MILITARY ACADEMY,
WEST POINT, Jan. 9, 1839.
Dear Brother:
I am now writing upon the risk of your not receiving this, for I hear that you are engaged in speculating in salt, and are waiting for the river to rise to take a load down to Cincinnati. Are you doing this on borrowed capital or not? Or does it interfere in the least with your duties as engineer? If it does, I would advise you not to engage in it at any rate, even if you can make a fortune by it; for a reputation for a strict and rigid compliance to one's duties, whatever they may be, is far more valuable than a dozen loads of salt. If, however, you do engage in it, of course I wish you success, a pleasant trip to Cincinnati, and hope you will make a long stay, for Lampson's sake.
I suppose you know that we have two examinations here every year, one in January and the other in June. At the latter a number of gentlemen from all parts of the United States attend by invitation of the Secretary of War, and of course we all endeavor to be well prepared in our studies, both for our own good and that the persons (always influential) may carry off a good opinion of the Institution. The course of studies we are engaged in this year has always had the reputation of being the most difficult of the four, and that justly; therefore to be prepared for the coming June examination I expect to be very studious and busy, and if between this time and then I be not very regular in my correspondence, you may know what to attribute it to and excuse it.
Your affectionate brother,
W. T. SHERMAN.
SOURCE: Rachel Sherman Thorndike, Editor, The Sherman Letters: Correspondence Between General and Senator Sherman from 1837 to 1891, pp. 6-7
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