Saturday, April 8, 2023

David F. Boyd to Major General William T. Sherman, May 1, 1866

LOUISIANA STATE SEMINARY, May 1, 1866.
GENERAL W. T. SHERMAN,
        United States America.

Dear General: Your most welcome favor of 12 ult. is at hand.

I am glad to know that you still feel so much interest in the seminary as to use your valuable time in writing me such wholesome advice regarding its management. None can appreciate your suggestions more than I do; for them I thank you, both in my official capacity and personally; and for the personal interest which I know you have always taken in my welfare I tender you my most sincere thanks. In the late war through which the country has passed, I was opposed to you; and in my own feeble and humble way did my best to help secure the secession of the Southern States.

For you, the great Federal Commander, I feel as do all good Southerners, not amiably, nor yet unkindly; for the noble and brilliant manner in which you did your duty commands our admiration, and now the struggle is over and I am one of the poor, subjugated band, I can truly say that I have not a particle of ill feeling towards any man in the Federal Army. On the contrary, I have a few friends whom I value none the less for whipping me. Understand me rightly. I speak with no cringing spirit. Though beaten and so poor that none do me reverence, I am patient and proud. The end of matters has decided that the rights I battled for were in vain. I have no other, and none will I ask. I have taken the oath of allegiance in good faith, hoping to be allowed to remain in the country, and if not a useful citizen to be a harmless one.

Certainly I have no intention of ever again attempting to say who shall not be President of the United States. I am cured of that. That question must hereafter be decided by the faithful and not the rebellious.

For a similar reason I am addressing these lines not to the General, but to W. T. Sherman, and I congratulate myself that no one knows the difference between the two characters better than my friend, the report of whose death at Shiloh gave me great grief, when I was a poor rebel soldier lying in the Rappahannock mud, and whose "Union Scouts" (alias Confederate jayhawkers and deserters) two years after kidnapped me and took me a prisoner to him at Natchez, where he treated me both like a prisoner of war and his personal friend! And the friendship of such a man I value, and hope ever to have his confidence and esteem.

Your chair is filled by Venable, Kirby Smith's topographical engineer. He has extraordinary capacity and fine character. .

In one way you can be of great use to the seminary, and I claim the right to call your attention to the matter. Although I have bought some few books for the boys to read we are still in great need of a library, and as I have no doubt that you are showered with patent office reports, military books, maps, etc., much of which you do not want. Please have your orderly to pack up the rubbish and send them to us by Adams' express, I to pay all charges. If not in all, at least in the more important books, put your name as donor. I would like, also, to have a large picture of you in citizen's dress (unless you prefer your uniform), to be put in our library as our first superintendent. By sending us the books as asked for, you can really do us great good. You must know that we outsiders (not being represented at Washington) can't even get a patent office report.

I must beg pardon for asking you to read so long a letter, but really, when I sit down to write to you, the past, so pleasant to recollect, and the present, so changed from then, make me feel like telling you all I know, and think, and feel. To a Southern man a conscientious Calhounite as I was and am the present is dark and sad, and the future gives but little hope. It is all not your fault nor mine. Present me most kindly to Mrs. Sherman and your children.

Your friend,
D. F. BOYD.

SOURCE: Rachel Sherman Thorndike, Editor, The Sherman Letters: Correspondence Between General and Senator Sherman from 1837 to 1891, p. 272-4

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