Showing posts with label Thomas Ewing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Thomas Ewing. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 28, 2023

Lieutenant-General William T. Sherman to Senator John Sherman, February 25, 1868

HEADQUARTERS MILITARY DIVISION OF THE MISSOURI,        
ST. LOUIS, MO., Feb. 25, 1868
Dear Brother:

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

I am in possession of all the news up to date, the passage of the impeachment, resolution, etc., but I yet don't know if the nomination of T. Ewing, Senior, was a real thing or meant to compromise a difficulty.

The publication of my short note of January 18th, is nothing to me. I have the original draft which I sent through Grant's hands, with his endorsement back to At the time this note must have been given to the reporter, the President had an elaborate letter from me, in which I discussed the whole case, and advised against the very course he has pursued, but I don't want that letter or any other to be drawn out to complicate a case already bad enough.

You may always safely represent me by saying that I will not make up a final opinion till called on to act, and I want nothing to do with these controversies until the time comes for the actual fight, which I hope to God may be avoided. If the Democratic party intend to fight on this impeachment, which I believe they do not, you may count 200,000 men against you in the South. The negroes are no match for them. On this question, the whites there will be more united than on the old issue of Union and Secession. I do not think the President should be suspended during trial, and if possible, the Republican party should not vote on all side questions as a unit. They should act as judges, and not as partisans. The vote in the House, being a strictly party vote, looks bad, for it augurs a prejudiced jury. Those who adhere closest to the law in this crisis are the best patriots. Whilst the floating politicians here share the excitement at Washington, the people generally manifest little interest in the game going on at Washington. . . .

Affectionately yours,
W. T. SHERMAN.

SOURCE: Rachel Sherman Thorndike, Editor, The Sherman Letters: Correspondence Between General and Senator Sherman from 1837 to 1891, p. 312-3

Monday, May 22, 2023

Senator Henry Clay to James Harlan, March 16, 1850

WASHINGTON, March 16, 1850.

MY DEAR SIR,—I have been very thankful to you for the information you have, from time to time, communicated to me during the session of Congress. While on the other hand you have found me an inattentive correspondent. My apparent neglect proceeded merely from the cause that I had nothing certain or definite to communicate.

The all-engrossing subject of slavery continues to agitate us, and to paralyze almost all legislation. My hopes are strong that the question will ultimately be amicably adjusted, although when or how can not be clearly seen.

My relations to the Executive are civil but cold. We have very little intercourse of any kind. Instead of any disposition to oblige me, I feel that a contrary disposition has been sometimes manifested. In the case of a Marshal for our State, four of the Whig mernbers, of which I was one, united from the first in recommending Mr. Mitchell. Two others of them (making six) informed the Secretary of the Interior that they would be satisfied with Mr. Mitchell; yet Speed was nominated, and his nomination is now before the Senate. It was the act of the President, against the advice of Ewing.

I have never before seen such an Administration. There is very little co-operation or concord between the two ends of the avenue. There is not, I believe, a prominent Whig in either House that has any confidential intercourse with the Executive. Mr. Seward, it is said, had; but his late Abolition speech has, I presume, cut him off from any such intercourse, as it has eradicated the respect of almost all men for him.

I shall continue to act according to my convictions of duty, co-operating where I can with the President, and opposing where I must.

I congratulate you on your appointment as one of the Revisers.

SOURCE: Calvin Colton, Editor, The Private Correspondence of Henry Clay, p. 603-4

Saturday, March 11, 2023

William T. Sherman to Ellen Ewing Sherman, February 16, 1861

SEMINARY (Sunday), Feb. 16, 1861.

. . . I have been busy all day in making up accounts and papers and packing up. I shall leave here on Tuesday and will meet Dr. Smith at New Orleans by Friday and hope to take the cars by Saturday night for St. Louis.

I expect nothing at St. Louis and go there merely to see old acquaintances and friends and to look at that little farm. I will not delay long and will be home before the 4th March. That is I suppose the critical moment. Much now depends on the action of that assemblage in Washington1 of which I am pleased to see your father is a member. Still when opinions so widely vary as they do it is almost impossible to discuss any practicable question.

I went up the Bayou last week to visit the Lucketts, Sanfords, Comptons, Grahams, and Longs. All, however were so full of northern outrages, wrongs, oppressions, etc., that 'twas useless to argue. There seems to be universal regret that I leave and I received [such] unmistakable evidence of kindly regard that I cannot but feel some regret at parting. . .
_______________

1 The Peace Convention. - Ed.

SOURCE: Walter L. Fleming, General W.T. Sherman as College President, p. 364

Thursday, April 7, 2022

William T. Sherman to John Sherman, June 1860

. . . Though Lincoln's opinions on slavery are as radical as those of Seward, yet southern men, if they see a chance of his success, will say they will wait and see. The worst feature of things now is the familiarity with which the subject of a dissolution is talked about. But I cannot believe any one, even Yancey or Davis, would be rash enough to take the first step.

If at Baltimore to-day the convention nominate Douglas with unanimity, I suppose if he gets the vote of the united South he will be elected. But, as I apprehend will be the case, if the seceders again secede to Richmond, and there make a southern nomination, their nomination will weaken Douglas's vote so much that Lincoln may run in. The real race seems to be between Lincoln and Douglas.

Now that Mr. Ewing also is out for Lincoln, and it is strange how closely these things are watched, it is probable I will be even more "suspect” than last year. All the reasoning and truth in the world would not convince a southern man that the Republicans are not abolitionists. It is not safe to stop to discuss the question: they believe it, and there is the end of the controversy.

Of course, I know that reason has very little influence in this world: prejudice governs. You and all who derive power from the people do not look for pure, unalloyed truth, but to that kind of truth which jumps with the prejudice of the day. So southern politicians do the same. If Lincoln be elected, I don't apprehend resistance; and if he be, as Mr. Ewing says, a reasonable, moderate man, things may move on, and the South become gradually reconciled. But you may rest assured that the tone of feeling is such that Civil War and anarchy are very possible. . .

