Showing posts with label Ellen (Ewing) Sherman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ellen (Ewing) Sherman. Show all posts

Thursday, May 31, 2018

William T. Sherman to Ellen Ewing Sherman, November 6, 1859

Baton Rouge, Sunday, November 6, 1859.

I wrote you from the Kennett at Cairo - but not from Memphis. I got here last night about dark, the very day I had appointed, but so late in the day that when I called at the governor's residence I found he had gone to a wedding. I have not yet seen him, and as tomorrow is the great election day of this state I hear that he is going down to New Orleans to-day. So I got up early, and as soon as I finish this letter, I will go again.

I have been to the post-office and learn that several letters have come for me, all of which were sent to the governor. Captain Ricketts of the army, commanding officer at the barracks,1 found me last night, and has told me all the news, says that they were much pleased at my accepting the place, and that all place great reliance on me, that the place at Alexandria selected for the school is famous for salubrity, never has been visited by yellow fever and therefore is better adapted for the purpose than this place. He thinks that I will have one of the best places in the country, and that I will be treated with great consideration by the legislature and authorities of the state. I will have plenty to do between this and the time for opening of school. I have yet seen nobody connected with the school and suppose all are waiting for me at Alexandria, where I will go tomorrow. . .
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1 The United States military post at Baton Rouge. - Ed.

SOURCE: Walter L. Fleming, Editor, General W.T. Sherman as College President, p. 45-6

Saturday, May 26, 2018

William T. Sherman to Ellen Ewing Sherman, October 29, 1859

Steamer L. M. Kennett [at Cairo], Saturday, Oct. 29, 1859.

. . . Should my health utterly fail me or abolition drive me and all moderate men from the South, then we can retreat down the Hocking and exist until time puts us away under ground. This is not poetically expressed but is the basis of my present plans.

I find southern men, even as well informed as ——— as big fools as the abolitionists. Though Brown's whole expedition proves clearly that [while] the northern people oppose slavery in the abstract, yet very few [will] go so far as to act. Yet the extreme southrons pretend to think that the northern people have nothing to do but to steal niggers and to preach sedition.

John's1 position and Tom's2 may force me at times to appear opposed to extreme southern views, or they may attempt to extract from me promises I will not give, and it may be that this position as the head of a military college, south may be inconsistent with decent independence. I don't much apprehend such a state of case, still feeling runs so high, where a nigger is concerned, that like religious questions, common sense is disregarded, and knowledge of the character of mankind in such cases leads me to point out a combination of events that may yet operate on our future.

I have heard men of good sense say that the union of the states any longer was impossible, and that the South was preparing for a change. If such a change be contemplated and overt acts be attempted of course I will not go with the South, because with slavery and the whole civilized world opposed to it, they in case of leaving the union will have worse wars and tumults than now distinguish Mexico. If I have to fight hereafter I prefer an open country and white enemies. I merely allude to these things now because I have heard a good deal lately about such things, and generally that the Southern States by military colleges and organizations were looking to a dissolution of the Union. If they design to protect themselves against negroes and abolitionists I will help; if they propose to leave the Union on account of a supposed fact that the northern people are all abolitionists like Giddings and Brown then I will stand by Ohio and the northwest.

I am on a common kind of boat. River low. Fare eighteen dollars. A hard set aboard; but at Cairo I suppose we take aboard the railroad passengers, a better class. I have all my traps safe aboard, will land my bed and boxes at Red River, will go on to Baton Rouge, and then be governed by circumstances.

The weather is clear and cold and I have a bad cough, asthma of course, but hope to be better tomorrow. I have a stateroom to myself, but at Cairo suppose we will have a crowd; if possible I will keep a room to myself in case I want to burn the paper3 of which I will have some left, but in case of a second person being put in I can sleep by day and sit up at night, all pretty much the same in the long run. . .
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1 John Sherman. — Ed.

2 Thomas Ewing Jr., brother of Mrs. Sherman. - Ed.

3 Nitre paper burned to relieve asthma.— Ed.

SOURCE: Walter L. Fleming, Editor, General W.T. Sherman as College President, p. 43-5

Tuesday, April 24, 2018

George Mason Graham to William T. Sherman, September 7, 1859

Willard's Hotel, Washington, Sept. 7, 1859.

Dear SIR: On arriving here night before last I had the pleasure to receive from Mr. Richard Smith your two favors of the 15th and 20th of August, and Major Buell, with whom I have not been able to meet until this morning at breakfast, has shown me yours to him of the 4th inst. which he was in the act of opening when I joined him, and from which he has allowed me to take a memorandum of the dates of your proposed movements. The information contained in your letter to Buell has been of considerable relief to me, for whilst it would be very gratifying to me to meet with you I did not see any good commensurate with the expense, time, risk, and trouble to yourself, to result from your coming all the way here merely to confer with me when it was not in my power to specify any particular day when I would be in the city, as the business which brings me here lies down in Virginia, whither I go tomorrow morning, if the violent cold under which I am now suffering shall permit, and the consummation of it is contingent on the action of a half dozen others than myself.

I had desired very much, if it suited your convenience, that you could visit and see into the interior life of the school at Lexington, Virginia, where everything would be shown to you with the most cordial frankness by Col. Smith, who has taken the warmest and most earnest interest in our effort, and who writes to me of you, sir, in very high terms of congratulatory appreciation, and where one of your classmates, Major Gilham, is a member of the Academic Board.

In the event that this will not be practicable to you, as I infer from the programme laid down in your note to Major Buell it will not be, I shall write to Col. Smith asking him to give us all necessary information of details not contained in the “Rules and Regulations” the preparation of the code of which for our school is confined to the joint action of “the faculty” and “A Committee consisting of Messrs. Manning, Graham, and Whittington.” I would rather have had the Board adopt for the present the code of the Virginia school, because under the Governor's resolution, about which he did not confer with me beforehand, it cannot well be done until on or about the 1st of January, when it ought to be done in advance. I do not see therefore that we can do otherwise than adopt, at first, the code of that school. I have no apprehension but that whatever you, Mr. Manning and myself may agree upon, will be acceptable to all the rest.

In regard to “furnishing” the building there will not be much trouble. My idea will be for each cadet to furnish his own requisites in the way of room furniture, as at West Point. There will then be nothing to furnish but the class-rooms, the kitchen and mess hall as I believe I mentioned to you before, the statement in the Governor's advertisement that “furnished apartments would be provided in the building for the professors,” was an error of our not very clear-headed secretary. The intention of the Board was simply to apprize all interested that there were no separate dwellings for the professors. . .

I met with Mr. F. W. Smith1 in Richmond and travelled with him to this place. He is about sailing for Europe to be back the 1st of December. All my anticipations of him fully realized. I cannot close without mentioning that in a visit to the convent in Georgetown yesterday my sister (Mary Bernard) poured out her joy on learning (to do which she enquired with great eagerness) that the superintendent of our school was the husband of that “one of all the girls who have passed through our hands here that I believed I loved best and was the most deeply interested in.”2

In regard to “authority and control,” although it is not yet exactly so, I hope the next session of the legislature will place our school on precisely the same footing as the Virginia school, making the superintendent the commanding officer of the corps of cadets, giving to him and the other members of the Academic Board, rank in the State's military organization.
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1 The newly elected commandant of cadets and professor of chemistry. — Ed.

2 Mrs. Sherman was educated in a Georgetown, D.C., convent in which General Graham's sister was a teacher and later Mother Superior. — Ed.

