Before VicksBURG, Miss., June 6th, 1863, 1 A.
M.
DEAR GENERAL:
The great solicitude I feel for the safety of this army
leads me to mention, what I had hoped never again to do, the subject of your
drinking. This may surprise you, for I may be, and trust I am, doing you an
injustice by unfounded suspicion, but if in error, it had better be on the side
of the country's safety than in fear of offending a friend.
I have heard that Dr. McMillan at General Sherman's a few
days ago induced you, notwithstanding your pledge to me, to take a glass of
wine, and to-day when I found a box of wine in front of your tent, and proposed
to move it, which I did, I was told you had forbid its being taken away, for
you intended to keep it until you entered Vicksburg, that you might have it for
your friends; and to-night, when you should, because of the condition of your
health, if nothing else, have been in bed, I find you where the wine bottle has
just been emptied, in company with those who drink and urge you to do likewise;
and the lack of your usual promptness and decision, and clearness of expressing
yourself in writing, conduces to confirm my suspicion.
You have the full control over your appetite, and can let
drinking alone. Had you not pledged me the sincerity of your honor early last
March, that you would drink no more during the war, and kept that pledge during
your recent campaign, you would not to-day have stood first in the world's
history as a successful military leader. Your only salvation depends upon your
strict adherence to that pledge. You cannot succeed in any other Way. . . .
As I have before stated, I may be wrong in my suspicions,
but if one sees that which leads him to suppose a sentinel is falling asleep on
his post, it is his duty to arouse him; and if one sees that which leads him to
fear the General commanding a great army is being seduced to that step which he
knows will bring disgrace upon that General and defeat upon his command, if he
fails to sound the proper note of warning, the friends, wives and children of
those brave men whose lives he permits to remain thus in peril, will accuse him
while he lives, and stand swift witnesses of wrath against him in the day when
all shall be tried.
If my suspicions are unfounded, let my friendship for you
and my zeal for my country be my excuse for this letter; and if they are correctly
founded, and you determine not to heed the admonitions and prayers of this
hasty note, by immediately ceasing to touch a single drop of any kind of
liquor, no matter by whom asked or under what circumstances, let my immediate
relief from duty in this department be the result. I am, General,
Yours respectfully,
JoHN A. RAwlins.
SOURCE: James Harrison Wilson, The Life of John A. Rawlins, p. 128-9
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