SOURCE: Walter L. Fleming, General W.T. Sherman as College President, p. 232-3

Monday, January 31, 2022

William T. Sherman to George Mason Graham, March 15, 1860

LANCASTER, OHIO, March 15, 1860.
DEAR GENERAL:

At 5 p.m. of Wednesday, I was seated in the car, and soon whirled along Pontchartrain marshes, out into the pine woods and about 4 a.m. was at Canton, Miss. Then transferring to another train we again whirled along through Mississippi and at 8 p.m. Thursday we reached Jackson, Tenn., just three minutes too late for the cars — a failure caused, the conductor stated, by the watch of the other conductor; but my solution was that he wanted us to spend some money at a friend's hotel there. Next morning, Friday, we again started at noon were on board the steamboat which ferries the twenty miles from Columbus, Ky. to Cairo. By comparing the various railroad programmes we found our delay at Jackson, Mississippi would cause us a further delay on the Ohio and Mississippi, but by going round by Indianapolis I found we could save time, so I adopted that route, and reached Cincinnati at 11 a.m. One hour too late — but at 4:40 p.m. I took a freight train and reached home Sunday morning by daylight. So in spite of interruptions I made good time.

I find Mr. Ewing is in Washington and Roelofson has gone to Europe — thus confusing me somewhat – but as I had made up my mind to treat with one Gibson of Cincinnati a man of real wealth and business quality, I went down to Cincinnati on Tuesday, and saw Mr. Gibson. I found him disinclined to assume any personal responsibility and anxious to put me off till Roelofson's return. This I would not do, and put the point to him, clear of all secondary matters, that I would not vacate my place in Louisiana [unless] he, Gibson, would pay me $3,750 cash and secure me the remainder of the $15,000. I could sell the 1/10 share put to me for $5,000, thus making $20,000 for two years' work. Although Gibson was willing to bear his proportion, I am not willing to treat the affair as a corporation and not a partnership, by which each partner is liable personally for all contracts and liabilities. Therefore I notified Gibson that I would return to Louisiana.

Mr. Ewing telegraphs me he will be here to-morrow, Friday, when I will telegraph Governor Moore. My family are all in good health, living comfortably in a house which I hired for them last summer; the lease will not expire till September, and as I have no place fit for them in Louisiana I think I will let them remain here and I will come back myself next week, reaching the Seminary nearly as soon as this letter, provided it be as long on the road as letters usually are.

You may therefore drop the idea of my successor. I will return and will no longer entertain this London proposition — only for Mr. Ewing's sake I want to see him, before I finally speak positively — but as soon as he comes I will so telegraph to Governor Moore and tell him to write you. By leaving here next Monday or Tuesday I will be at the Seminary several days before the close of March, in time to make up all accounts and make the first quarterly report. . . .

SOURCE: Walter L. Fleming, General W.T. Sherman as College President, p. 190-2

Tuesday, July 27, 2021

Diary of Gideon Welles: Tuesday, December 20, 1864

Only three of us at the Cabinet meeting. Speed is attending the Court. The others absent, as usual, without cause, and the course pursued sustains them in this neglect. Seward is at the President's every day when there is no Cabinet-meeting and at a different hour on Cabinet days. As Stanton does not go to the President, the President goes to Stanton. Not unfrequently he hurries at the close to go to the War Department. Fessenden frets because there are no Cabinet consultations and yet stays away himself.

Old Tom Ewing of Ohio was hanging around the door of the Executive Mansion as I went in. I stopped for a moment to exchange civilities. Usher, who followed me, informed the President that the old man was waiting for an interview and thought of leaving, but U. advised him to remain now that he had got there. The President expressed his regret at Usher's advice and, turning to me, said, “You know his object?” I said it was probably Wilkes' case. The President said it was, and, notwithstanding Wilkes had abused both him and me, he was inclined to remit his sentence, looking inquiringly at me as he spoke. I told him that I should not advise it; that at the proper time and in the proper way something might be done, perhaps, without injury, though Wilkes had no claim, and this hiring old Mr. Ewing, who is selling his personal influence, is all bad. Usher took strong and emphatic ground against any favor to Wilkes, who is heartless and insubordinate.

It is a misfortune that the President gives his ear to a class of old party hacks like Ewing and Tom Corwin, men of ability and power in their day, for whom he has high regard but who are paid to come here and persuade the President to do wrong. Ewing would not, of himself, do or advise another to do what he beseeches of the President, except for money. All this the President has the sagacity to see, but hardly the will to resist. I shall not be surprised if he yields, as he intimated he was ready to do before any remark from me.

The Senate and House to-day passed an act in conformity with my recommendation, indorsed by the President, creating the office of Vice-Admiral, to correspond with the army grade of Lieutenant-General.

Mr. Usher relates a conversation he had with General Heintzelman at Steubenville in regard to General McClellan, in which General H. says he has been reading and reviewing the events and incidents of the Peninsular Campaign, and he is fully convinced that McClellan intended to betray the army. General H. tells how he was left and the guard at a bridge over which it was necessary he should pass was withdrawn, without notice to him, although he had sent three times to McClellan for instructions and received none. Other singular and unaccounted-for facts are mentioned.

I have heard these intimations from others who had similar suspicions and convictions, but I have never yet been willing to believe he was a traitor, though men of standing call him such. His conduct was strange and difficult to be reconciled with an intelligent and patriotic discharge of the duties of his position. I long ago, and early indeed, was satisfied his heart was not earnest in the cause. He wanted to be victorious in any conflict as he would in a game of chess. Massachusetts and South Carolina were equally at fault in his estimation, and he so declared to me at Cumberland on the Pamunkey in May, 1862.1 The disasters before Richmond followed soon after, and these were succeeded by his inexcusable conduct and that of his subordinate generals in failing to reinforce and sustain Pope and our army at the Second Battle of Bull Run.