SOURCE: Walter L. Fleming, Editor, General W.T. Sherman as College President, p. 34-7

Friday, July 18, 2014

Brigadier-General Thomas Kilby Smith to Eliza Walter Smith, August 26, 1863

Headquarters Dept. Of The Tennessee,
Vicksburg, Aug. 26, 1863.
My Dear Mother:

I attempted some description of these people in their homes and their luxurious mode of life. I mean the opulent of the South, generally, without reference to individuals; and in return it strikes me, you give a little bit of a rub, evidently fearing that I should be seduced from my Spartan training, while treading their flowery paths of dalliance. You need not be alarmed. I have come back to my narrow cot and canvas roof without one pang of regret. I enjoy luxury for the brief season it is accorded me, but I know it only tends to enervate. On many accounts, I like the South, but its influences are baneful, its atmosphere, physical and moral, poisonous, except to those who have been purged and purified by misfortune and the stern necessity for exertion; whose constitutions of iron have been hammered into steel. I remember the rockbound shores of New England perfectly. The icy crags over which, with iron spikes to my shoes, I have toiled and clambered on my way to and from school in midwinter. Do you quite remember, I was but six years old when I made those journeys of two miles to Master Manley's from the “Sanderson Beach,” as I used to call them; that was before Walter was born.

I have been brought to a most abrupt stop in my proceedings and hardly know how to resume my thread. You must pardon my discursive epistles. I have this moment been handed your favor of 14th inst. Mrs. Sherman is on a visit to her husband. I went out there a day or two ago to make a call upon her. She spoke of you all with much interest, and regretted her previous inability to visit you; hoped to be able to do so upon her return. She is a very charming person.

There are two brilliant examples now before the nation standing out in bold relief, in fact before the whole civilized world; their history is good for little boys to know. Let my sons ponder upon it. One is General Grant and the other General Banks. Both were born of very poor parents, both had to labor hard for a livelihood in the country in their boyhood. General Grant's father lived in Brown County, Ohio, near Georgetown. The first money he ever earned or that was paid to him, was for a load of rags, that with great enterprise he gathered together in and about the town, drove to Cincinnati, a distance of forty miles, in a two-horse wagon, by himself, sold for fifteen dollars, and returned triumphant. He had his money in silver and he was the richest boy in all that section of country. This was before he was twelve years old, and as the enterprise originated with himself, and was carried out successfully, notwithstanding the difficulties of bad roads, the winter season, his diminutive stature, it perhaps gave as good evidence of great generalship as anything he has done since. He went to West Point from the village school and graduated as the best rider of the academy — the best, because the boldest. After he had been brevetted three times for his gallantry in Mexico, he had to resign a captaincy because he was too poor to support his family; went to farming near St. Louis, and there was not ashamed to drive his own team loaded with wood to the city. He came into the service again as captain of Volunteers. He has told me himself of these things, and that his best training was before he went to the military academy. I do not want my boys to be afraid to work. I want them to ride and shoot and fish and to know how to do it all well, and above all not to be afraid of anything or anybody but God, or afraid to do anything but tell a lie, and no matter what they do, they must not be afraid to tell of it. They must never take an insult from any boy or man. If a girl or woman insult them laugh at or kiss her. Never quarrel; if there has to be a word or a blow, let the blow come first. But I was going to write a word about General Banks. His father was a woodsawyer;  . . . his boyhood was of toil, privation, and mortification, yet to-day he is one of the most courteous, gentle, kindly men in all the world. He has done for himself what no teachers could have done for him, however high their salary or brilliant their reputation. These are dazzling instances, but they are exponents of a fact. This war has brought out a latent talent, a hidden strength of character in the individual, that astounds the world, but we almost invariably find it exhibited among those who in their early years have been compelled to depend upon themselves for thought and action.

In my last to my wife, I said I should write next from Cairo or Memphis, but no sooner had I despatched that letter than I received intelligence which caused a change in my movements. I shall remain here till General Grant returns. The weather has been very pleasant for some time past, nights cool enough for two blankets. I am sitting now in a very wet tent, with my feet propped up to keep them out of the water; it is raining very hard and is quite cold. I am most agreeably disappointed in the summers of the South; take them, if the two seasons I have experienced are a test, from end to end, they are more pleasant than our own.

I received three or four days ago, a notice from the Secretary of War that the President has appointed me brigadier-general, my rank to date from the 11th Aug. “for gallant conduct and service in the field.” This I suppose applied to my assaults of the 19th and 22d May, upon the enemy's fortifications at Vicksburg. “Shiloh” and Russell's House, Corinth, Chickasas Bayou, Arkansas Post, all I suppose went for naught, or what is more probable, the President never saw my papers. I don't know how he could get over the petition of my command endorsed by my commanding generals. The assault of the 19th was the most murderous affair I was ever in, but I have led troops in battles that lasted much longer and where I have lost more men, and in which I have been as much exposed.

I have had congratulations and serenades and all that sort of thing galore, for, as is not unusual, I have found in my case that a prophet has honor save in his own country. I have some friends and pretty warm ones in the army. My old command is encamped about eighteen miles from here near Black River, and General Sherman is not far away from them. He got news of my appointment by telegraph and rode over to tell them the news, whereat there was a perfect yell. The old fellow was about as glad as the boys from all I hear, and together they had a love feast. I suppose you have heard of the appointment through the papers, though of course it is under a misnomer, and it will be old news to you.

General Grant has been away the last ten days and there is hardly anybody at headquarters but myself. I am looking for him every day, and upon his return shall be somewhat relieved.

SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 330-3

Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Colonel Thomas Kilby Smith to Eliza Walter Smith, January 7, 1863

Headquarters Second Brigade,
Second Division, Second Army Corps, Army Of Miss.,
On Board Steamer "Sunny South," Jan. 7,1863.

My Dear Mother:

We are on the broad bosom of the Father of Waters, the shimmering moonlight streaming bright on the glittering waves that dazzle in reflection. I am surrounded by gay officers, the jest and the laugh and the song go round, but I get a little apart and look out into the night, and alone, with no commune for my thoughts save sweet memories of my mother. Two natures, two distinct beings seem blended in mine. Blood, carnage, and exposure to the elements, the dull and dripping rain at night, sapping the creeping marrow in my bones, the swamp, the forest, the noontide heat, prolonged endurance of fatigue, and wakeful watching, intimate converse with gladiatorial soldiers, the harsh reproof and bitter curse (alas, too familiar to my own lips,) the forcing of fierce and maddened spirits to my own will, at times as fierce and maddened as theirs, the groan, the imprecation, oftener than the prayer of the dying; the contorted limbs and fixed stare of the dead, who have gone to their death at my bidding — all this, and more, more than I dare to think or to write, makes me feel as he must have felt who fell from heaven. When plunged in the abyss of reflection, I look for my pure, bright angel, with white and fleecy wings, hovering above me, her outstretched arms, her beckoning hand, her mild and lovely eyes entreating, the mother of my early days. I change, even in thought with her. I become a child again, like the little child I used to see in some of the editions of the '”Common Prayer,” with the leopard, and the lion, and the lamb, that I used to ponder over instead of listening to the service long years ago, when I sat in the quaint old church. The Bible pictures all come back to me, the clouds that I used to watch through the open windows, when the Sunday was pleasant, shaping themselves into queer and fanciful forms, when I used to wonder if God really sat among them, as upon His throne, and if the little cherubims and seraphims, all head and wings as they were lined above the pulpit, were really all about him crying aloud, and if he ever spanked them for so doing, and from these child dreams I passed to others; soft and pleasant fancies flit through my mind; music and the bright fireside, whispering voices, pure, sweet, holy love, the greeting and the parting, the hopes and fears. My spirit changes; I lean over the top-rail and gaze into the deep and flowing river, to wonder if the scene about me is real, if I may not go to you within the hour and lay my head upon your breast and cry myself to sleep, with your dear hands clasped in mine. You are curious to know where I am and what I have been doing, and I can only give you commonplace descriptions of fleets and the great broad river, martial music, startling the wild fowl from the well-nigh deserted shores, the debarkation of the army, the bivouac, the attack at night, the fiercer conflict that raged for two days, the storming of the “imminent and deadly breach,” the heroism, the slaughter of the soldiers, the withdrawal to the transports — all this you will hear about in any penny paper, told with all the variations far better than my pen can portray, and your heart will sicken that such things can be. You will hear that my own band acquitted themselves nobly, that nineteen of them bit the dust. Stancher followers no man ever had. They say I did my devoirs. I don't know. The blood gets into my head in the hour of battle and I rage, though men say I am cool. The Generals have given me the command of a brigade. . . .  If I live, I shall hope to gather laurels; you shall not be ashamed of your son. I have a splendid command, five fine regiments of infantry, two full batteries of artillery (one of which is the famous Taylor battery of Chicago, and the best of the service), and a squadron of horse, nearly five thousand men, and the very flower of the army. The treason of these Southerners is almost atoned for by their dauntless courage; but if the political generals don't succeed in taking my command from me, they shall meet a “foeman worthy of their steel” the next time we are in battle array. Remember I am writing to my mother, and if an indirect trail of egotism or vanity is suffered to creep into my plain letters, forgive me.

