William T. Sherman to George Mason Graham, August 20, 1859

Lancaster, O., Aug. 20,1859.

Dear Sir: I wrote you a few days ago, in part answer to your very kind note addressed me at Lancaster. I am now in possession of your more full letter sent by way of Leavenworth, and shall receive to-day the printed reports to which you referred.

These will in great measure answer the manifold questions propounded by me. When in full possession of these I will again write you, and when I know you are at Washington, I may come there to meet you, and to make those preliminary arrangements as to furnishing the building, selecting text books, etc., all of which will no doubt have to be approved by the Board of Education in Louisiana.

I can easily secure from West Point the most complete information on all the details of the management and economy of that institution. Then, being in possession of similar data from the Virginia Institution, we can easily lay a simple foundation, on which to erect, as time progresses, a practical system of physical and mental education, adapted to the circumstances of Louisiana. I shall not take my family south this winter, and shall hold myself prepared to meet you at Alexandria, or elsewhere, at the earliest date you think best. I feel deeply moved by your friendly interest in me, and both socially and in the new field hereby opened to me I will endeavor to reciprocate your personal interest and justify your choice of a superintendent.

I have seen a good deal of the practical world, and have acquired considerable knowledge, but it may be desultory, and may require some time to reduce it to system, and therefore I feel inclined to see the Board of Education¹ select a good series of practical books as textbooks.

If this has already been done, I will be the better pleased; if this devolve on the professors it will require some judgment to adjust them, lest each professor should attempt too much, and give preference to textbooks not intimately connected with the other classes. The adjustment of the course of studies, the selection of the kind and distribution of physical, muscular education, and how far instruction in infantry, sword and even artillery practice shall be introduced are all important points, but fortunately we have a wide field of choice, and the benefit of the experience of others. As soon as I learn you are in Washington, and as soon as I know all that has been done, I will give my thoughts and action to provide in advance the knowledge out of which the Board of Education may choose the remainder.

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¹ Board of Supervisors of the Seminary. — ED.

SOURCE: Walter L. Flemming, Editor, General W.T. Sherman as College President, p. 33-4

George Mason Graham to William T. Sherman, August 3, 1859

Steamboat Minnesota, descending Red River, La., August 3, 1859.

Sir: I have the gratification to inform you, in advance probably of your official notification by Gov. Wickliffe, that the Board of Supervisors of the Seminary of Learning, State of Louisiana, yesterday elected you to the chair of engineering, architecture, and drawing in that institution, and to the post of superintendent thereof. . .

I am now en route to join my family at Beer-Sheba Springs, Tennessee, where I shall remain until the last days of August and thence to Washington City all the month of September. My address there will be to “care Richard Smith, Esq., cashier, Bank of the Metropolis.” Hope to be at home by first of November, where from the 1st to the 10th, shall be glad if you can join me, making the headquarters of your family at my house, where we have abundant room, but are nine miles distant from Alexandria, thirteen from the Seminary.

If entirely convenient and comfortable to your family, however, to remain behind, it would be wisest for you to come down alone at first, as there are no residences yet provided, and you will all have to quarter at first in the building. Yourself and Dr. Vallas are the only two married men on the Academic Board, and the Board of Supervisors has taken the initiatory for the creation of two dwellings, but it requires the authorization of the legislature, which assembles on the 3rd Monday in January.

It will be necessary for you to be here as soon as possible after my own return, as the preparation for, and the starting of, the whole machinery has been devolved mostly on you and myself, including the furnishments of the building, as you will see from the published accounts of our proceedings which will be forwarded to you (apropos: the statement in the governor's advertisement that “furnished apartments will be provided the professors in the building” was an error of our secretary's. It should have read “Apartments will be furnished the professors in the building free of charge therefor” le meublant of them however to be left to themselves).

I enclose to your address at Leavenworth, to be mailed with this in New Orleans, a packet containing four publications from the Virginia Military Institute, one of them a copy of its “Rules and Regulations,” so that in devoting in advance, what leisure moments you may have to the preparation of your plans, you may have the experience of our model before you.

If an article in the Daily National Intelligencer of Monday, July 4th, headed “Louisiana Seminary” met your eye, you will have gathered from it a pretty exact idea of its locale. A little ground plan which I have endeavored to make amidst the tremulous motion of the boat, and enclose here, will enable you to form some idea of the capacity of the Building.

Doctor Vallas is an Episcopal clergyman (which quality he sinks entirely, that is, in the exercise of it, so far as the institution is concerned), an Hungarian, an accomplished gentleman, an erudite scholar, a profound and practised mathematician and doctor of philosophy. Has occupied various chairs in the colleges of Vienna and at the time of the establishment of the Revolutionary Government in Hungary, was professor of mathematics in the University at Pesth, in which capacity he was ordered by that Government to organize a military department to the University in which he superintended the instruction of about five hundred young men for two years, when the Austrians recovering possession of Pesth he was dismissed from the Military school and was himself court-martialed. Saving his head, they only removed his body from the office of professor of the university, and altho’ there is satisfactory evidence that he might have been restored to that position, he preferred a voluntary expatriation. He resides in New Orleans, readily at hand.

Monsieur St. Ange seems to be a gentleman and well educated scholar-has served in the Marine Corps of France. Is in Alexandria.

David F. Boyd, an eleve of the University of Virginia and native of that state, is now teacher in a school in the northerly part of Louisiana. He, too, is therefore readily at hand.

Francis W. Smith, native of Virginia and eleve of its military institute, is a very young man, a nephew of both Col. Smith, the superintendent, and of Major Williamson, one of the professors in the V.M.I. He comes strenuously recommended as eminently qualified to fill any chair in our school, except that of modern languages, being only a French scholar. Is now at Lexington, Virginia or Norfolk, where his family reside.

In concluding this long, and to me wearying paper, I beg to say to you that much is expected of you - that a great deal will devolve upon you, and to add that at our Board dinner yesterday, Governor Wickliffe with great cordiality and kind feeling proposed your health and success, and that it was responded to by the other members in brimming glasses.

P.S. If you know Mr. and Mrs. A. I. Isaacs, now I think residing in Leavenworth, they can tell you all about our country here.

SOURCE: Walter L. Flemming, Editor, General W.T. Sherman as College President, p. 29-33