But while I have never had time to review the acts of that period, I still incline to the opinion that his conduct was the result of cool and selfish indifference rather than of treachery and positive guilt. General Heintzelman and others are not only prejudiced against him but positively inimical.

_______________

1 See vol. i, p. 107.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 203-4

Sunday, December 27, 2020

William T. Sherman to George Mason Graham, February 8, 1860

SEMINARY, Feb. 8th, 1860.

DEAR GENERAL: As to-morrow is mail day I will begin now to make up a budget for you; first your letter from Dr. Smith is returned and along with it I send another of later date, more pointed, showing a weakening on the subject of the Seminary. I was sorry to see this, for, as Governor Wickliffe had broken the ice, I thought his friends and Governor Moore's united would settle it without contest. I enclose my answer for your perusal asking you to seal and forward by the succeeding mail. I am now in possession of certain facts that may affect me. You know that a certain commercial company offered me a certain salary to go to London and I was actually in correspondence with them when advised I had been elected to this post. The first overtures came to me at Leavenworth after I wrote my application to the Board of Supervisors.

Upon notice of my election to this I notified those parties that I preferred the certainty and stability of this to their project. Time has passed on. Their preparations are all made, and certain of their European copartners having committed themselves on condition that I should be, in London, the depository of their bonds and securities have renewed their efforts, and on January ninth held a meeting in Cincinnati, during which they agreed to guarantee and secure to me fifteen thousand dollars for two years' service, salary to begin on my acceptance and a certain amount three thousand five hundred dollars, to be subject to my draft now — and furthermore they appointed one Wm. F. R—n to proceed to this place, to confer with me and contract with me on the above basis. R—n writes me under date of January 17 that he starts from Cincinnati the next day for New York — whence he will come to New Orleans and Alexandria, prepared to develop to me the plan and details, to be here between the fifth and tenth of February. I expect him daily.

Mr. Ewing, Mrs. Sherman's father, writes me urgently to go, and even Mrs. Sherman prefers it to coming South with our children. Still I mistrust all financial schemes. Just seven years ago I was similarly situated in New Orleans, commissary U.S. army, when Mr. Lucas and Henry Turner, two as fine gentlemen as ever lived, came and prevailed on me to go to California as banker with prospects more brilliant than those now offered me. I went and without any fault, negligence, or want of ability I was involved by the losses of others; so that I am mistrustful of finance and financiers.

I think if this were a state seminary with the stability of one I would stand by it, but if it is to struggle always[s], dependent on the whims and caprices of boys, unaided, even burdened by the state by an unjust tax (the support of sixteen),1 and as subject to accident as any other private scheme, I would do myself and family an injustice to prefer this to the other – for by the other I am certain of $15,000 for two years - of which I would save a large fraction, whereas here all I would look for would be an honorable position, and pleasant future for my family and children.

Mr. Ewing in urging me to accept this project, did so, on an inference that because John Sherman had made a mistake I might be suspected here, my position weakened, and the cadets rendered thereby insubordinate, and he further advised me to decline to receive any compensation for the past, as my leaving might subject me to the imputation of an unfulfilled contract. I have written him and all my northern friends, that no gentleman here has spoken one unkind or disrespectful word of John Sherman, but on the contrary that I thought John's carelessness in allowing his name to be used for a purpose as foreign to his mind and heart, as of yours, deserved failure. He is young, ambitious, and let him be more circumspect in future.

In like manner, though the boys here last week were insubordinate, that too cannot be attributed to any idea of theirs that they can displace me. Every professor here will bear testimony that the dismissals thus far were absolutely necessary, and has resulted well.

Dr. Smith's letter is the first positive event that has shaken me, and made me seriously think of R—n. I will not say one word more till he come, except, that then I must act accordingly to my convictions. Only I promise to give full time for a successor and to do everything in the premises a gentleman should.

_______________ 

1 Beneficiary cadets. – Ed.

SOURCE: Walter L. Fleming, General W.T. Sherman as College President, p. 152-5

William T. Sherman to Thomas Ewing, February 12, 1860

SEMINARY, Feb. 12, 1860.

DEAR SIR: Roelofson1 arrived yesterday at about 11 a.m. I was on the point of hearing a Spanish recitation, the regular professor being sick. I read your letter of January 14 with great care and told Roelofson I had received other letters and a copy of the resolutions of the informal meeting at Cincinnati, January

As the case at that moment stood I admitted I should prefer his proposition to the terms of my present engagement, but that no consideration could induce me to leave here without the willing concurrence of the gentlemen with whom I have acted. We accordingly started for Alexandria where we found General Graham and five other members of the board in informal session. I placed in their hands all the papers and informed them orally of R's presence. I did not resign. I did nothing, but allowed them to infer the conclusion. I also told General Graham that of course if the present legislature did not act that the Seminary could not maintain its ground.

They passed this informal resolution, a quorum not being present: 

RESOLVED that we deeply regret the prospect of losing the valuable services of Major Sherman as superintendent of the Seminary of Learning.

 

RESOLVED that we deem him eminently qualified as a gentleman and disciplinarian, that we will do everything in our power to retain his services; but in consideration of his private affairs we will yield with regret to his declination but hope it will not be necessary.

 

G. MASON GRAHAM and five others.

I advised General G. some days ago that Roelofson was coming and he immediately wrote to Governor Moore and Dr. Smith, senator from this parish, proposing that they should at once make me a distinct guarantee of a good house and a salary of $5,000, and yesterday they asked me if I would delay any action for ten days. General Graham stated the whole case fairly to Roelofson and after consultation we agreed that I might remain silent and uncommitted for ten days.

