SEMINARY, Feb. 8th, 1860.
DEAR GENERAL: As to-morrow is mail day I will begin now to make up a budget for you; first your letter from Dr. Smith is returned and along with it I send another of later date, more pointed, showing a weakening on the subject of the Seminary. I was sorry to see this, for, as Governor Wickliffe had broken the ice, I thought his friends and Governor Moore's united would settle it without contest. I enclose my answer for your perusal asking you to seal and forward by the succeeding mail. I am now in possession of certain facts that may affect me. You know that a certain commercial company offered me a certain salary to go to London and I was actually in correspondence with them when advised I had been elected to this post. The first overtures came to me at Leavenworth after I wrote my application to the Board of Supervisors.
Upon notice of my election to this I notified those parties that I preferred the certainty and stability of this to their project. Time has passed on. Their preparations are all made, and certain of their European copartners having committed themselves on condition that I should be, in London, the depository of their bonds and securities have renewed their efforts, and on January ninth held a meeting in Cincinnati, during which they agreed to guarantee and secure to me fifteen thousand dollars for two years' service, salary to begin on my acceptance and a certain amount three thousand five hundred dollars, to be subject to my draft now — and furthermore they appointed one Wm. F. R—n to proceed to this place, to confer with me and contract with me on the above basis. R—n writes me under date of January 17 that he starts from Cincinnati the next day for New York — whence he will come to New Orleans and Alexandria, prepared to develop to me the plan and details, to be here between the fifth and tenth of February. I expect him daily.
Mr. Ewing, Mrs. Sherman's father, writes me urgently to go, and even Mrs. Sherman prefers it to coming South with our children. Still I mistrust all financial schemes. Just seven years ago I was similarly situated in New Orleans, commissary U.S. army, when Mr. Lucas and Henry Turner, two as fine gentlemen as ever lived, came and prevailed on me to go to California as banker with prospects more brilliant than those now offered me. I went and without any fault, negligence, or want of ability I was involved by the losses of others; so that I am mistrustful of finance and financiers.
I think if this were a state seminary with the stability of one I would stand by it, but if it is to struggle always[s], dependent on the whims and caprices of boys, unaided, even burdened by the state by an unjust tax (the support of sixteen),1 and as subject to accident as any other private scheme, I would do myself and family an injustice to prefer this to the other – for by the other I am certain of $15,000 for two years - of which I would save a large fraction, whereas here all I would look for would be an honorable position, and pleasant future for my family and children.
Mr. Ewing in urging
me to accept this project, did so, on an inference that because John Sherman
had made a mistake I might be suspected here, my position weakened, and the
cadets rendered thereby insubordinate, and he further advised me to decline to
receive any compensation for the past, as my leaving might subject me to the
imputation of an unfulfilled contract. I have written him and all my northern
friends, that no gentleman here has spoken one unkind or disrespectful word of
John Sherman, but on the contrary that I thought John's carelessness in
allowing his name to be used for a purpose as foreign to his mind and heart, as
of yours, deserved failure. He is young, ambitious, and let him be more
circumspect in future.
In like manner, though the boys here last week were insubordinate, that too cannot be attributed to any idea of theirs that they can displace me. Every professor here will bear testimony that the dismissals thus far were absolutely necessary, and has resulted well.
Dr. Smith's letter
is the first positive event that has shaken me, and made me seriously think of
R—n. I will not say one word more till he come, except, that then I must act
accordingly to my convictions. Only I promise to give full time for a successor
and to do everything in the premises a gentleman should.
SOURCE: Walter L. Fleming, General W.T. Sherman as College President, p. 152-5
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