Lieutenant-General William T. Sherman to Senator John Sherman, February 17, 1868

HEADQUARTERS MILITARY DIVISION OF THE MISSOURI,        

ST. LOUIS, Mo., Feb. 17, 1868.

Dear Brother:

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I have not yet got the order for the Atlantic Division, but it is coming by mail, and when received I must act.

I have asked the President to let me make my headquarters in New York instead of Washington, making my application on the ground that my simply being in Washington will be universally construed as rivalry to General Grant, a position which would be damaging to me in the extreme.

If I must come to Washington, it will be with a degree of reluctance never before experienced. I would leave my family here on the supposition that the change was temporary. I do not question the President's right to make the new division, and I think Congress would make a mistake to qualify his right. It would suffice for them to nonconfirm the Brevet of General. I will notify you by telegraph when the matter is concluded.

Affectionately,

W. T. SHERMAN.

SOURCE: Rachel Sherman Thorndike, Editor, The Sherman Letters: Correspondence Between General and Senator Sherman from 1837 to 1891, p. 306-7