The Board seem to attach vast importance to my services. I acted summarily and decisively in several cases last week in which they sustained me, and I keep affairs here so regular and systematic that they seem determined to hold on. My mind is therefore made up that if the state endow the Seminary with twenty-five thousand dollars a year for two years, allow me to build a good house for my family and pay me five thousand dollars a year I will stay. Otherwise I will resign, and give them a reasonable time to replace me, and come north about April 1. I am bound to determine conclusively and finally on the 21st inst. and I will cause Roelofson to be telegraphed from New Orleans of the final conclusion. I left Roelofson last night in Alexandria with this agreement, to which he assented. He said he would be in Cincinnati the eighteenth, when he will write you fully. He seemed pleased at our beautiful Seminary but regarded it as a kind of exile. Either of the schemes now at my choice is good, and I will choose that which has the best future chances and least risks. I can't afford to run any more risks, and have been buffeted about enough.
________________ 

1 Agent of the capitalists who wished Sherman to represent them in England.- ED.

SOURCE: Walter L. Fleming, General W.T. Sherman as College President, p. 160-1

Tuesday, March 3, 2020

Beautiful Scene In Washington, May 2, 1850

Correspondence of the Baltimore Patriot.

WASHINGTON, May 2, 1850

Last night was a glorious night for the lovers of the Union, and hundreds upon hundreds of the ‘lads of the clan’ were congregated together at the hospitable mansion of the Secretary of the Interior, on the occasion of the marriage of his daughter, Ellen B. Ewing to William T. Sherman, of the U. S. Army.  The bride and groom of course were the centre of attraction, and considering their youthfulness, and surrounded by such a numerous assembly of the magnates of the land they acted their parts with ease, simplicity and elegance.  Of the groom, I can only say, having no acquaintance, that fame speaks in the highest terms of him as a young gentleman of high toned honor and spotless integrity.  Of the Metropolitan favorite, the lady-like Ellen, I can speak by the card, and inform you that every quality that constitutes a charming woman, there is not on this broad land her superior.  Affection, pride, show, parade, are all strangers to her, and any one, rich or poor, having an unblemished reputation, is always considered by her, good society.—Her father appears to have taken uncommon pains in her education and in giving a proper direction to every act and thought.

If I wanted to adduce other evidence than that known to the world of the honesty and sterling integrity of Thomas Ewing, aye, even before the Richardson Committee, I would just point them to his daughter, brought up under his own eye as a voucher.  She strongly resembles the Secretary in mind and judgment, but is greatly ahead of him in making friends among the democracy.

The rooms above and below were crowded with ‘belles, and matrons, maids and madams.’  The President was there.  The Vice President was there.  The Cabinet were there.  Judges of the Supreme Court were there.  Senators and members were there.  Sir Henry L. Bulwer, lady and suite, with many of the Diplomatique corps, were there.  Citizens and strangers were there, and

Taylor, Clay, Cass, Benton and others,
Moved along like loving brothers.

The Bride’s cake was a ne plus ultra.—The popping of the champaigne was like the peals of artillery at Buena Vista: and the feast was all the art of Ude could make it, while Mr. and Mrs. Ewing and every member of the family made it [feel] as if they were really at home.

SOURCE:  The Lancaster Gazette, Lancaster, Ohio, Friday Morning, May 10, 1850, p. 2

William Tecumseh Sherman & Ellen Boyle Ewing’s Marriage Announcement, May 3, 1850

MARRIED,

In this city, on the evening of the first of May, by the Rev. James Ryder, President of Georgetown College, WILLIAM T. SHERMAN, U. S. Army, and ELLEN BOYLE EWING, Eldest daughter of the Hon. THOMAS EWING.

SOURCE: The Daily Republic, Washington, D. C., Friday, May 3, 1850, p. 3

Thursday, November 7, 2019

William T. Sherman to Thomas Ewing, January 29, 1860

SEMINARY, Jan. 29, 1860.

DEAR SIR: . . . I perceive no signs of insubordination on the part of the cadets. On the contrary they are well behaved. No person here would think now of suspecting me, though I have made no promises or advances. The governor too, Wickliffe, in his message, congratulates the people of Louisiana in having secured so good a faculty, and the new governor, Moore, has I know expressed himself well pleased at all I have done. I have initiated the Seminary, and its details work as smoothly as an older college, and already bills are introduced into the legislature to appropriate annually the sum of $25,000 which in addition to the fund accruing at interest on the proceeds of sale of U.S. lands will place us in good financial condition. Also, it is proposed to enlarge the number of State cadets to forty-eight, one from each parish, and to establish here a State Arsenal. If these be done or only in part this Seminary must become an important institution. It is furthermore proposed to change our title to the Louisiana Military Academy. The State of Louisiana is comparatively wealthy, and she is abundantly able to do these things handsomely. . . .

SOURCE: Walter L. Fleming, General W.T. Sherman as College President, p. 131

Wednesday, February 6, 2019

William T. Sherman to Thomas Ewing, January 8, 1860

State Seminary, Alexandria, Jan. 8, 1860.

Dear Sir: As you can well understand I am in the midst of busy times, answering letters, making reports, issuing orders, etc., all pertaining to the organization of a new school on a new plan for this part of the world. The weather has been exceedingly boisterous. Snow fell here last week, five inches, but it lay only one day. To-day was like May with you. But the rains and frosts have made the roads bad and have in a measure delayed the coming of our cadets. They have been so used to delay and procrastination that they could not understand the necessity of time.

I took things in hand a la militarism, usurped full authority and began the system ab initio. We now have thirty-two cadets who attend reveille and all roll calls like soldiers, have their meals with absolute regularity and are already hard at work at mathematics, French, and Latin. I am the only West Pointer, but they submit to me with the docility of lambs.

