Saturday, July 30, 2022

William T. Sherman to Ellen Ewing Sherman, November 3, 1860

ALEXANDRIA, Nov. 3, 1860.

. . . This is a Saturday evening and I am seated at the office table where the Academic Board has been all week examining cadets. We have admitted in all some eighty; and rejected about a dozen for want of the elementary knowledge required for admission. Tonight, Saturday, we close the business, and on Monday recitations begin. Still many more will straggle in, and I expect we will settle down to about a hundred and twenty, less than we had reason to expect, but quite enough for comfort. . .

People here now talk as though disunion was a fixed thing. Men of property say that as this constant feeling of danger of abolitionism exists they would rather try a Southern Confederacy. Louisiana would not secede, but should South Carolina secede I fear other Southern States will follow, and soon general anarchy will prevail. I say but little, try and mind my own business and await the issue of events. . .

The country is very poor and nothing can be bought here but stewed beef and pork, vegetables are out of the question save potatoes at about five dollars the barrel.

SOURCE: Walter L. Fleming, General W.T. Sherman as College President, p. 301-2

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