De Quincey, in his confessions of opium eating, says, speaking of his reveries, “Often I used to see after painting upon the blank darkness, a sort of rehearsal whilst waking, a crowd of ladies, and perhaps a festival and dances. And I heard it said, or I said it myself, these are English ladies, from the unhappy times of Charles I. These are the wives and daughters of those who met in peace, and sat at the same tables, and were allied by marriage or by blood; and yet, after a certain day in August, 1642, never smiled upon each other again, nor met but in the field of battle; and at Marston Moor, Newberry, or at Naseby cut asunder all ties of blood by the cruel sabre, and washed away in blood the memory of ancient friendships.”  One of my lady friends in Memphis gave me a copy, and in casually turning its leaves to-day, the quotations seemed strangely apt to the unhappy condition of our own bleeding land.

I have said if the political generals do not take my command away, — a batch of them have come down with McClernand, who, you will perceive by one of the accompanying copies, has divided the command with General Sherman; two or three of them are educated military men, and have great reputation as soldiers; an effort was made to place one of them over my command; it may yet be successful, though they tell me my popularity with officers and men is very great, especially since the last battle; that some of them declare they won't fight under another leader, especially under an importation. The advent of McClernand is deprecated. What the result may be I do not know. General Sherman is pretty firm about the matter, now, and I do not think will go behind his order. The Administration is treating me badly, but “Time at last sets all things even, and if we do but watch the hour,” etc. Meanwhile, in my little authority, you must imagine me as I really am, surrounded by very considerable state. My staff consists of an adjutant, two aide-de-camps, four clerks, six mounted orderlies, and as many of a detachment of cavalry as I may choose to detail for personal escort; this, with my body servants, makes up a very considerable menage, and as I retain my own old regiment as a body guard, I move with very considerable personal force. My colors float very proudly. You know I was always given to the taking on of airs, and thereby exciting envy, malice, hatred, and all uncharitableness, which with evil speaking, lying, and slandering, are always rife in the army. Therefore, there will be many attempts at assassination (figuratively speaking, I mean), and these political pets will be after me. Whatever I've got has been literally dug and hewed out with the point and edge of the sabre, and the devil of it now is that I have to fight front and rear. I had a bitter enemy in . . .  who is now hors de combat, having been badly shot in the late engagement. I think he’ll die; he won't sit on horseback for a year anyhow. I had disposed of him pretty effectually before he went under.

I know of none other now of any consequence, but the higher one gets up the more he makes of them. It's damned hard they won't back me at Washington.

I received a day or two since a very beautiful letter from Mrs. Sherman, in which she spoke of “having had the pleasure of seeing my very elegant and charming wife and mother.”

I enclose General Stuart's official report, which you may show to as many friends as you please, though it should not be published. Also the order assigning me to command. It is not difficult for some people to get the rank of brigadier, but the same find it devilish hard to get the command to follow the rank, and are proud enough of two meagre regiments. Mine is a young army; I am immensely proud of it.

I won't write myself to ask for promotion. I don't want it unless it comes regularly and through my commanding general, but inasmuch as I have been clothed with the command, and that against the claims of rank; inasmuch as I must assume immense responsibility, expense, and exposure without commensurate reward, therefore, I think, I am right to urge through my friends for what is only my due.

SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 254-7

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Colonel Thomas Kilby Smith to Elizabeth Budd Smith, November 15, 1862

Camp Near Memphis, Nov. 15, 1862.

I have abundance of good food, but only take one meal a day, and that a very light one. This morning one of my lady friends in the neighborhood sent me in a most luxurious breakfast, a roasted rabbit with jelly sauces, and all that sort of thing, flanked by four quails with three or four different preparations of bread and other little matters, and after the whole thing had been elaborately spread upon a nice white cloth, I had it all bundled up and sent off as a present to Mrs. Sherman.

I have a great many compliments of this kind and beautiful flowers sent to me, and all sorts of pleasant messages. Last night I passed the evening in company with General Sherman at Bishop Otie's, the Episcopal bishop of this diocese. He has lovely daughters. One of them entertained me with charming songs and harp accompaniment — a most beautiful girl and very accomplished.

SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 249

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Colonel Thomas Kilby Smith to Elizabeth Budd Smith, November 11, 1862

CAMP NEAR MEMPHIS, Nov. 11, 1862.
My Dear Wife:

My life is now in comparison to what it has been somewhat monotonous, though full of daily incidents that a year ago would have been excitement enough for any one, a circumstance then that would have caused comment for a month, is now passed over without a second thought. Last night one of my pickets shot a soldier of the 6th Missouri who was attempting to escape from guard. He was a splendidly formed man, and as I looked at him this morning, stripped for washing before burial, shot directly through the body with one of our large Minie-balls, and saw the little unconcern of all about him — even he who shot him — I began to realize better than ever before how valueless human life has become; within an hour the man was buried out of sight and the thing quite forgotten.

It is Indian summer weather, and were it not for the dust, different from anything in my experience in the way of dust, would be delightful; I am in the saddle the greater part of the time and keep three horses pretty well tired down. I never thought I could ride so much without fatigue. Last Friday I was Officer of the Day and rode all day until eleven o'clock at night, came back to camp, changed horses, made the grand round and did not dismount till half-past five o'clock in the morning. That day I rode twenty-two and a half hours out of the twenty-four, and then taking only an hour's nap, reported for duty. I know I rest better in the saddle than in the chair, and almost as well as lying down.

I think I shall be in good trim for a winter campaign. We shall take the field probably in about three weeks. The other day the field officers of our brigade surprised General Sherman by calling in a body and presenting him with sword, sash, belt, etc. — presentation and acceptance very affecting. We were all together at the plains of Shiloh. After presentation invited him to wine supper at hotel; speeches, talk, etc., and a good time generally. Mrs. Sherman, with the General, called upon me this morning, and indeed just left as I sit down to write. She is a very pleasant woman; the more I see of her the better I like her. She often comes to my camp and both she and the general are very hospitable to me; indeed, I believe I eat at their table oftener than at my own. There are several ladies residing not far from my camp, and one in Memphis, with whom I have become acquainted, and at whose house I often visit. It is agreeable to me, as I mess quite alone.
There was a grand Union demonstration in the city yesterday — a procession and the theatre thrown open, and girls dressed in white and mounted on a car to be dragged through the streets and one representing a goddess of liberty, who ought to be chained to a rock and kept there the balance of her days, and a grand band and flags fluttering, and speeches made from the stage by distinguished citizens and military men, and a hurrah, and the General with his staff and me on his right hand, caprioling and cavorting through the streets and standing on balconies, with waving hats and dancing plumes and brass buttons glittering in the sun, and new uniforms covered with dust and other free soil, and many little ragged boys and small girls with unkempt hair and the backs of their gowns gaping wide, and “the Union, it must be preserved,” and General Washington, looking like a superannuated ass with his ears cropped close, and “Esto Perpetua” and “flag of the free heart's hope and home,” and divers other strange devices, all done up in white cotton and carried about on sticks by sundry patriots at the remarkably low price of two dollars a day and whiskey thrown in, and a major and invited guests and the presentation of a Star Spangled Banner, long may it wave, by patriotic ladies of Memphis to Union Club, and all the rest of it done up in a rag after the approved style of Plymouth Rock, and the 4th of July and the 8th of January, and Washington's birthday. Vox populi, vox Dei.

SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 247-8

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Major General William T. Sherman to Ellen Ewing Sherman, May 10, 1865

CAMP OPPOSITE RICHMOND, May 10, 1865.

I wrote you on arrival from Savannah at Old Point. I got here yesterday and found my Army all in. Have seen Charley,1 who is very well. We march tomorrow for Alexandria, whither I have sent my office papers. We will march slowly and leisurely and should reach Alexandria in ten or twelve days. I may have chance to write you meantime. I want you to go and attend your Fair, and say little of me, save that I regard my presence with my Army so important that I will not leave it till it is discharged or sent on new duties. I shall surely spend the summer with you, preferably at Lancaster, but will come to Chicago or wherever you may be when I can leave with propriety. This Army has stood by me in public and private dangers, and I must maintain my hold on it till it ceases to exist. All the officers and men have been to see me in camp to-day and they received with shouts my public denial of a review for Halleck.2  He had ordered Slocum's wing to pass him in review to-day. I forbade it. Tomorrow I march through Richmond with colors flying and drums beating as a matter of right and not by Halleck's favor, and no notice will be taken of him personally or officially. I dare him to oppose my march. He will think twice before he again undertakes to stand between me and my subordinates. Unless Grant interposes from his yielding and good nature I shall get some equally good opportunity to insult Stanton. . . .

Stanton wants to kill me because I do not favor the scheme of declaring the negroes of the South, now free, to be loyal voters, whereby politicians may manufacture just so much more pliable electioneering material. The Negroes don't want to vote. They want to work and enjoy property, and they are no friends of the Negro who seek to complicate him with new prejudices. As to the people of the South they are subjugated, but of course do not love us any more than the Irish or Scotch love the English, but that is no reason why we should assume all the expenses of their state governments. Our power is now so firmly established that we need not fear again their internal disturbances. I have papers and statistics which I will show your father in time. I showed some to Charley to-day and he perfectly agreed with me; so do all my officers. . . .

We cannot kill disarmed men. All this clamor after Jeff Davis, Thompson and others is all bosh. Any young man with a musket is now a more dangerous object than Jeff Davis. He is old, infirm, a fugitive hunted by his own people, and none so poor as do him reverence. It will be well in June before I can expect to leave my army. Don't attempt to come to Alexandria for I will be in a common tent, and overwhelmed with papers and business. Ord, Merritt, Crook, and all the big men of Halleck's army have been to see me, and share with me the disgust occasioned by their base betrayal of my confidence. . . .
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1 General Charles Ewing.

2 See Memoirs, II, 374. Sherman's refusal to accept Halleck's hospitality in Richmond is recorded on the same page

SOURCES: M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Editor, Home Letters of General Sherman, p. 352-4.  A full copy of this letter can be found in the William T Sherman Family papers (SHR), University of Notre Dame Archives (UNDA), Notre Dame, IN 46556, Folder CSHR 2/24

Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Major General William T. Sherman to Ellen Ewing Sherman, May 8, 1865

AT SEA, STEAMER Russia,
Monday, May 8, 1865.

We are now approaching Cape Henry and by nine o'clock to-night will be at Old Point, where I expect to stop an hour or so to communicate with Grant and then go on up to City Point and Petersburg to meet my Army. I have been to Savannah, Charleston, and Wilmington on business connected with past affairs, and now I am free to join my army proper. I have seen the New York papers of April 24 and 28, but don't mind them much, for it is manifest that some deviltry is on foot. The telegram of Halleck endorsed by Stanton is the worst,1 but its falsity and baseness puts them at my mercy, and in a few days look out for breakers. This cause may delay me east a few days and I will likely accompany my Army up to Washington. At all events from this time forth I can hear from you and write to you. My latest letter is April 11, received at Raleigh. I want you to go right along, attend the Fair, and I will join you wherever you may be as soon as I can leave. We will probably all spend the summer together at Lancaster. At Savannah, Charleston, Wilmington, and Morehead City, officers, soldiers, sailors, and citizens paid me every sort of honor and respect, especially my old soldiers, more especially when they heard they were down on me at Washington. Now that the war is over, how brave and fierce have become the men that thousand-dollar bounties, patriotism, the appeal of generals and others would not bring out! How terribly energetic all at once Halleck became, to break my truce, cut off “Johnston's Retreat” when he knew Johnston was halted anxious to surrender and was only making excuses to keep his own men from scattering, a thing I did not want, and a reason I reported to Halleck and Stanton before my “Memorandum” went to Washington. Worst of all, his advice that my subordinates, Thomas, Wilson, and Stoneman, should not obey my orders. Under my orders, those Generals have done all they ever did in their lives, and it sounds funny to us to have Halleck better my plans and orders. But of all this hereafter. Go along as comfortably as you can. I am not dead yet, by a long sight, and those matters give me new life, for I see the cause. A breach must be made between Grant and Sherman, or certain cliques in Washington, who have a nice thing, are gone up. I am glad Grant came to Raleigh, for he saw at a glance the whole thing and went away more than satisfied. But heaven and earth will be moved to kill us. . . . Washington is as corrupt as Hell, made so by the looseness and extravagance of war. I will avoid it as a pest house. . .

The Gates of the Press can't prevail with my old army against me, and in them I put my faith.
__________

1 This telegram, sent out at the height of the dissatisfaction with the terms between Sherman and Johnston, directed generals, subordinate to Sherman, to disregard his orders.

SOURCES: M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Editor, Home Letters of General Sherman, p. 350-2.  A full copy of this letter can be found in the William T Sherman Family papers (SHR), University of Notre Dame Archives (UNDA), Notre Dame, IN 46556, Folder CSHR 2/24

Sunday, December 29, 2013

Major General William T. Sherman to Ellen Ewing Sherman, April 28, 1865

IN THE FIELD, RALEIGH, April 28, 1865.

The capitulation of Johnston's army at Greensboro completes my Campaign. I leave Schofield to do the work, and have ordered the 15th and 17th, 14th and 20th corps to march to Richmond. I will go to-night to Wilmington and Charleston and Savannah to make some orders and instructions, when I will go by sea to Richmond to meet my Army. Thence it will march to Alexandria (and Washington) where I will move my headquarters to, in anticipation of mustering out the Army. It may be that while the Army is on the march from Richmond to Alexandria I can run out to Lancaster to see you all. This will be about the 15th and 20th of May, and if I could take all the family to Alexandria to witness the final scenes attending Sherman's Army it would be a [prize] in the memory to our children that would somewhat compensate for the expense and loss of time. I may be a little ahead, but think that the present volunteer army must be mustered out and a new regular army made, and the quicker the better before new complications arise.

The mass of the people south will never trouble us again. They have suffered terrifically, and I now feel disposed to befriend them — of course not the leaders and lawyers, but the armies who have fought and manifested their sincerity though misled by risking their persons. But the rascals who by falsehood and misrepresentation kept up the war, they are infamous. It will be difficult for anyone to tread a straight path amid these new complications, but I will do my best.

I perceive the politicians are determined to drive the confederates into guerilla bands, a thing more to be feared than open organized war. They may fight it out. I won't. We could settle the war in three weeks by giving shape to the present disordered elements, but they may play out their game.

SOURCES: M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Editor, Home Letters of General Sherman, p. 349-50.  A full copy of this letter can be found in the William T Sherman Family papers (SHR), University of Notre Dame Archives (UNDA), Notre Dame, IN 46556, Folder CSHR 2/23 

Saturday, December 28, 2013

Major General William T. Sherman to Ellen Ewing Sherman, April 22, 1865

RALEIGH, N. C., April 22, 1865.