A good many gentlemen have attended their sons and are much pleased with the building and all arrangements. They occasionally drop the sentiment of their gladness that thus they will become independent of the North and such like, but not one man has said one word about John or anything at which I could take exception.

The supervisors seem glad to devolve on me all the burdensome task of details, and are now loud in their determination to besiege the legislature to so endow the Seminary that it shall be above all danger or contingency. The governor sent me word to-day to give him some points for his message, and I have written him at length urging him to get the state, out of her swamp lands, to double our endowment. The present comes from the United States. If Louisiana gives equal we will have an income of $16,200, which would put us above all want. Or if she will simply appropriate to pay for the sixteen cadets which she forces us to educate and support. . .

This however is too good a berth to risk.1 I perceive I have a strong hold there. The South are right in guarding against insidious enemies or against any enemies whatever, and I would aid her in so doing. All I would object to is the laying of plans designed to result in a secession and Civil War. The valley of the Mississippi must be under one government, else war is always the state. If I were to suspect that I were being used for such a deep laid plan I would rebel, but I see daily marks of confidence in me and reliance upon my executing practical designs, and if I were to say that I contemplated leaving I would give great uneasiness to those who have built high hopes. Still if is in earnest and I can hold off till the legislature shows its temper (it meets Monday, the 16th) I will be in better attitude to act.

Here at $3,500 I could save little after bringing my family, but I would have good social position, maybe a good house and, taken all in all, a pleasant home, for such I should make it, designing to keep my children here summer and winter, always. Epidemics never originate here. Sometimes they come up after having sojourned some time below. . .

We must absolutely have help this year or the Seminary cannot pay the salaries stipulated for, nor build houses for the families. I now handle all the moneys and am absolute master of all the business. We have a treasurer twenty miles off, under bond, whereas I, in fact, have in my possession all the moneys, $6,000 nearly, and for its safety they have never asked of me a receipt. I cannot therefore mistake the confidence of the Board. Caution must be my plan now.
_______________

1 Sherman here refers to an offer made to him of a position in London. — Ed.

SOURCE: Walter L. Fleming, General W.T. Sherman as College President, p. 104-6

Monday, July 23, 2018

William T. Sherman to Thomas Ewing, November 27, 1859

Seminary Of Learning, near Alexandria, La., Nov. 27, 1859.

DEAR SIR: . . . Congress granted to Louisiana long ago, some thirty years, certain lands for a Seminary of Learning. These lands have been from time to time sold and the state now holds the money in trust, giving annually the interest sum $8100.

The accrued interest and more too has been expended in an elegant structure, only too good and costly for its purpose and location. The management has after a series of changes devolved on a Board of Supervisors, composed of fourteen gentlemen of whom the governor is ex-officio president and the superintendent of public education a member. These have selected five professors to whom is entrusted the management of the Seminary. The state has imposed the condition of educating sixteen free of charge for rent, tuition, and board. . .

This building is three miles from Alexandria in a neighborhood not at all settled, as the land here is poor and unfit for cultivation, all the alluvial land being on the south side of the Red River. There are therefore no houses here or near for families, and to remedy this an appropriation will also be asked to build two suitable houses for the married professors, Vallas and myself.

Governor Moore, just elected for four years, says that all educational attempts in Louisiana hitherto failed, mostly because religion has crept in and made the schools and colleges sectarian, which does not suit the promiscuous class who live here. He doubts whether at the start the legislature will feel disposed to depart from recent custom of refusing all such applications, but doubts not if we can for a year or two make good showing, and avoid the breakers that have destroyed hitherto endowed colleges, that this will be fostered and patronized to a high degree.
I shall therefore devote my attention to success, before I give my thoughts to personal advantage; and I find too much reliance is placed on me. I have no doubt I can discipline it and maybe control the system of studies to make it a more practical school than any hereabouts. And as parents are wealthy and willing to pay freely it may be we can get along for a time with little legislative aid further than we can claim as a right.

A small balance of the last appropriation still remains which I am now expending on the necessary furniture, and the Board of Supervisors being now in session at Alexandria I expect they will send me to New Orleans to procure the necessary outfit, in which case I will go down the latter part of this week, being absent about ten days. Red River is now low, still boats go and come with considerable regularity.

I met to-day among the Board of Supervisors a remnant of the old congressional times, Jesse A. Bynum, a little dried up old man, who moved to Louisiana from North Carolina, and who has a horror of an abolitionist. I was told he was angry at my election, because he thought all from Ohio were real abolitionists, but to-day he was unusually polite to me, and told me much of his congressional experience. . .

Yours affectionately,
W. T. Sherman.

SOURCES: The article is abstracted in Walter L. Fleming’s, General W.T. Sherman as College President, p. 62-4

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Diary of Major Rutherford B. Hayes: Tuesday Evening, October 29, 1861

This is the anniversary of the Literary Club — the society with which so much of my life is associated. It will be celebrated tonight. The absent will be remembered. I wish I was there. How many who have been members are in the tented field! What a roll for our little club! I have seen these as members: General Pope, now commanding in Missouri; Lieutenant-Colonel Force of the Twentieth, in Kentucky; Major Noyes of the Thirty-ninth, in Missouri; Lieutenant-Colonel Matthews, Twenty-third, in Virginia; Secretary Chase, the power (brain and soul) of the Administration; Governor Corwin, Minister to Mexico; Tom Ewing, Jr., Chief Justice of Kansas; Ewing Sr., the great intellect of Ohio; Nate Lord, colonel of a Vermont or New Hampshire regiment; McDowell, a judge in Kansas; McDowell (J. H.), a senator and major in Kansas; Oliver and Mallon, common pleas judges; Stanton, a representative Ohio House of Representatives; and so on. Well, what good times we have had! Wit, anecdote, song, feast, wine, and good fellowship — gentlemen and scholars. I wonder how it will go off tonight.

