Alexandria, La., Sunday, Nov. 12 [1859].
I wrote you a hasty letter yesterday whilst the stage was
waiting. General Graham and others have been with me every moment so that I was
unable to steal a moment's time to write you. I left the wharf boat at the
mouth of Red River, a dirty, poor concern where I laid over one day, the stage
only coming up tri-weekly, and at nine o'clock at night started with an
overcrowded stage, nine in and two out with driver, four good horses, Troy
coach, road dead level and very dusty, lying along the banks of bayous which
cut up the country like a net work. Along these bayous lie the plantations rich
in sugar and cotton such as you remember along the Mississippi at Baton Rouge.
We rode all night, a fine moonlight, and before breakfast at
a plantation we were hailed by Judge Boyce who rode with us the rest of the
journey. His plantation is twenty-five miles further up, but he has lived here
since 1826 and knows everybody. He insisted on my stopping with him at the
plantation of Mr. Moore, who is just elected governor of Louisiana for the
coming four years, and who in that capacity will be President of the Board of
Supervisors, who control the Seminary of Learning, and whose friendship and
confidence it is important I should secure. He sent us into town in his own
carriage. Alexandria isn't much of a town, and the tavern where I am, Mrs.
Fellow's, a common rate concern, as all southern taverns out of large cities
are. Still I have a good room opening into the parlor.
General Graham came in from his plantation nine miles west
of this, and has been with me ever since. At this moment he is at church, the
Episcopal. He will go out home tonight and to-morrow I go likewise, when we are
to have a formal meeting to arrange some rules and regulations, also agree on
the system of study. He is the person who has from the start carried on the
business. He was at West Point, but did not graduate, but he has an unlimited
admiration of the system of discipline and study. He is about fifty-five years,
rather small, exceedingly particular and methodical, and altogether different from
his brother, the general.1
 |
| LOUISIANA STATE SEMINARY IN 1860 Sherman's office was the room to the left of the entrance. |
The building is a gorgeous palace, altogether too good for
its purpose, stands on a high hill three miles north of this. It has four
hundred acres of poor soil, but fine pine and oak trees, a single large
building. Like most bodies they have spent all their money on the naked
building, trusting to the legislature for further means to provide furniture,
etc. All this is to be done, and they agree to put me in charge at once, and
enable me to provide before January 1 the tables, desks, chairs, blackboards,
etc., the best I can in time for January 1, and as this is a mere village I
must procure all things from New Orleans, and may have to go down early next
month. But for the present I shall go to General Graham's tomorrow, be there
some days, return here and then remove to the college, where I will establish
myself and direct in person the construction of such things as may be made there.
There is no family near enough for me to board, so I will
get the cook who provides for the carpenters to give me my meals.
It is the design to erect two buildings for the professors,
but I doubt whether the legislature will give any more, $135,000 having already
been expended. The institution, styled by law the Seminary of Learning, has an
annual endowment of $8,100, but it is necessary for the legislature to
appropriate this annually, and as they do not meet till the third Monday in
January, I don't see how we can get any money before hand. I think when the
appropriation is made, however, my salary will be allowed from November 1.
When I first got here it was hot, but yesterday it changed,
and it is now very cold. I have a fire here, but several windows are broken,
and the room is as cold as a barn, and the lazy negroes have to be driven to
bring in wood.
I expect plenty of trouble from this source, the high wages
of servants and the necessity to push them all the time to do anything. I would
hire whites, but suppose it would be advisable and good policy to submit to the
blacks for the present.
On arrival here I found your and Minnie's2
letters, seven days in coming, which is better time than I expected. Mails come
here tri-weekly by stage by the route I came. . .
_______________
1 General R. B. Mason, Sherman's commanding
officer in California. — Ed.
2 Sherman’s eldest daughter.
SOURCE: Walter L. Fleming, Editor, General W.T.
Sherman as College President, p. 47-52