I wrote you a hasty letter by Major Hitchcock and promised to write more at length as soon as matters settled away somewhat. I am now living in the Palace1 and the Army lies around about the city on beautiful rolling hills of clear ground with plenty of water, and a budding spring. We await a reply from Washington which finishes all the war by one process or forces us to push the fragments of the Confederate Army to the wall.

Hitchcock should be back the day after to-morrow and then I will know. I can start in pursuit of Johnston — who is about Greensboro, on short notice; but I would prefer not to follow him back to Georgia. A pursuing army cannot travel as fast as a fleeing one in its own country. Your letters have come to me in driblets and mine will miss you, as all from Goldsboro were directed to South Bend.

I also sent you then the Columbia flag and a Revolutionary seal for your fair. I have the circulars and have sent them out to parties to collect trophies for you, but it is embarrasing for me to engage in the business, as trophies of all lands belong to Government, and I ought not to be privy to their conversion. Others do it, I know, but it shows the rapid decline in honesty of our people. Pillow, in the Mexican War, tried to send home as trophies a brass gun and other things such as swords and lances, and it was paraded all over the land as evidence of his dishonesty. . . .

The present armies should all be mustered out and the Regular Army increased to 100,000 men and these would suffice to maintain and enforce order at the South. There is great danger of the Confederate armies breaking up into guerillas, and that is what I most fear. Such men as Wade Hampton, Forrest, Wirt Adams, etc., never will work and nothing is left for them but death or highway robbery. They will not work and their negroes are all gone, their plantations destroyed, etc. I will be glad if I can open a way for them abroad. Davis, Breckenridge, etc., will go abroad or get killed in pursuit. My terms do not embrace them but apply solely to the Confederate armies. All not in regular muster rolls will be outlaws. The people of Raleigh are quiet and submissive enough, and also the North Carolinians are subjugated, but the young men, after they get over the effects of recent disasters and wake up to the realization that nothing is left them but to work, will be sure to stir up trouble, but I hope we can soon fix them off. Raleigh is a very old city with a large stone Capitol and governor's mansion called the Palace, now occupied by me and staff. They are distant about half a mile apart with a street connecting, somewhat in the nature of Washington. This street is the business street and some very handsome houses and gardens make up the town. It is full of fine people who were secesh but now are willing to encourage the visits of handsome young men. I find here the family of Mr. Badger who was with your father in Taylor's Cabinet.2 He is paralyzed so as to be hardly able to walk and sits all day. He has his mind and is glad to have visitors. I have called twice. Though a moderate man he voted to go out and actually drafted one of the resolutions of Secession. His wife must be much younger than he and is a lively, interesting lady, chuck full of Washington. She was dying for some news, and Harper's Magazine. I could tell you much that might interest you, but will now merely say that if Mr. Johnson will ratify the terms I will leave Schofield here to complete the business, will start five corps for the Potomac, to march, and in person will go to Charleston and Savannah to give some necessary orders, and then go to the Potomac to receive the troops as they arrive. I may bring you and the children there to see the last final Grand Review of my Army before disbanding it. That is the dream and is possible. It will take all May to march and June to muster out and pay so that the 4th of July may witness a perfect peace. My new sphere will I suppose be down the Mississippi. How would Memphis suit you as a home? The Mississippi valley is my hobby, and if I remain in the Army there is the place Grant will put me; Memphis or Nashville. But I am counting the chickens before they are hatched and must wait to see this thing out. When the war ends our labors begin, for we must organize the permanent army for the future. . . .
__________

1 Sherman occupied the Governor's mansion at Raleigh.

2 Thomas Ewing was a member both of Harrison's and of Taylor's Cabinet. It was in Harrison's Cabinet that George E. Badger was at the same time Secretary of the Navy.

SOURCES: M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Editor, Home Letters of General Sherman, p. 345-8.  A full copy of this letter can be found in the William T Sherman Family papers (SHR), University of Notre Dame Archives (UNDA), Notre Dame, IN 46556, Folder CSHR 2/23 

Friday, December 27, 2013

Major General William T. Sherman to Ellen Ewing Sherman, April 18, 1865

IN THE FIELD, RALEIGH, N. C.
April 18, 1865.

I have just got back from a long interview with General Johnston and Breckenridge, Secretary of War to the Confederacy, in which we arranged terms for the disbandment of all the Confederate armies from this to the Rio Grande, the submission to the national authority, etc., which I send at once to Washington for ratification, when this cruel war will be over. I can hardly realize it, but I can see no slip. The terms are all on our side. If approved I can soon complete the details, leave Schofield here and march my army for the Potomac, there to be mustered out and paid. If I accomplish this I surely think I will be entitled to a month's leave to come and see you. The assassination of Mr. Lincoln is most unfortunate, but we ride a whirlwind and must take events as they arise. I have notice that I was embraced in the programme, but the fellow who was to do the job did not appear, and if he is not in a hurry he will be too late. I don't fear an assassin, though I would prefer, for the name of the thing, to get my quietus in a more honest way, in open manly fight. . . .

SOURCES: M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Editor, Home Letters of General Sherman, p. 344-5.  A full copy of this letter can be found in the William T Sherman Family papers (SHR), University of Notre Dame Archives (UNDA), Notre Dame, IN 46556, Folder CSHR 2/23

Thursday, December 26, 2013

Major General William T. Sherman to Ellen Ewing Sherman, April 9, 1865

IN THE FIELD, GOLDSBORO, N. C.,
April 9, 1865.

. . . To-morrow we move straight against Joe Johnston wherever he may be. Grant's magnificent victories about Petersburg, and his rapid pursuit of Lee's army, makes it unnecessary for me to move further north, and I expect my course will be to Raleigh and Greensboro. I will fix up the railroad to Raleigh, but then shall cast off as my custom has been and depend on the contents of our wagons and on the resources of the country. Poor North Carolina will have a hard time, for we sweep the country like a swarm of locusts. Thousands of people may perish, but they now realise that war means something else than vain glory and boasting. If Peace ever falls to their lot they will never again invite War. But there is a class of young men who will never live at peace. Long after Lee's and Johnston's armies are beaten and scattered they will band together as highwaymen and keep the country in a fever, begetting a Guerilla War. It may be that the Government may give us who have now been working four years a rest and let younger men follow up the sequel. I feel confident we can whip Joe Johnston quick if he stops, but he may travel back towards Georgia, and I don't want to follow him again over that long road. I wish Grant had been a few days later or I a few days sooner, but on the whole our campaigns have been good. The weather now seems settled, and if I have good roads think I can travel pretty fast. The sun is warm, the leaves are all coming out, and flowers are in bloom, about as you will have it a month hence. The entire army has new clothing, and with soap and water have made a wonderful change in our appearance. The fellows who passed in review before me with smokeblack faces, dirty and ragged, many with feet bare or wrapped in cloth, now strut about as proud as young chicken cocks, with their clean faces and bright blue clothes. All are ready to plunge again into the labor and toil and uncertainty of war. You doubtless have heard all you can stand of these matters. My health is good. . . . I send to Tommy today a hundred dollars, and now enclose you $200, which is all I can raise and I got it of the quarter-master. I think, however, you will not suffer, but as a rule don't borrow. “’Tis more honest to steal.”

SOURCES: M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Editor, Home Letters of General Sherman, p. 342-3.  A full copy of this letter can be found in the William T Sherman Family papers (SHR), University of Notre Dame Archives (UNDA), Notre Dame, IN 46556, Folder CSHR 2/23

Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Major General William T. Sherman to Ellen Ewing Sherman, April 5, 1865

IN THE FIELD, GOLDSBORO, N. C.,
April 5, 1865.