Queer world! We fret our little hour, are happy and pass away. Away! Where to? “This longing after immortality! These thoughts that wander through eternity”! I have been and am an unbeliever of all these sacred verities. But will I not take refuge in the faith of my fathers at last? Are we not all impelled to this? The great abyss, the unknown future, — are we not happier if we give ourselves up to some settled faith? Can we feel safe without it? Am I not more and more carried along, drifted, towards surrendering to the best religion the world has yet produced? It seems so. In this business, as I ride through the glorious scenery this loveliest season of the year, my thoughts float away beyond this wretched war and all its belongings. Some, yes many, glorious things, as well as all that is not so, [impress me] ; and [I] think of the closing years on the down-hill side of life, and picture myself a Christian, sincere, humble, devoted, as conscientious in that as I am now in this — not more so. My belief in this war is as deep as any faith can be; — but thitherward I drift. I see it and am glad.

All this I write, thinking of the debates, the conversations, and the happiness of the Literary Club. It has been for almost twelve years an important part of my life. My best friends are among its members — Rogers, Stephenson, Force, James. And how I have enjoyed Strong, McConkey (alas!), Wright, McDowell, Mills, Meline, and all! And thinking of this and those leads me to long for such communion in a perfection not known on earth and to hope that in the future there may be a purer joy forever and ever. And as one wishes, so he drifts. While these enjoyments are present we have little to wish for; as they slip from us, we look forward and hope and then believe with the college theme, “There is more beyond.” And for me to believe is to act and live according to my faith.

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 127-8

Monday, June 9, 2014

Colonel Thomas Kilby Smith to Eliza Walter Smith, March 1, 1863

Headquarters Second Brigade, Second Division,
Fifteenth Army Corps, March 1, 1863.
My Dear Mother:

You speak of my name not appearing in the Commercial; if our official reports were published by that sheet it would appear. I have sent you copies of both reports, of my immediate commanders, of the recent battles. I believe my name is sufficiently conspicuous in both; it is equally conspicuous in the report of General Sherman. Flattery is contemptible to both parties; all but flattery I think my commanders have given me. That my name does not appear in the public prints is simply because I will not resort to the usual means and appliances to place it there. If I was a merchant or an inventor of quack medicines, I would advertise to fill my purse, but I cannot, I do not know how to advertise my honor, and I am almost ashamed to seek for that preferment which I should be accorded without the asking. Even in the seeking, if I know myself, I am unselfish in intent, for I think, nay, know, that I can serve my country better in the position I want to have guaranteed to me — the one I now hold — than as the commanding officer of a regiment literally hacked and hewed to pieces in battle, to say nothing of accident or disease on the long and tiring march, the loathsome transport, the unhealthy camp. There are but few left of the brave hearts that followed me to the field. The graves of their dead are land-marks on eighteen hundred weary miles that their survivors are away — away from homes on the banks of the Miamies and the Sandusky, and the Scioto, and the Muskingum, from the farm and the village, from the workshop and the college, the railroad and the factory, all the way from the Ohio River to the shores of Erie. The whole State of Ohio, emphatically almost every county in it, was represented by my regiment, and such a regiment her borders will never raise again; leal hearts and hardy frames, young, joyous, full of fire and enterprise and patriotism ; and, God help me, how many are gone! Their bones bleach — bleach, that 's the word, for graves were shallow and coffins they had none at “Shiloh” — their graves dot Tennessee from Corinth to Memphis. Unshrouded and unanealed their ghastly corpses gibber in the moonlight on the banks of the Yazoo ; and at Arkansas Post the rude head boards tell where the dead braves of the “54th” rest. A handful are left — less than three hundred all told.

In respect to General Sherman and the press, I have written at some length in a former letter that you doubtless have before this received. Not the press, but the infernal scoundrels who prostitute it by making it a medium for their base designs upon individuals, the public, and the nation, does he propose not only to muzzle but destroy. General Sherman will live in history, and in the hearts of his countrymen when these wretched myrmidons shall have passed to infamy and eternal death. The reaction in his favor is sure to come. No man ever lived who, possessing his talents and energy, and purity of life and heart and purposes, failed to make his mark upon the times; and as sure as he now lives, he will illustrate his position, and cause his name to shine brightly on the page of history. His father-in-law, Mr. Ewing, quoted from Macaulay, and applied most appositely to him the sentence “fierce denunciation and high panegyric make up what men call glory”; both the former has General Sherman had in no stinted measure, but his true glory is in his native excellence; his full power has not yet been shown. O, Mother! if you had seen that man as I have seen him, if you could have sat by his side as I have sat, amid death and destruction, when the fate of a nation seemed to hang and . . . in my opinion did then hang on his word; had you watched him as I watched, and noted him exalted above materiality, towering above and beyond the sense of pain and fear of death ; had you scanned his eagle eye flashing and blazing with the fire of intellect, and in its comprehensive glance taking in and weighing the fate of thousands; had you known him as I knew him, win a great, a glorious battle, great as Waterloo, and which ought to have been decisive, and that would, within twenty-four hours of its close, have been decisive of the fate of the Republic had he been alone in command, you would spurn the lucubrations of the miserable drivellers, who like mousing owls are hawking at the eagle towering in his pride of place, as utterly unworthy a second thought. Have you ever known me deceived in my judgment of men so far as intellect is concerned? Where to-day are the friends and companions of my early youth and young manhood? Some are dead, but the good was not interred with their bones; they still live. One (you well know whom I mean) has made his opinions in the jurisprudence of Ohio classical; his faults, his vices, if you please, are forgotten; his graces, the strength of his glorious intellect, still illumines. Sherman is greater than he, and oh! far better, and trust me, when lesser lights go out or feebly glimmer in obscurity, his will shine out a bright particular star in the political firmament, a guiding star to those who come after him. If I could only approach him in example, you would have a son to be proud of. To me it is a matter of great pride that I have had the inestimable privilege of almost intimate association with him for a year past, by day and by night, in the peril of the field and the pleasures of the social board. I have never heard him utter a word that would bring the blush to the cheek of maiden purity. I have never known him insult his God; he is invariable in his just respect for the rights of others, and though he rarely smiles, though to the vast responsibilities with which he has been clothed, all the amenities of life with him have been sacrificed; still, with a cheering amiability of heart, he has been foremost in strewing the few flowers that give fragrance to the thorny pathway of the soldier.

