Braxton Bragg to William T. Sherman, January 27, 1861

BATON ROUGE, Jan. 27, 1861.

MY DEAR SHERMAN: It is with the deepest regret that the enclosed papers are forwarded to you. I am so occupied with other matters that I do not know what the Board of Supervisors have done or will do about your successor. Dr. Smith has made arrangements, I think, to settle your salary as ordnance officer.

The ordinance of secession passed the convention yesterday by a very large vote, and a convention of Southern States will immediately meet to organize a new confederacy. It will be in operation - a de facto government – before the 4th of March. We hope this course will lead to a peaceable solution of the matters. A separation is inevitable - nothing can prevent it now. Why should there be any strife over it?

Still it is not for individuals to control these matters. We can only strive and hope.

Wherever you go my fervent prayers attend you for success and happiness. . .

SOURCE: Walter L. Fleming, General W.T. Sherman as College President, p. 351

William T. Sherman to Ellen Ewing Sherman, January 27, 1861

SEMINARY, January 27, 1861.

. . . Since my last I have three letters from you. . . The mails have been much disordered by a break on the Mississippi Railroad. In my last I sent you a copy of a letter written to Governor Moore, to which I have received no answer.¹ He is very busy indeed, legislature and convention both in session at Baton Rouge, giving him hardly time to think of the Seminary. . .

The ordinance of Secession will pass in a day or so², but the legislature was adjourned till February 4, so that no business can be transacted there for some days. It don't take long to pull down, and everybody is striving for the honor of pouring out the deepest insult to Uncle Sam. The very men who last 4th of July were most patriotic and exhausted their imaginations for pictures of the glories of our Union, are now full of joy and happiness that this accursed Union is wrecked and destroyed.

This rapid popular change almost makes me monarchist, and raises the question whether the self interest of one man is not a safer criterion than the wild opinions of ignorant men. From all I can read Missouri and Kentucky will go with the crowd South and will be more seriously affected than any other part of the country.

As soon as I hear from Governor Moore I will let you know when to expect me. I know that he, the governor, will feel inclined to get rid of me instanter, but Dr. Smith wants me to stay for a successor, and he has no successor in his mind. If he proposes I shall stay till March, I will feel disposed to agree to it for pecuniary reasons, but I think the governor will feel hurt at my letter, and will be disposed to get rid of me. At all events, my position being clearly defined I cannot be complicated by these secession movements. I do feel a little mean at being made partially accessory to the robbing of the Baton Rouge Arsenal by receiving a part of the stolen property. . .

_______________

¹ See pages 341-343, 350-351. – ED.

² It was passed on January 26, 1861. – Ed.

SOURCE: Walter L. Fleming, General W.T. Sherman as College President, p. 351-3

William T. Sherman to George Mason Graham, January 20, 1861

SEMINARY, January 20, 1861.

MY DEAR FRIEND: Yours of yesterday was read with painful interest last night along with Mr. Sanford's two, which I herewith return. Of course now that reason is powerless and the truth cannot be reached through the clouds of mistrust, suspicion, and mutual accusations which envelop us, we are all drifting together no one knows whither.

I was waiting as patiently as a red-headed person could, for the official acts of the convention charged with the destiny of Louisiana, when tidings reached me that Governor Moore had caused the seizure of the forts and arsenals, and had driven away with ignominy the small garrison posted among friends for the protection of the dangerous instruments of war. For this I see no justification and feel compelled to announce my determination by letter in the terms I have previously done to Dr. Smith in the presence of Mr. Elgee. Dr. Smith gave me his personal assurance that in no event should I be called on to do any act compromising my national character and preferences.

But fearing some unforeseen cause might render him powerless I resolved to move officially and therefore addressed to Governor Moore a letter of which the subjoined is a copy — and at the same time wrote him and Dr. Smith each, other private letters with the view to convey to them the personal reasons for my choice. [See pages 341-346.]

Of course they will now make short metre of me and within a week I expect to be homeward bound. I have made all reports, returns, and letters to parents, and all the books are written up to date. I have asked Smith to meet me in New Orleans to balance the bank account, for I want to leave with clean hands, and they will be clean enough, for I have saved but little and can now hardly expect the legislature will appropriate for the rebel.

I have notice that three thousand three hundred stand of arms - seventy thousand cartridges and two hundred carbine cartridges and belts are enroute for this place. I must, as long as I stay, be faithful to my trust, and I will take immediate steps for their safe storage, though it will force me to move and use this room as a store-house. I hope however to be relieved in time so that some one else will have the pleasure of receipting for them and accounting for them.

My own opinion is that Lincoln will be installed in office — that Congress will not repeal the Union, that the revenues will be collected. The consequence is inevitable — war, and ugly war too. I do not think the South will be invaded, or plain coercion attempted; but no vessel can be cleared at New Orleans and no vessel can enter without paying duties outside. Commerce will cease unless the South can combine, organize a navy and fight their way, or unless she can form a treaty with our old enemy England. For the northern and eastern cities will never consent to pay duties and allow New Orleans to be a free port, to send into the interior goods cheaper than they

But discussion is useless. The storm is upon us, and we must each to our own ship. I hope I may meet you again but if not accept the assurances of my great affection, respect, and admiration, and my earnest prayer that you and yours may long survive to look back with satisfaction to the time when we started the Seminary in a vain belief that we were serving the cause of our common country.