I have now finished my Report and answered all letters that called for my personal action. These are being copied and sent by a courier to-morrow and then “What next” as old Lincoln says.1 That next is also thought over and it again takes me into danger and trouble, but you must now be so used to it that you can hardly care. I have no late letters from you, none since you went to Chicago, but you too are becoming a public character and the busy newspapers follow you. I see that the public authorities and citizens of Chicago paid you a public visit with speeches and music and that Bishop Duggan responded for you. If these give you pleasure I am glad of it for I would rather that you and the children should be benefitted by any fame I may achieve than that it should ensue to me personally. Of course as a General my case will be scrutinized very closely by men abroad as well as here, and my reputation will rather depend on their judgment than on any mere temporary applause. I have been trying to get some pay to send you, for I suppose you are “short,” but the paymasters cannot catch up, and in a few days I will be off again. I have pay due since January 1, and yet was unable the other day to buy a pair of shoes which I need. I have those big boots you sent me from Cincinnati, but the weather is getting warm and they are too close and heavy. They stood me a good turn however on the last march when for weeks we were up to our eyes in mud and water. When we got here the army was ragged and hard up, but already our new clothing is issued, and I will challenge the world to exhibit a finer looking set of men, brawny, strong, swarthy, a contrast to the weak and sickly fellows that came to me in Kentucky three years ago. It is a general truth that men exposed to the elements don't “catch cold,” and I have not heard a man cough or sneeze for three months, but were these same men to go into houses in a month the doctor would have half of them. Now the doctors have no employment. I myself am very well, though in a house for the time being, and too have the convenience of a table and chair to write, also to prevent the flaring of the candle which makes writing in a tent almost impossible. I write as usual very fast and can keep half a dozen clerks busy in copying. Hitchcock, nephew of the General, writes private letters not needing my personal attention, such as autographs and locks of hair; Dayton the military orders, but I must of course keep up correspondence with War Department, General Grant, my army commanders, governors of states, etc., and you should be satisfied even if my letters are hasty and ill digested. You can almost trace my progress through the world by the newspapers. . . .

I got a long letter from Bowman2 last night. He is resolved to write up my campaigns, and is anxious for the most authentic records. These are contained in my Letter and Order Books. You have some up to the time of my leaving Atlanta. Webster has those from Atlanta to Savannah, and I have here the balance. I would much prefer he would wait the end of the war, but he wants to make money out of the job, and I do not object, for he says that others less capable will do the thing, and make a botch of it. He can get access to my official Reports at Washington as also those of my subordinate Reports, but the letters I daily write give the gradual unfolding of plans and events better than Reports made with more formality after the events are past. The last March from Savannah to Goldsboro, with its legitimate fruits, the capture of Charleston, Georgetown and Wilmington, is by far the most important in conception and execution of any act of my life. . . .

I continue to receive the highest compliments from all quarters, and have been singularly fortunate in escaping the envy and jealousy of rivals. Indeed officers from every quarter want to join my “Great Army.” Grant is the same enthusiastic friend. Mr. Lincoln at City Point was lavish in his good wishes, and since Mr. Stanton visited me at Savannah he too has become the warmest possible friend. Of course I could not venture north, and it accords both with my pleasure and interest to keep close with my army proper. Officers and soldiers have in my foresight and knowledge a childlike confidence that is really most agreeable. Whilst wading through mud and water, and heaving at mired wagons the soldiers did not indulge a single growl, but always said and felt that the Old Man would bring them out all right; and no sooner had we reached the Cape Fear River at Fayetteville than a little squeaking tug came puffing up the river with news, and we had hardly spread out in the camps about Goldsboro than the locomotive and train came thundering along from the sea ninety-six miles distant, loaded with shoes and pants and clothing, as well as food. So remarkable and happy a coincidence, which of course I had arranged from Savannah, made the woods resound with a yell that must have reached Raleigh. Some of our officers who escaped from the enemy say that these two coincidences made the Rebel officers swear that I was the Devil himself, a compliment that you can appreciate. But enough of this vanity, save and except always when it redounds to your advantage and pleasure. My wants are few and easily gained, but if this fame which fills the world contributes to your happiness and pleasure, enjoy it as much as possible. Oh, that Willy could hear and see! His proud heart would swell to overflowing, and it may be that 'tis better he should not be agitated with such thoughts. . . .

The army is now well clad and fed. Our wagons are loading and on the 10th I will haul out towards Raleigh. I need not tell you my plans, but they are good, and I do not see but the next move and one more will determine the fate of this war, not conclude it, but assure the fact that the United States has not ceased to be a nation. If we can force Lee to let go Richmond, and can whip him in open fight, I think I can come home and rest and leave others to follow up the fragments. . . .
__________

1 When Sherman took Savannah, Lincoln wrote to him, Dec. 26, 1864: “It brings those who sat in darkness to see a great light. But what next? I suppose it would be safer if I leave Gen. Grant and yourself to decide.”

2 S. M. Bowman, with R. B. Irwin, published in 1865 his volume, Sherman and His Campaigns.
__________

SOURCES: M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Editor, Home Letters of General Sherman, p. 338-42.  A full copy of this letter can be found in the William T Sherman Family papers (SHR), University of Notre Dame Archives (UNDA), Notre Dame, IN 46556, Folder CSHR 2/22

Monday, December 23, 2013

Major General William T. Sherman to Ellen Ewing Sherman, March 26, 1865

ON BOARD STEAMER Russia
At Sea, Sunday, March 26, 1865.

The railroad was finished yesterday into Goldsboro and I came down to Newbern and Morehead City and am now in a fleet blockade runner on my way to meet General Grant at City Point to confer on some points, when I shall forthwith go back to Goldsboro and get ready for another campaign. There is no doubt we have got the Rebels in a tight place and must not let them have time to make new plans. They abandoned all their cities to get men enough to whip me but did not succeed. They may unite Johnston and Lee, when if they make the further mistake of holding on to Richmond, I can easily take Raleigh and the Roanoke, when Richmond will be of little use to them. If Lee lets go of Richmond the people of Virginia will give up. I regard my two moves from Atlanta to Savannah and Savannah to Goldsboro as great blows as if we had fought a dozen successful battles. At Bentonsville, Johnston attempted to prevent my making a junction with Schofield, but he failed and I drove him off the field with my own army without the help of a man from Schofield, also got all my armies at Goldsboro the 21st of March, only one day from the time appointed. I will now conduct with great care another move. I have all the army I want and can take an hundred thousand if I want them. . . . The ship is pitching a good deal, we are just off Hatteras, and I cannot write more. . . .

SOURCES: M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Editor, Home Letters of General Sherman, p. 336-7.  A full copy of this letter can be found in the William T Sherman Family papers (SHR), University of Notre Dame Archives (UNDA), Notre Dame, IN 46556, Folder CSHR 2/21

Sunday, December 22, 2013

Major General William T. Sherman to Ellen Ewing Sherman, March 23, 1865

IN THE FIELD, GOLDSBORO, N. C.,
March 23, 1865.

I wrote you from Fayetteville. On our way thence the enemy struck our left flank and I turned on him and after three days maneuvering and fighting defeated him and drove him off towards Raleigh. The fight was near Bentonsville, 20 miles from here on the south side of the Neuse in the direction of Smithfield. I got here to-day and all the army will be in by to-morrow. Thus have I brought the army from Savannah in good order, beaten the enemy wherever he attempted to oppose our progress, and made junction with Schofield and Terry from Newbern and Wilmington on the 21st, one day later than I had appointed before leaving Savannah. It is far more difficult and important than the Savannah march. Besides the immediate results we have forced the Rebels to abandon the whole sea coast.

