William T. Sherman to George Mason Graham, October 23, 1859

ST. LOUIS, MO., Sunday, Oct. 23, 1859.

Dear SIR: . . . It is absolutely impossible for me to leave here before Thursday of this week, the 27th, as I have some old matters of business here which I have put off until now. I was delayed two or three days by the low water of the Missouri. Therefore, however much I would like to be with you on the “Lizzie Simmons,” I must not attempt it.

I will, if there be any faith in steamboats, be at Baton Rouge, Nov. 5 and I suppose I have made a mistake in promising to see the governor at all, instead of the committee of trustees, to whom is left the preparation of things; still, as I have written the governor to that effect, I must do so, but will not delay an unnecessary moment, but hurry on to Alexandria and there meet the committee.

Knowing, as you do, the rates of travel, you can better form a judgment when I can reach your Alexandria; and if your committee will have progressed in their work they may go on, with a certainty that I will zealously enter on any task they may assign me. It seems to me no time is to be lost in preparing regulations and circulars for very wide circulation among the planters whose sons are to be cadets.

But we will soon meet and go to work, and I begin to feel now that we have a noble task and are bound to succeed.

SOURCE: Walter L. Fleming, Editor, General W.T. Sherman as College President, p. 42-3

George B. McClellan to William T. Sherman, October 23, 1859

Illinois Central Railroad Company,

Vice President's Office, Chicago, Oct. 23, 1859.

My DEAR SIR: I regret exceedingly that I have so long delayed replying to yours of the 30th, ult. I hope this will reach you at Baton Rouge in time to serve your purposes, and must beg you to consider my rather multifarious duties as my excuse for the delay; in truth I was desirous of taking some little pains with my reply, and it has been difficult for me to find the time.

I think with you that the blue frock coat, and felt hat with a feather, with perhaps the Austrian undress cap, will be the most appropriate uniform, the grey coatee is rather behind the age.

If the academy is in the Pine Barrens, it would seem that the period from September 1 to June 20, with the two examinations you speak of, would answer every purpose. It would be almost impossible to have an encampment, I should suppose, yet you might in a very few days teach them how to pitch tents, and the more important parts of camp duty, such as guard duty, construction of field kitchens and ovens, huts for pioneers, etc.

You will find in Captain Marcy's new book The Prairie Traveller a great deal of invaluable information in reference to camps, taking care of animals, etc., on the prairies. I think you would find it worth while, if not to make it a text book, to require or advise to students to procure copies. It is a book they will read with great interest and profit — it fills a vacuum of no little importance.

I think I have at home the plates belonging to the French “Instruction pour l'enseignement de la Gymnastique.” This will give you all the information you need as to the appliances required for a gymnasium. The title is Instruction pour l'enseignement de la Gymnastique dans les corps de troupes et les etablissements militaire (Paris, I. Dumaine).

If my copy is lost I would advise you to import it. There is also a very good little work published by Dumaine, called Extrait de I'Instruction pour l'enseignement de la Gymnastique, etc., par le Capitaine C. d'Argy.

In addition to the regular instruction in the infantry and artillery manuals, I would by all means have daily practice in the gymnasium, or fencing with the foil and bayonet, and the same exercise at least half an hour a day ought to be devoted to this.

With regard to the course of instruction necessary to lay the foundation for a thorough knowledge of engineering, I do not think that the general course at West Point can be materially improved upon. We have all felt the want of practical instruction on certain points when we left West Point — e.g. in the actual use of instruments, both surveying and astronomical, topography and field sketches, railway engineering, etc. — but it is impossible to do everything in a limited time, and I would suggest that you follow in the main the West Point course, retrenching a little from some of the higher branches and adding a little to the practical instruction.

I know of no complete work on the construction of railways, it is thus far essentially a practical business. Collum and Holley's work on European Railways contains some valuable information. Lardner on the Steam Engine, Parbour on the Locomotive and Steam Engine, Collum on the Locomotive are all useful. Borden's Formula for the Location and Construction of Railroads, Haupt on Bridge construction, Moseley's Mechanical Engineering, Edwin Clarke on the Brittania and Conway Tubular Bridges, Arolis series of Rudimentary treatise on Engineering, etc., are all of value.

