I have just received
your letter of August twenty-seventh. Since I wrote you, Charley Ewing has gone
down, and must now be with you. I have read all your orders and of course
approve beforehand, as you, on the spot, are the competent judge. Sooner or
later the people South must resume the management of their own affairs, even if
they commit felo-de-se; for the North cannot long afford to keep armies there
for local police. Still as long as you do have the force, and the State none,
you must of necessity control. My own opinion is that self interest will soon
induce the present people of Mississippi to invite and encourage a kind of
emigration that will, like in Maryland and Missouri, change the whole public
opinion. They certainly will not again tempt the resistance of the United
States; nor will they ever reinstate the negro. The only question is when will
the change occur.
I agree with you
that if you see your way ahead in civil life, it is to your permanent interest
to resign; it don't make much difference when. You have all the military fame
you can expect in this epoch. All know your rank and appreciate you, and I
would not submit to the scrambling for position next winter if I were in your
place, unless you have resolved to stay in the army for life.
I shall be delighted
to meet you as you come up. I am now boarding at the Lindell Hotel, but expect
to go to housekeeping in a few days on Garrison Avenue, near Franklin Avenue, a
fine property, presented to me, on the outskirts of the city, where I shall be
delighted to receive you. My office is on Walnut Street, between five and six,
near the Southern Hotel.
SOURCE: New York
(State). Monuments Commission for the Battlefields of Gettysburg and
Chattanooga, In Memoriam: Henry Warner
Slocum, 1826-1894, p. 105-3