I almost fear the consequences of the reputation this will give me among military men. I have received one letter from you and one from Minnie, also a vast package from everybody. I now have a staff officer, Maj. Hitchcock,1 to answer them. I only have time to make general orders, and to write special letters. I must be more careful, as I find silly people to claim my acquaintance publish my letters or extracts. You know how hurriedly I always write and that I might be falsely placed by such things. I will be here some weeks. I should see Grant before assuming the offensive and I think he will come down. I could have time to run to Washington, but prefer to stay with my troops. It gives me great power with them to share the days and nights. I always encamp and am now in a shaky fly, open, with houses all round occupied by Rebels or staff officers. Soldiers have a wonderful idea of my knowledge and attach much of our continued success to it . And I really do think they would miss me, if I were to go away even for a week. I notice that you propose to take part in a Sanitary Fair at Chicago. I don't much approve of ladies selling things at a table. So far as superintending the management of such things, I don't object, but it merely looks unbecoming for a lady to stand behind a table to sell things. Still do as you please. I have nothing that would engross the profits — my saddlebags, a few old traps, etc. I could collect plenty of trophies but have always refrained and think it best I should. Others do collect trophies and send home, but I prefer not to do it.

I have no doubt that you will be sufficiently gratified to know that I have eminently succeeded in this last venture, and will trust to luck that in the next still more hazardous I will be again favored. I don't believe anything has tended more to break the pride of the South than my steady persistent progress. My army is dirty, ragged and saucy. I have promised them rest, clothing and food, but the railroads have not been completed as I expected and I fear we may be troubled thereby. I am just informed that the telegraph line is finished from the sea to this place, so our lines of communication will be shortened. Strange to say we are all in fine health and condition, only a little blackened by the pine smoke of our camp fires. I would like to march this army through New York just as it appears today, with its wagons, pack mules, cattle, niggers and bummers, and I think they would make a more attractive show than your fair. . . .
__________

1 Major Henry Hitchcock, judge-advocate on Sherman's staff.

SOURCES: M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Editor, Home Letters of General Sherman, p. 334-6.  A full copy of this letter can be found in the William T Sherman Family papers (SHR), University of Notre Dame Archives (UNDA), Notre Dame, IN 46556, Folder CSHR 2/21

Saturday, December 21, 2013

Major General William T. Sherman to Ellen Ewing Sherman, March 12, 1865

IN THE FIELD, FAYETTEVILLE, N. C.,
Sunday, March 12, 1865.

We reached this place yesterday in good health and condition. We have had bad roads and weather but made good progress, and have achieved all I aimed to accomplish. Our main columns came through Columbia and Cheraw, South Carolina. We have had no general battle, and only skirmishes on the skirts of the army. The enemy gave ground when I moved in force. The importance of this march exceeds that from Atlanta to Savannah. South Carolina has had a visit from the West that will cure her of her pride and boasting. I sent couriers to Wilmington and a tug boat got up this morning, and I will start her back at 6 P. M. with despatches to Grant, the Secretary of War, and all my subordinate commanders. I do not intend to go to the sea shore, but will move on. I have no doubt you have all been uneasy on our account, but barring bad weather and mud we have had no trouble. . . .

The same brags and boasts are kept up, but when I reach the path where the lion crouched I find him slinking away. My army is in the same condition as before, and seems to possess abiding confidence in its officers. It would amuse you to hear their comments on me as I ride along the ranks, but I hope you will hear the jokes and fun of war at a fitter time for amusement. Now it is too serious. I think we are bringing matters to an issue. Johnston is restored to the supreme command and will unite the forces hitherto scattered and fight me about Raleigh or Goldsboro. Lee may reinforce him from Richmond, but if he attempts that Grant will pitch in. I can whip Joe Johnston unless his men fight better than they have since I left Savannah.

As I rode into Columbia crowds gathered round me, composed of refugees and many officers who had escaped their prison guards and hid themselves. One of them handed me the enclosed1 which is so handsomely got up that I deem it worthy of preservation. I want Lizzie to keep it. The versification is good, and I am told the music to which the prisoners set and sung it is equally so. I have never heard it sung, as the officers who composed the Glee Club in their prison at Columbia were not of the number who did escape. The author did escape and he is the one I have appointed to carry my despatches down to Wilmington tonight.

I expect to stay here a few days in hopes to receive some bread and shoes from Wilmington. The river is now high and easily navigated, and had I time I should have no trouble in getting supplies up, but time is so important that I must “Forward.” . . .

It is now 2 P. M. and I have written ten letters of four pages each, orders and instructions to my commanders on the seaboard. . . .
__________

1 A copy of "Sherman's March to the Sea," by Major S. H. M. Byers, later U. S. Consul-General to Italy and Switzerland.

SOURCES: M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Editor, Home Letters of General Sherman, p. 332-3.  A full copy of this letter can be found in the William T Sherman Family papers (SHR), University of Notre Dame Archives (UNDA), Notre Dame, IN 46556, Folder CSHR 2/21

Friday, December 20, 2013

Major General William T. Sherman to Ellen Ewing Sherman, January 15, 1865

SAVANNAH, Geo., January 15, 1865.

. . . It may be some days yet before I dive again beneath the surface to turn up again in some mysterious place. I have a clear perception of the move, but take it for granted that Lee will not let me walk over the track without making me sustain some loss. Of course my course will be north. I will feign on Augusta and Charleston, avoid both and make for Columbia, Fayetteville and Newbern, N. C. Don't breathe, for the walls have ears, and foreknowledge published by some mischievous fool might cost many lives. We have lived long enough for men to thank me for keeping my own counsels, and keeping away from armies those pests of newspaper men. If I have attained any fame it is pure and unalloyed by the taint of parasitic flattery and the result is to you and the children more agreeable, for it will go to your and their benefit more than all the surface flattery of all the newspaper men of the country. Mr. Stanton has been here and is cured of that Negro nonsense which arises, not from a love of the Negro but a desire to dodge service. Mr. Chase and others have written to me to modify my opinions, but you know I cannot, for if I attempt the part of a hypocrite it would break out at each sentence. I want soldiers made of the best bone and muscle in the land, and won't attempt military feats with doubtful materials. I have said that slavery is dead and the Negro free, and want him treated as free, and not hunted and badgered to make a soldier of, when his family is left back on the plantations. I am right and won't change.1 The papers of the 11th are just in and I see Butler is out. That is another of the incubi of the army. We want and must have professional soldiers, young and vigorous. Mr. Stanton was delighted at my men and the tone which pervades the army. He enjoyed a good story, which is true, told by one of my old 15th corps men. After we reached the coast we were out of bread, and it took some days for us to get boats up. A foraging party was out and got a boat and pulled down the Ogeechee to Ossabaw and met a steamer coming up. They hailed her and got answer that it was the Nemeha, and had Major General Foster on board; the soldiers answered “Oh H—1, we've got twenty-seven Major-Generals up at camp. What we want is hard tack.” The soldiers manifest to me the most thorough affection, and a wonderful confidence. They haven't found out yet where I have not been. Every place we go, they hear I lived there once, and the usual exclamation is, The “Old Man” must be “omnipresent” as well as “omnipotent.” I was telling some officers the other day if events should carry us to Charleston I would have advantage because I know the ground, etc., etc. They laughed heartily at my innocence, for they knew I had been everywhere. But really my long sojourn in this quarter of the world from 1840 to 1846 was and is providential to me.

I have read most of the current discourses about me, those you sent inclusive; but take more interest in the London Spectator, the same that reviewed my Knoxville Campaign. He is surely a critic, for he catches the real points well. The Times utterly overstates the cases and the Dublin papers are too fulsome. Our American papers are shallow. They don't look below the surface. I receive letters from all the great men, so full of real respect that I cannot disregard them, yet I dread the elevation to which they have got me. A single mistake or accident, my pile, though well founded, would tumble; but I base my hopes of fair fame on the opinion of my own army, and my associates. . . .

I will surely be off in the course of this week, and you will hear of me only through Richmond for two months. You have got used to it now and will not be concerned though I think the chances of getting killed on this trip about even. If South Carolina lets me pass across without desperate fighting, her fame is gone forever. . . .

