HEADQUARTERS, MILITARY DIVISION OF THE
MISSISSIPPI,
In the Field, Savannah Jan 11 1865
Hon S. P. Chase.
Washington D. C.
My Dear Sir,
I feel very much flattered by the notice you take of me, and none the
less because you overhaul me on the negro question. I meant no unkindness to the negro in the
mere words of my hasty dispatch announcing my arrival on the Coast. The only real failures in a military sense, I
have sustained in my military administration to have been the expeditions of
Wm. Sooy Smith and Sturgis, both resulting from their encumbering their columns
with refugees. (negroes) If you
understand the nature of a military column in an enemys country, with its long
train of wagons you will see at once that a crowd of negroes, men women and
children, old & young, are a dangerous impediment.
On approaching Savannah I had at least 20000 negroes, clogging my
roads, and eating up our substance.
Instead of finding abundance here I found nothing and had to depend on
my wagons till I opened a way for vessels and even to this day my men have been
on short rations and my horses are failing.
The same number of white refugees would have been a military weakness.
Now you know that military success is what the nation wants, and it is risked
by the crowds of helpless negroes that flock after our armies. Me negro constituents of Georgia would resent
the idea of my being inimical to them, they regard me as a second Moses or
Aaron. I treat them as free, and have as
much trouble to protect them against the avaricious recruiting agents of the
New England States as against their former masters. You can hardly realize this, but it is
true. I have conducted to freedom &
asylum hundreds of thousands and have aided them to obtain employment and
homes. Every negro who is fit for a soldier
and is willing I invariably allow to join a negro Regiment, but I do oppose and
rightfully too, the forcing of negroes as soldiers. You cannot know the arts and devices to which
base white men resort to secure negro soldiers, not to aid us to fight, but to
get bounties for their own pockets, and to diminish their quotas at home. Mr Secretary Stanton is now here and will
bear testimony to the truth of what I say.
Our Quarter master and Commissary can give employment to every negro
(able bodied) whom we obtain, and he protests against my parting with them for
other purposes, as it forces him to use my veteran white troops to unload
vessels, and do work for which he prefers the negro. If the President prefers to minister to the
one idea of negro equality, rather than military success; which as a major
[involves] the minor, he should remove me, for I am so constituted that I
cannot honestly sacrifice the security and success of my army to any minor
cause.
Of course I have nothing to do with the status of the negro after the
war. That is for the law making power,
but if my opinion were consulted I would say that the negro should be a free
man, but not put on an equality with the whites. My knowledge of them is practical, and the
effect of equality is illustrated in the character of the mixed race in Mexico
and South America. Indeed it appears to
me that the right of suffrage in our Country should be rather abridged than
enlarged.
But these are matters subordinate to the issues of this war, which can
alone be determined by war, and it depends on good armies, of the best possible
material and best disciplined, and these points engross my entire thoughts.
With sincere
respect & esteem
W. T. Sherman
Maj. Genl.
SOURCE: John Niven, Editor, The Salmon P. Chase Papers, Volume 5:
Correspondence, 1865-1873, p 6-7
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