Syracuse, New York:
I got home last
Friday after a three weeks absence down in Arkansas, and found, among a budget
of letters received, your valued favor of Nov. thirtieth. This is my first
leisure hour since, and I hasten to assure you of my great personal attachment,
and that I would do almost anything that would mark my favor to you.
I think I was more
disappointed at your non-election than you could have been; for I thought that
politics had not so strong a hold on New York as to defeat you for an office
that should have been above the influence of mere party organization. But you
are young, and can stand it; and I know that, sometime later, your State will
recognize and reward, if you need it, military services such as you rendered
your country.
At some future time
I will come on to Syracuse and stop a day with you to assure you of my great
partiality, and also to renew the short but most agreeable acquaintance formed
in Washington with your wife, to whom I beg you will convey my best
compliments.
As to delivering a
lecture at Albany, I must decline. The truth is, on abstract subjects I know I
would be as prosy as a cyclopedia, and not half as accurate; and to speak on
matters of personal interest, past, present or future, I would be sure to give
rise to controversies, useless or mischievous. Of the events with which we were
connected, I am already committed, and must stand by the record. Were I to
elaborate them it would detract from the interest of what now stands as a
contemporaneous narrative. I really think we do best to let others now take up
the thread of history, and treat of us as actors of the past.
Please write to Mr.
Doty that I am very much complimented by his flattering invitation; that I
appreciate the object he aims to accomplish, and would be glad to assist
therein, but that outside considerations would make it unbecoming to appear in
the nature of a lecturer. Too much importance has already been given to the few
remarks I have made at times when I simply aimed to acknowledge a personal
compliment, and to gratify a natural curiosity by people whose imaginations had
been excited by the colored pictures drawn by the press.
I have not preserved
out of the late war a single relic-not a flag, not a curious shot or shell;
nothing but those simple memories which every New York soldier retains as well
as I do. I do think that your regiment was so filled by young men of education
and intelligence that the commissioners will find their records swelling to an
extent that will more than gratify their fondest expectations.
We are now living in
great comfort here. Your excellent photograph has its place in the albums of
each of my children, and Mrs. Sherman regards you with special favor. Wishing
you all honor and fame among your own people, I shall ever regard you as one of
my cherished friends.
SOURCE: New York
(State). Monuments Commission for the Battlefields of Gettysburg and
Chattanooga, In Memoriam: Henry Warner
Slocum, 1826-1894, p. 107-8
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