As respects Vicksburg, I cannot, ought not, to write you much — time alone can tell what will be the result of our enterprise. All that men can do will be performed; the rest is with the God of battles, who holds in His hands the fate of nations. I send a little sketch which may serve to give you some faint idea of the topography of the country. By the bye, I have learned that the name “Yazoo,” in the Indian tongue, signifies death — “Yazoo River,” the river of death — and truly its waters are most abominable, dealing death to almost all who drank freely of them, while its stream ran red with the blood of those slain on its banks. You will note its course, the position of the bayous, and where our troops fought. The celebrated “Haines Bluff” and our present position toward Vicksburg.

I have written to you that I enjoyed a soldier's life, and indeed I do notwithstanding its privations and discomforts, and in this, that it is a life of excitement and free from the care that has heretofore been my portion. With you I mourn that I did not enter the military academy when I had the opportunity, and fit myself while young for a brilliant military career, for I feel that it might have been made brilliant. Youth wasted! well, why look back? That “might have been” weighs often upon me like an incubus. If I could only keep fresh my youthful feelings.

Colonel Spooner has probably been detained in his own State partly by family bereavement and partly by business. I shall hope he will be able to see you all before he returns. He is in my command, and can tell you a great deal about me. I am glad you were pleased with Major Fisher; he is a favorite of mine and I have always kept him near my person. He is possessed of a fine and cultivated mind, is amiable in character, but cool and brave in action. Was educated in his profession, of which he is a master, by General Rosecrans, and was promoted to his majority for his gallantry at Carnifex Ferry in Virginia, and assigned to my regiment. In case I am promoted, I design he shall command it. He met with a great affliction in the loss of his wife, a most lovely girl, and her child, within a year of his marriage, and his life has been clouded and embittered in consequence. I believe he is most sincerely attached to me, indeed I have been fortunate in making many friends in the service, and I doubt not an equal number of enemies.

SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 274-8

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Major General William T. Sherman to Ellen Ewing Sherman, May 10, 1865

CAMP OPPOSITE RICHMOND, May 10, 1865.

I wrote you on arrival from Savannah at Old Point. I got here yesterday and found my Army all in. Have seen Charley,1 who is very well. We march tomorrow for Alexandria, whither I have sent my office papers. We will march slowly and leisurely and should reach Alexandria in ten or twelve days. I may have chance to write you meantime. I want you to go and attend your Fair, and say little of me, save that I regard my presence with my Army so important that I will not leave it till it is discharged or sent on new duties. I shall surely spend the summer with you, preferably at Lancaster, but will come to Chicago or wherever you may be when I can leave with propriety. This Army has stood by me in public and private dangers, and I must maintain my hold on it till it ceases to exist. All the officers and men have been to see me in camp to-day and they received with shouts my public denial of a review for Halleck.2  He had ordered Slocum's wing to pass him in review to-day. I forbade it. Tomorrow I march through Richmond with colors flying and drums beating as a matter of right and not by Halleck's favor, and no notice will be taken of him personally or officially. I dare him to oppose my march. He will think twice before he again undertakes to stand between me and my subordinates. Unless Grant interposes from his yielding and good nature I shall get some equally good opportunity to insult Stanton. . . .

Stanton wants to kill me because I do not favor the scheme of declaring the negroes of the South, now free, to be loyal voters, whereby politicians may manufacture just so much more pliable electioneering material. The Negroes don't want to vote. They want to work and enjoy property, and they are no friends of the Negro who seek to complicate him with new prejudices. As to the people of the South they are subjugated, but of course do not love us any more than the Irish or Scotch love the English, but that is no reason why we should assume all the expenses of their state governments. Our power is now so firmly established that we need not fear again their internal disturbances. I have papers and statistics which I will show your father in time. I showed some to Charley to-day and he perfectly agreed with me; so do all my officers. . . .

We cannot kill disarmed men. All this clamor after Jeff Davis, Thompson and others is all bosh. Any young man with a musket is now a more dangerous object than Jeff Davis. He is old, infirm, a fugitive hunted by his own people, and none so poor as do him reverence. It will be well in June before I can expect to leave my army. Don't attempt to come to Alexandria for I will be in a common tent, and overwhelmed with papers and business. Ord, Merritt, Crook, and all the big men of Halleck's army have been to see me, and share with me the disgust occasioned by their base betrayal of my confidence. . . .
__________

1 General Charles Ewing.

2 See Memoirs, II, 374. Sherman's refusal to accept Halleck's hospitality in Richmond is recorded on the same page

SOURCES: M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Editor, Home Letters of General Sherman, p. 352-4.  A full copy of this letter can be found in the William T Sherman Family papers (SHR), University of Notre Dame Archives (UNDA), Notre Dame, IN 46556, Folder CSHR 2/24

Saturday, December 28, 2013

Major General William T. Sherman to Ellen Ewing Sherman, April 22, 1865

RALEIGH, N. C., April 22, 1865.

I wrote you a hasty letter by Major Hitchcock and promised to write more at length as soon as matters settled away somewhat. I am now living in the Palace1 and the Army lies around about the city on beautiful rolling hills of clear ground with plenty of water, and a budding spring. We await a reply from Washington which finishes all the war by one process or forces us to push the fragments of the Confederate Army to the wall.

