Senator John Sherman to Major General William T. Sherman, July 2, 1866

UNITED STATES SENATE,

WASHINGTON, July 2, 1866.

Dear Brother: I have read the enclosed letter with a good deal of interest. The feeling of the writer is manly and proper. A man may lose his cause both in law or in war without yielding his sense of right or his pride or honor. If he will only submit to the decision of the tribunal to which he appeals, it is all that can be asked of him. I meet a great many from the South whom I knew before the war, and I confess I am gratified with their sentiments and conduct. If they could now see their manifest interests to accept the recent adjustment or amendments to the Constitution as a reasonable and fair settlement, the South would soon be resurrected into greater wealth and power. I only fear their political alliance with the pestilent Copperheads of the North, and thus perpetuation of sectional enmity. I really fear that Johnson, who is an honest man, will from sheer stubbornness and bitter dislike to Stevens and a few others, lend himself to this faction. The very moment the South will agree to a firm basis of representation, I am for general amnesty and a repeal of the test oaths. But the signs of the times indicate another stirring political contest. I see no way to avoid it. I will have to take part in it, but you can, and I hope will, stand aloof. Don't commit yourself to any political faction, and don't fail to remember that the Republican, or anti-slavery and now anti-rebel feeling, is deeper and stronger than any other in the Northern States. We could surely contend with a manly, fighting rebel like your friend, but never will with those who raised the white flag in the rear.

Affectionately,

JOHN SHERMAN.

SOURCE: Rachel Sherman Thorndike, Editor, The Sherman Letters: Correspondence Between General and Senator Sherman from 1837 to 1891, p. 271-2