Pittsburg Landing,
Tenn.
Camp. April
3, 1862.
Dearest Ellen,
I have really neglected writing for some days. I don’t know why, but I daily become more and
more disposed to stop writing. There is
so much writing that I am sick & tired of it & put it off on Hammond
who is sick cross and troublesome. I
have plenty of aids but the writing part is not very full. I have been pretty busy, in examining Roads
& Rivers. We have now near 60,000
men here, and Bragg has command at Corinth only 18 miles off, with 80 Regiments
and more coming. On our Part McCook,
Thomas & Nelsons Divisions are coming from Nashville and are expected about
Monday, this is Thursday when I Suppose we must advance to attack Corinth or
some other point on the Memphis & Charleston Road. The weather is now springlike, apples &
peaches in blossom and trees beginning to leave. Bluebirds singing and spring weather upon the
hillsides. This part of the Tennessee
differs somewhat from that up at Bellefonte.
There the Alleghany Mountains still characterized the Country whereas
here the hills are lower & rounded covered with oak, hickory & dogwood,
not unlike the Hills down Hocking. The
people have mostly fled, abandoning their houses, and Such as remain are of a
neutral tint not Knowing which side will turn up victors. That enthusiastic love of the Union of which
you read in the newspapers as a form of expression easily written, but is not
true. The poor farmers certainly do want
peace, & protection, but all the wealthier classes hate us Yankees with a
pure unadulterated hate. They fear the
Gunboats which throw heavy shells and are invulnerable to their rifles &
shotguns, and await our coming back from the River.
I have been troubles some days by a Slight diarrhea but am
well enough for work. My Division is
very raw and needs much instruction.
Brigade commanders are McDowell, Stuart, Hildebrand & Buckland. Genl. Grant commands in chief, and we have a
host of other Generals, so that I am content to be in a mixed crowd.
I don’t pretend to look ahead far and do not wish to guide
events. They are too momentous to be a
subject of personal ambition.
We are constantly in the presence of the enemys pickets, but
I am satisfied that they will await our coming at Corinth or some point of the
Charleston Road. If we don’t get away
soon the leaves will be out and the whole country an ambush.
Our letters come very irregularly I have nothing from you
for more than a week but I know you are well and happy at home and that is a
great source of consolation. My love to
all
Yrs. ever
W. T. Sherman
SOURCES: William Tecumseh Sherman
Family Papers, Archives of the University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame,
Indiana, Box 1, Folder 144, image #’s 03-0046 & 03-0047; M.
A. DeWolfe Howe, Editor, Home Letters of General Sherman, p.
219-20; Brooks D. Simpson, Jean V. Berlin, Editors, Sherman's Civil
War: Selected Correspondence of William T. Sherman, 1860-1865, p.
170-1;