I would not be surprised if I would involve our government with England. I have taken all the cotton as prize of war, thirty thousand bales, equal to thirteen millions of dollars, much of which is claimed by English merchants. I disregard their consular certificates on the ground that this cotton has been notoriously employed to buy cartridges and arms and piratical ships, and was collected here for that very purpose. Our own merchants are equally culpable. They buy cotton in advance and take the chances of capture, and then claim. . . .
___________

1 Sherman's unwillingness to weaken his army by increasing it with any but the most effective fighting men was frequently construed as an evidence of hostility to the negro. His true feeling on this subject is shown especially in the account of Stanton's visit to Savannah in the Memoirs (Vol. II, chap. xxii). The clear remembrance of those who knew him best warrants the belief that his knowledge of the South gave him a sympathetic understanding of the moral effect of employing negro troops, which increased his reluctance to include them in his army.

SOURCES: M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Editor, Home Letters of General Sherman, p. 327-30.  A full copy of this letter can be found in the William T Sherman Family papers (SHR), University of Notre Dame Archives (UNDA), Notre Dame, IN 46556, Folder CSHR 2/20

Thursday, December 19, 2013

Major General William T. Sherman to Ellen Ewing Sherman, January 5, 1865

SAVANNAH, January 5, 1865

I have written several times to you and to the children. Yesterday I got your letter of December 23, and realize the despair and anguish through which you have passed in the pain and sickness of the little baby I never saw. All spoke of him as so bright and fair that I had hoped he would be spared to us to fill the great void in our hearts left by Willy, but it is otherwise decreed and we must submit. I have seen death in such quantity and in such forms that it no longer startles me, but with you it is different, and 'tis well that like the Spaniards you realize the fact that our little baby has passed from the troubles of life to a better existence. I sent Charley off a few days ago to carry to General Grant and to Washington some important despatches, but told him he must not go farther than Washington as by the time he returns I will be off again on another raid. It is pretty hard on me that I am compelled to make these blows which are necessarily trying to me, but it seems devolved on me and cannot be avoided. If the honors proffered and tendered me from all quarters are of any value they will accrue to you and the children. John writes that I am in everybody's mouth and that even he is known as my brother, and that all the Shermans are now feted as relatives of me. Surely you and the children will not be overlooked by those who profess to honor me. I do think that in the several grand epochs of this war, my name will have a prominent part, and not least among them will be the determination I took at Atlanta to destroy that place, and march on this city, whilst Thomas, my lieutenant, should dispose of Hood. The idea, the execution and strategy are all good, and will in time be understood. I don't know that you comprehend the magnitude of the thing, but you can see the importance attached to it in England where the critics stand ready to turn against any American general who makes a mistake or fails in its execution. In my case they had time to commit themselves to the conclusion that if I succeeded I would be a great general, but if I failed I would be set down a fool. My success is already assured, so that I will be found to sustain the title. I am told that were I to go north I would be feted and petted, but as I have no intention of going, you must sustain the honors of the family. I know exactly what amount of merit attaches to my own conduct, and what will survive the clamor of time. The quiet preparation I made before the Atlanta Campaign, the rapid movement on Resaca, the crossing the Chattahoochee without loss in the face of a skilful general with a good army, the movement on Jonesboro, whereby Atlanta fell, and the resolution I made to divide my army, with one part to take Savannah and the other to meet Hood in Tennessee, are all clearly mine, and will survive us both in history. I don't know that you can understand the merit of the latter, but it will stamp me in years to come, and will be more appreciated in Europe than in America. I warrant your father will find parallel in the history of the Greeks and Persians, but none on our continent. For his sake I am glad of the success that has attended me, and I know he will feel more pride in my success than you or I do. Oh that Willy were living! how his eyes would brighten and his bosom swell with honest pride if he could hear and understand these things. . . .

You will doubtless read all the details of our march and stay in Savannah in the papers, whose spies infest our camps, spite of all I can do, but I could tell you thousands of little incidents which would more interest you. The women here are, as at Memphis, disposed to usurp my time more from curiosity than business. They had been told of my burning and killing until they expected the veriest monster, but their eyes were opened when Hardee, G. W. Smith and McLaws, the three chief officers of the Rebel army, fled across the Savannah river consigning their families to my special care. There are some very elegant people here, whom I knew in better days and who do not seem ashamed to call on the “vandal chief.” They regard us just as the Romans did the Goths and the parallel is not unjust. Many of my stalwart men with red beards and huge frames look like giants, and it is wonderful how smoothly all things move, for they all seem to feel implicit faith in me not because I am strong or bold, but because they think I know everything. It seems impossible for us to go anywhere without being where I have been before. My former life from 1840 to 1846 seems providential and every bit of knowledge then acquired is returned, tenfold. Should it so happen that I should approach Charleston on that very ground where I used to hunt with Jim Poyas, and Mr. Quash, and ride by moonlight to save daytime, it would be even more strange than here where I was only a visitor. Col. Kilburn arrived here from Louisville yesterday, and begged me to remember him to you. I continue to receive letters, most flattering, from all my old friends and enclose you two, one from General Hitchcock and one from Professor Mahan. Such men do not flatter and are judges of what they write. . . .

SOURCES: M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Editor, Home Letters of General Sherman, p. 324-7.  A full copy of this letter can be found in the William T Sherman Family papers (SHR), University of Notre Dame Archives (UNDA), Notre Dame, IN 46556, Folder CSHR 2/20

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Major General William T. Sherman to Ellen Ewing Sherman, January 2, 1865

SAVANNAH, Geo., January 2, 1865.

. . . I am now in a magnificent mansion living like a gentleman, but soon will be off for South Carolina and then look out for breakers. You may count on my being here till the 15th. I have not yet had one word from you since you knew of my having reached the coast, and only know of the death of our little boy1 by the New York papers of December 22, but was in a measure prepared for it by your letter received at Kingston. I suppose you feel his loss far more than I do because I never saw him, but all the children seemed to be so attached to him that you may be so grieved at his death you cannot write to me. I know by the same source that you are now at South Bend in Mr. Colfax'2 house. It must be very cold up there. It is really cold here, though the sun shines warm and the trees have green leaves. Of course no snow, but ice found in the gutters and on the pond. General Barnard got here last night from General Grant with dispatches, which I have answered, and the clerks are copying my letters and as soon as finished I will send a flat steamer to Port Royal whence a sea steamer will go to City Point and thence this letter will be sent you. . . .

I see that the State of Ohio talks of making me a present of a home, etc.3 For myself I would accept nothing, but for you and the children I would be willing, especially if such a present were accompanied as in Farragut's place, with bonds enough to give interest to pay taxes. My pay would not enable me to pay taxes on property. I have received from high sources highest praises and yesterday, New Year, was toasted, etc., with allusions to Hannibal, Csesar, etc., etc., but in reply I turned all into a good joke by saying that Hannibal and Caesar were small potatoes as they had never read the New York Herald, or had a photograph taken. But of course, I feel a just pride in the confidence of my army, and the singular friendship of General Grant, who is almost childlike in his love for me. It does seem that time has brought out all my old friends, Grant, Thomas, Sheridan, etc. All sorts of people send me presents and I hope they don't slight you or the girls. I want little in that way, but I think you can stand a good deal. Thus far success has crowned my boldest conceptions and I am going to try others quite as quixotic. It may be that spite of my fears I may come out all right. Love to all.
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1 Writing from Kingston, Georgia, on June 12, 1864, Sherman had acknowledged the news of the birth of this child.

2 Schuyler Colfax, at this time Speaker of the House of Representatives, lived at South Bend, Ind.

3 This present was never received.

SOURCES: M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Editor, Home Letters of General Sherman, p. 322-4.  A full copy of this letter can be found in the William T Sherman Family papers (SHR), University of Notre Dame Archives (UNDA), Notre Dame, IN 46556, Folder CSHR 2/20