. S. and from Sumner to Atty Kelly to the whole country goes crazy.  I never thought my nigger letter would get into the papers but since it has I lay low—I like niggers well enough, as niggers, but when fools & idiots try & make niggers better than ourselves I have an opinion.  We are also ruining our country in this bounty & substitute business.  It only amounts to spending money, it don’t make a single soldier.

Fools think they can buy off, and will spend their money on some worthless substitute who shirks and as is of no use & after spending all his money will have to serve besides.

Well this thing will work out its natural solution.

W. T. SHERMAN,
Maj. Gen.

SOURCES: “Negroes in Their Places,” The Montgomery Advertiser, Montgomery, Alabama, Tuesday, December 17, 1889, p. 4; “General Sherman on ‘Niggers,’” The Sentinel, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, Thursday, December 26, 1899, p. 1.

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