Friday, August 18, 2023

Lieutenant-General William T. Sherman to Senator John Sherman, Thursday June 11, 1868

FORT UNION, NEW MEXICO, June 11, 1868, Thursday.

Dear Brother: I have now been in New Mexico three weeks along with Col. Tappan, peace commissioner, for the purpose of seeing the Navajos, and making some permanent disposition of them. By a debate in the Senate I see you have a pretty good idea of their former history. These Indians seem to have acquired from the old Spaniards a pretty good knowledge of farming, rearing sheep, cattle, and goats, and of making their own clothing by weaving blankets and cloth. They were formerly a numerous tribe, occupying the vast region between New Mexico and the Colorado of the West, and had among them a class of warriors who made an easy living by stealing of the New Mexicans and occasionally killing. . . .

We found 7200 Indians there, seemingly abject and disheartened. They have been there four years. The first year they were maintained by the army at a cost of about $700,000, and made a small crop. The second year the cost was about $500,000, and the crop was small. Last year the crop was an utter failure, though all the officers say they labored hard and faithfully. This year they would not work because they said it was useless. The cost has been diminished to about 12 cents per head a day, which for 7000 Indians makes over $300,000, and this is as low as possible, being only a pound of corn, and a pound of beef with a little salt per day.

Now this was the state of facts, and we could see no time in the future when this could be amended. The scarcity of wood, the foul character of water, which is salty and full of alkali, and their utter despair, made it certain that we would have to move them or they would scatter and be a perfect nuisance. So of course we concluded to move them. After debating all the country at our option, we have chosen a small part of their old country, which is as far out of the way of the whites and of our future probable wants as possible, and have agreed to move them there forthwith, and have made a treaty which will save the heavy cost of their maintenance and give as much probability of their resuming their habits of industry as the case admits of. . . .

Of course I have noticed Grant's acceptance. I take it for granted he will be elected, and I must come to Washington. I shall not, however, commit myself to this promotion till he is not only elected but until he vacates and I am appointed and confirmed. . . .

Yours affectionately,
W. T. SHERMAN.

SOURCE: Rachel Sherman Thorndike, Editor, The Sherman Letters: Correspondence Between General and Senator Sherman from 1837 to 1891, p. 318-9

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