Friday, August 18, 2023

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

DENVER, June 17, 1868.
Dear Brother:

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Yesterday it rained very hard, whereby the telegraph was interrupted so that our despatches are mutilated. Yet they contain enough to show that impeachment was not made final by the vote of Saturday. I notice that some feeling is exhibited against Henderson. I believe, of course, that he has been actuated by the best and most honorable motives. He certainly carefully heard every word of testimony, and all the arguments, and if these led him to the conclusion that the case was not [made] out, he was bound to vote accordingly. If party discipline is to ride down a man's sense of honor and right,

Republican government cannot and should not last many years.

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In our Indian matters I think we are making as much progress as could be expected. The great bulk of the Sioux have agreed to move to the Missouri where they will be too far away from the railroad to be provoked to do it damage, and where the appropriations for their benefit can be more economically and faithfully applied. Some small bands will always be warlike and mischievous, but the game of war will be simplified by their separation. The same as to the Cheyennes, etc., below the Arkansas. The commission for present peace had to concede a right to hunt buffaloes as long as they last, and this may lead to collisions, but it will not be long before all the buffaloes are extinct near and between the railroads, after which the Indians will have no reason to approach either railroad. . .

Affectionately,
W. T. SHERMAN.

SOURCE: Rachel Sherman Thorndike, Editor, The Sherman Letters: Correspondence Between General and Senator Sherman from 1837 to 1891, p. 319-20

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