Friday, December 16, 2022

William T. Sherman to Ellen Ewing Sherman, January 20, 1861

SEMINARY, Jan. 20, 1861.

Here is another Sunday. I have written you often enough of late to keep you in a perfect state of uneasiness, but it does seem that each day brings forth something new. I now have official notice that three thousand three hundred muskets, seventy thousand cartridges, etc., are sent here from Baton Rouge, which must be a part of those seized by the state or otherwise stolen, and I must make provision for their storage. I must move to the new house in order to afford room for them in my present quarters.

But my stay here much longer is impossible. My opinions and feelings are so radically opposed to those in power that this cannot last long. I send you a copy of a letter I wrote to Governor Moore on the 18th, on the receipt of which he will be forced to act. I hate to lose that five hundred dollars but I guess it can't be helped. I know all about the forms of reports, returns, money accounts, etc., and no one here does, and I know of no one in the state that Moore can find. Still I think he will feel bound to place the custody of these arms in the hands of one more faithful to Louisiana than I profess to be.

I shall expect a definite answer in a week, when I propose to go to New Orleans and settle the bank account. I would then ship in some Cincinnati boat such traps as would not bear railroad transportation and thence by railroad to Cincinnati, so that it is not impossible I may be in Lancaster early in February. I must leave here with a clean record, and this can only be done in the manner I have pointed out to Governor Moore. He may endeavor to throw obstacles in my way, but I think not. He is too fair a man.

I feel no desire to follow an army necessarily engaged in Civil War, and as we could start out of debt, it may be we can keep so.

Those now in debt will suffer most, or least, for they will likely repudiate all debts. Down here they think they are going to have fine times. New Orleans a free port whereby she can import goods without limit or duties and sell to the up-river countries. But Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore will never consent that New Orleans should be a free port and they subject to duties. The most probable result will be that New Orleans will be shut off from all trade, and the South having no money* and no sailors cannot raise a blockade without assistance from England, and that she will never receive.

I have letters from General Graham and others who have given up all hope of stemming the tide. All they now hope for is as peaceable a secession as can be effected. I heard Mr. Clay's speech in 1850 on the subject of secession and if he deemed a peaceable secession then as an absurd impossibility, much more so is it now when the commercial interests of the North are so much more influential. . .

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* So written but probably Navy is meant.—ED.

SOURCE: Walter L. Fleming, General W.T. Sherman as College President, p. 347-8

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