I regret that I am rather pushed for time tonight, as I would have liked to write more fully, but I start for St. Paul in the morning and must do the best I can in a limited time. If I can give you any further information it will afford me great pleasure to do so at any time. With my best wishes for your success in Louisiana,

I am very truly yours,

Geo. B. McCLELLAN.

SOURCE: Walter L. Fleming, Editor, General W.T. Sherman as College President, p. 40-2

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

Lancaster, Ohio, Sept. 7, 1859.

Dear Sir: I am now in full possession of all documents sent to my address at Leavenworth including the papers containing the printed proceedings of the Board of Supervisors of August 2. I have written to you twice at Washington, but suppose you are not well arrived, and as I find it best somewhat to qualify my offer to come East, and visit with you the Virginia Institute, I write you again.

I have written Governor Wickliffe that I will be at Saint Louis, Oct. 20 and at Baton Rouge Nov. 5, prepared to meet the committee of supervisors, or the academic faculty at any time thereafter he may appoint. But it may be more convenient for that committee to meet at once in Alexandria or at the institute [Seminary] itself, so that I can be there at any date after Nov. 5, which may prove agreeable to all parties.

To-morrow I will go to Frankfort, Kentucky, to be present at the opening of the session of the Kentucky Military Institute and I will remain long enough to see for myself as much of the practical workings of that institute as possible. Colonel Morgan in charge will, I know, take pleasure in making me acquainted with all details that I may desire to learn.

From Kentucky I shall return to this place, and about the 25th inst. I will go to Chicago, where I expect to meet Captain McClellan of the Illinois Central Railroad, who a few years since visited many of the European establishments, and who can therefore give me much information. I will then go to Leavenport and afterward St. Louis delaying at each point a short while, but you may rest perfectly certain that I will be on hand, when the committee meets and that I will acquire as much practical knowledge of organization as possible in the meantime.

I hope you will find it both pleasant and convenient to visit the Virginia Military Institute and that you will make inquiries that will be of service - thus ascertain the exact price of each article of dress, and furniture furnished the cadets, price of each text-book - how supplied, cost of black-board, drawing-board, mathematical instruments, drawing-paper, paints, pencils, etc. The name of the merchant who supplied them. Have they a single store, like an army suttler who keeps supplies on hand, and whose prices are fixed by the Academic Board, or does their quartermaster provide by wholesale and distribute to cadets charging them? Are all cadets marched to mess hall? Do they have regular reveille, tattoo and taps?

Can we not select a dress more becoming, quite as economical, and better adapted to climate than the grey cloth of West Point and Virginia?

It occurs to me that climate will make it almost necessary to make modifications of dress, period of study, drill, and even dates of examinations. This may all be done without in the least impairing that systematic discipline which I suppose it is the purpose to engraft on the usual course of scientific education.

Ascertain if possible, the average annual expense of each cadet - clothing, mess hall, books, paper, etc., lights fire, and washing and tuition.

I will try and ascertain similar elements in Kentucky and elsewhere, so that we may begin with full knowledge of the experience of all others. Should you write me here the letters will be so forwarded as to meet me with as little delay as possible.

SOURCE: Walter L. Fleming, Editor, General W.T. Sherman as College President, p. 37-9

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.

_______________

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

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.

_______________

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

Governor Robert C. Wickliffe to William T. Sherman, August 5, 1859

Executive Office, Baton Rouge, La., Aug. 5,1859.

SIR: I have the pleasure to inform you that at a meeting of the Board of Supervisors of the Seminary of Learning, held at Alexandria on the 1st of August, you were elected to fill the chair of professor of engineering, architecture, drawing, etc., and as superintendent of the institution.

You will please inform me at what time, between this and the first of December, it will be convenient for you to meet a committee of the Board of Supervisors, to make necessary arrangements for the organization of the institution.

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