SEMINARY, February 13, 1860.
I received yesterday your letter of January 31. Roelofson came Saturday, and was in a great hurry to go off. He said he must be in Cincinnati February 18 to attend to some business. I found the scheme was pretty much the same condition as it was last winter.
All admit the healthfulness of the place (the Seminary) which is inferable from the kind of ground. Indeed if you hear that I have concluded to stay here, just make up your mind to live and die here, because I am going to take the bit in my mouth, and resume my military character, and control my own affairs. Since I left New Orleans, I have felt myself oppressed by circumstances I could not control, but I begin to feel footing and will get saucy. But if I go to England I shall expect a universal panic, the repudiation of the great national debt, and a blow up generally.
I suppose I was the Jonah that blew up San Francisco, and it only took two months' residence in Wall Street to bust up New York, and I think my arrival in London will be the signal of the downfall of that mighty empire.
Here I can't do much harm, if I can't do any good; and here we have solitude and banishment enough to hide from the misfortunes of the past.
Therefore, if Louisiana will endow this college properly, and is fool enough to give me five thousand dollars a year, we will drive our tent pins and pick out a magnolia under which to sleep the long sleep. But if she don't, then England must perish, for I predict financial misfortune to the land that receives me.
SOURCE: Walter L. Fleming, General W.T. Sherman as College President, p. 164-5
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