SOURCE: Walter L. Fleming, General W.T. Sherman as College President, p. 348-50

George Mason Graham to William T. Sherman, January 4, 1861

TYRONE, Friday Night, Jan. 4, 1861.

DEAR COLONEL: Your Christmas letter came duly to hand, and I beg to make you my acknowledgements for it, although it added fuel to the flame of the sad thoughts and feelings with which I am now constantly oppressed.

First of all, I thought of your little circle at Lancaster and felt provoked that instead of being absorbed in the enjoyment of their society you should have no better occupation on that day than in writing to me.

Then the already almost realized certainty that we shall lose you, for I feel as confident as I possibly can of any event not yet transpired, than an ordinance of secession will be rushed through the convention with breathless haste. The tone of the Louisiana Democrat ever since the presidential election has satisfied me of that — its last issue confirms it. Less than four weeks ago I proclaimed from the steps of the post-office, to an unusually large crowd awaiting the opening of the mail, that “I stood by the Union, that secession was treason, and no man in the crowd opened his mouth affirmatively or negatively, although I saw men there — lifelong Democrats, too — who, I knew, felt and thought as I did about it. A few days afterward a man who was in that crowd, and whose breath smells of whatever Governor Moore chews, told me that he was opposed to sending men of extreme views either way to the convention on Dec. 26. The same man said in my presence in Alexandria that he would not vote for any man for the convention who would not pledge himself beforehand to put the state out of the Union before the 4th of March.

And what men are we to vote for to that convention! So far as the talent and ability requisite for the occasion are concerned I look upon both tickets as sphinxs, having a common head. I shall vote for the courthouse sphinx, because that was made publicly in open day, by the people, where everybody had a chance to take a part whilst the dark lantern sphinx was made nobody knows by whom, nobody knows where, but popped on to the Democratic stage by Locofoco jugglery.

The course you have marked out for yourself I had anticipated. There is none other left for you. In the event of the convention passing an ordinance of abrupt secession, I do not see that there will be the slightest obligation on (you), or propriety in your allowing time for a successor. Where is he to come from at this time except temporarily out of the present Academic Board? Some of our friends will be apt to think that they have accomplished more than they ever contemplated, and may come, possibly, to the conclusion that there are more things between heaven and earth than were ever dreamt of in their philosophy.

Having no papers or letters by yesterday's mail, I am very much in a mist in regard to Bob Anderson's situation (in Fort Sumter). I have heard that Mr. Floyd has resigned because he was not allowed to reinforce him. Am looking with intense anxiety for the mail of to-morrow night. I really think that Mr. Van Buren would have made longer strides after Gen. Jackson than poor old Buck.

I have been greatly engrossed during the Holy Days (?). The overseer for "Forked-Deer"¹ has only now arrived, having been to Mississippi for his wife, and I have no overseer at Tyrone yet, though almost hourly pestered with applications — so that I have the cares and troubles of both plantations on my hands, for it will take several days yet to get rid of "Forked-deer.” Onze Heurs, et mes yeux beaucoup fatigues.

To-morrow I must work to get all the votes I can for the courthouse sphinx. . .

_______________

¹ One of General Graham's plantations. – ED

SOURCE: Walter L. Fleming, General W.T. Sherman as College President, p. 326-8

William T. Sherman to Ellen Ewing Sherman, January 5, 1861

LOUISIANA STATE SEMINARY                

of Learning and Military Academy,        

Alexandria, Jan. 5, 1861.

 . . . I have finished my report and placed all the papers in the hands of Dr. Smith the vice-president. I walked into town the day before yesterday, poor Clay being dead and buried. Dr. Smith was away and I only remained a few hours. Alexandria at best is not a cheerful town, but now decidedly the reverse. Everybody naturally feels the danger which envelopes us all in one common cause. I have had nothing said to me at all, and I discuss the questions of the day freely with my equals, and try to keep my peace with loungers about the street corners and ferry-boat landing. I always say what is my real belief, that though the slavery question seems to be the question soon it will sink into insignificance.

Our country has become so democratic that the mere popular opinion of any town or village rises above the law. Men have ceased to look to constitutions and law books for their guides, but have studied popular opinion in bar rooms and village newspapers, and that was and is law. The old women and grannies of New England, reasoning from abstract principles, must defy the constitution of the country, the people of the South not relying on the federal government must allow their people to favor filibustering expeditions, against the solemn treaties of the land; and anywhere from California to Maine any man could do murder, robbery or arson if the people's prejudice lay in that direction. And now things are at such a pass that no one section believes the other, and we are beginning to fight.

