Sunday, September 8, 2024

Major-General William T. Sherman to Henry W. Slocum, December 26, 1865

SAINT LOUIS, Mo., December 26, 1865.
Gen. H. W. SLOCUM,
        Syracuse, New York:

DEAR SLOCUM:

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.

With respects,
W. T. SHERMAN,        
Major-General.

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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