The right of secession is but the beginning of the end; it is utterly wrong and the president ought never for one moment to have permitted the South Carolinians to believe he would not enforce the revenue laws and hold the public property in Charleston Harbor. Had he promptly reinforced Maj. Anderson the Charlestonians would have been a little more circumspect. My only hope is that Maj. Anderson may hold out, that more reinforcements may reach him, and that the people may feel that they can't always do as they please. Or in other words that they are not so free and independent as they think. In this view I am alone here, but I do so think, and will say it. . .

If still this Civil War should pass over I shall require you all to come down regardless of consequences, for here I must stay summer and winter, or else give it up. . .

St. Louis will be paralyzed with Civil War, and California will be a foreign country. My only hope is that bad as things now look there may occur some escape, or if dissolution is inevitable that Ohio and Louisiana may belong to the same confederacy. I am so far out of the current here that I can only judge by newspapers and they all indicate a bias. The Louisiana convention will surely secede, but then the reconstruction. At all events I cannot do anything till that is over, if they turn me out I must stay and get my dues, and I will send you every cent I can. The house is now done and the carpenters leave it to-day for good. People begin to wonder why you don't come down, and the fact is operating to my prejudice, but at this time it would be imprudent to do so. Maybe a change may yet occur. . .

SOURCE: Walter L. Fleming, General W.T. Sherman as College President, p. 329-31

William T. Sherman to Ellen Ewing Sherman, November 26, 1860

ALEXANDRIA, Nov. 26, 1860.

 . . . I commenced writing a letter last night to Minnie, but a friend sent us out a newspaper of New Orleans, November 22 which had come up from New Orleans in a boat. For some reason the papers come to us very irregularly. The stage whenever it has passengers leaves behind the paper mail and only brings the bags when there are few or no passengers. Well, of late though letters come about as usual our papers come along very straggling. This newspaper so received brings intelligence, how true I know not, of a panic in New York, Baltimore, Virginia, and everywhere. Of course panics are the necessary consequence of the mammoth credit system, the habit of borrowing which pervades our country, and though panics transfer losses to the wrong shoulders still they do good.

But along with this comes the cause, the assertion that South Carolina will secede certain. Georgia ditto. And Alabama. Mississippi will of course, and with her Arkansas and Texas. This will leave Louisiana no choice. If these premises be true then indeed is there abundant cause for panic, disorder, confusion, ruin and Civil War. I am determined not to believe it till to withhold belief would be stupidity. The paper also announces that Governor Moore has called the legislature together for December 10, and specially to consider the crisis of the country and to call a convention. You know that the theory of our government is, as construed by the southern politicians, that a state, one or more, may withdraw from the Union without molestation, and unless excitement abates Louisiana will follow the lead of her neighbors.

You will hear by telegraph the actions of the conventions of South Carolina and Alabama. Should they assert their right to secede and initiate measures to that end, then you may infer that I will countermand my heretofore preparations for a move. Then it would be unsafe for you even to come south. For myself I will not go with the South in a disunion movement, and as my position at the head of a State Military College would necessarily infer fidelity and allegiance to the state, my duty will be on the first positive act of disunion to give notice of my purpose.

December 10 the legislature meets. It is hardly possible a convention will be called before January and until the convention acts the state is not committed. Still I think the tone of feeling in the legislature will give me a clew [sic] to the future. I confess I feel uneasy from these events, and more so from the fact that the intelligence comes so piecemeal and unsatisfactory. . .

SOURCE: Walter L. Fleming, General W.T. Sherman as College President, p. 308-9

William T. Sherman to Ellen Ewing Sherman, December 18, 1860

ALEXANDRIA, Dec. 18, 1860.

. . . I cannot remain here much beyond January 23, the time set for the state convention to dissolve the connection of this state with the U.S. The legislature only sat three days and passed unanimously the bills for arming the state and calling a convention. That convention has only to decree what has already been resolved on and proclaimed by the Governor, that Louisiana cannot remain under a Black Republican president. The opinion is universal that disunion is resolved on, and the only open questions are what states will compose the Southern Confederacy.

I regard the failure of Buchanan to strengthen Maj. Anderson at Ft. Moultrie as absolutely fatal, as the evidence of contemptible pusilanimity of our general government, almost convincing me that the government is not worth saving. No wonder Gen. Cass forthwith resigned. . .

SOURCE: Walter L. Fleming, General W.T. Sherman as College President, p. 316

William T. Sherman to Ellen Ewing Sherman, December 23, 1860

ALEXANDRIA, Dec. 23, 1860.

. . . There certainly are symptoms of a general breaking up or dissolution of all government everywhere. The people of the parish on the other side of Red River have constituted themselves into a kind of vigilance committee with power to execute their own sentence on suspected parties. These are the best gentlemen of the country and though I can never approve of organizations that may as easily be adopted by the evil disposed as the well disposed, yet they show the tendency toward a general anarchy here as well as all over the United States.

I take it for granted South Carolina has "seceded” and that other Southern States will follow and that Louisiana will be precipitated along. Her convention meets Jan. 23 and I will await patiently her action. . .

SOURCE: Walter L. Fleming, General W.T. Sherman as College President, p. 316-7