Hitchcock should be back the day after to-morrow and then I will know. I can start in pursuit of Johnston — who is about Greensboro, on short notice; but I would prefer not to follow him back to Georgia. A pursuing army cannot travel as fast as a fleeing one in its own country. Your letters have come to me in driblets and mine will miss you, as all from Goldsboro were directed to South Bend.

I also sent you then the Columbia flag and a Revolutionary seal for your fair. I have the circulars and have sent them out to parties to collect trophies for you, but it is embarrasing for me to engage in the business, as trophies of all lands belong to Government, and I ought not to be privy to their conversion. Others do it, I know, but it shows the rapid decline in honesty of our people. Pillow, in the Mexican War, tried to send home as trophies a brass gun and other things such as swords and lances, and it was paraded all over the land as evidence of his dishonesty. . . .

The present armies should all be mustered out and the Regular Army increased to 100,000 men and these would suffice to maintain and enforce order at the South. There is great danger of the Confederate armies breaking up into guerillas, and that is what I most fear. Such men as Wade Hampton, Forrest, Wirt Adams, etc., never will work and nothing is left for them but death or highway robbery. They will not work and their negroes are all gone, their plantations destroyed, etc. I will be glad if I can open a way for them abroad. Davis, Breckenridge, etc., will go abroad or get killed in pursuit. My terms do not embrace them but apply solely to the Confederate armies. All not in regular muster rolls will be outlaws. The people of Raleigh are quiet and submissive enough, and also the North Carolinians are subjugated, but the young men, after they get over the effects of recent disasters and wake up to the realization that nothing is left them but to work, will be sure to stir up trouble, but I hope we can soon fix them off. Raleigh is a very old city with a large stone Capitol and governor's mansion called the Palace, now occupied by me and staff. They are distant about half a mile apart with a street connecting, somewhat in the nature of Washington. This street is the business street and some very handsome houses and gardens make up the town. It is full of fine people who were secesh but now are willing to encourage the visits of handsome young men. I find here the family of Mr. Badger who was with your father in Taylor's Cabinet.2 He is paralyzed so as to be hardly able to walk and sits all day. He has his mind and is glad to have visitors. I have called twice. Though a moderate man he voted to go out and actually drafted one of the resolutions of Secession. His wife must be much younger than he and is a lively, interesting lady, chuck full of Washington. She was dying for some news, and Harper's Magazine. I could tell you much that might interest you, but will now merely say that if Mr. Johnson will ratify the terms I will leave Schofield here to complete the business, will start five corps for the Potomac, to march, and in person will go to Charleston and Savannah to give some necessary orders, and then go to the Potomac to receive the troops as they arrive. I may bring you and the children there to see the last final Grand Review of my Army before disbanding it. That is the dream and is possible. It will take all May to march and June to muster out and pay so that the 4th of July may witness a perfect peace. My new sphere will I suppose be down the Mississippi. How would Memphis suit you as a home? The Mississippi valley is my hobby, and if I remain in the Army there is the place Grant will put me; Memphis or Nashville. But I am counting the chickens before they are hatched and must wait to see this thing out. When the war ends our labors begin, for we must organize the permanent army for the future. . . .
__________

1 Sherman occupied the Governor's mansion at Raleigh.

2 Thomas Ewing was a member both of Harrison's and of Taylor's Cabinet. It was in Harrison's Cabinet that George E. Badger was at the same time Secretary of the Navy.

SOURCES: M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Editor, Home Letters of General Sherman, p. 345-8.  A full copy of this letter can be found in the William T Sherman Family papers (SHR), University of Notre Dame Archives (UNDA), Notre Dame, IN 46556, Folder CSHR 2/23 

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Major General William T. Sherman to Thomas Ewing, March 31, 1865

IN THE FIELD, GOLDSBORO, N. C.,
March 31, 1865.

. . . I have already been to see General Grant and am back before the enemy or newspaper spies revealed it. I have a clear view of another step in the game, and think I am on the right road. It does seem to me that one or two more such chasms in our enemy's ranks and resources will leave him gasping and begging for quarter. It is perfectly impossible for me in case of failure to divest myself of responsibility as all from the President, Secretary of War, General Grant, etc., seem to vie with each other in contributing to my success.

You need not fear my committing a political mistake, for I am fully conscious of the fact that I would imperil all by any concessions in that direction. I have and shall continue to repel all advances made me of such a kind.

I would like to see my family occasionally, but it seems impossible. It is manifest I am in the rapids and must go on till the cataract is passed and the boat in smooth water.

SOURCE: M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Editor, Home Letters of General Sherman, p. 337-8

Thursday, December 19, 2013

Major General William T. Sherman to Ellen Ewing Sherman, January 5, 1865

SAVANNAH, January 5, 1865

I have written several times to you and to the children. Yesterday I got your letter of December 23, and realize the despair and anguish through which you have passed in the pain and sickness of the little baby I never saw. All spoke of him as so bright and fair that I had hoped he would be spared to us to fill the great void in our hearts left by Willy, but it is otherwise decreed and we must submit. I have seen death in such quantity and in such forms that it no longer startles me, but with you it is different, and 'tis well that like the Spaniards you realize the fact that our little baby has passed from the troubles of life to a better existence. I sent Charley off a few days ago to carry to General Grant and to Washington some important despatches, but told him he must not go farther than Washington as by the time he returns I will be off again on another raid. It is pretty hard on me that I am compelled to make these blows which are necessarily trying to me, but it seems devolved on me and cannot be avoided. If the honors proffered and tendered me from all quarters are of any value they will accrue to you and the children. John writes that I am in everybody's mouth and that even he is known as my brother, and that all the Shermans are now feted as relatives of me. Surely you and the children will not be overlooked by those who profess to honor me. I do think that in the several grand epochs of this war, my name will have a prominent part, and not least among them will be the determination I took at Atlanta to destroy that place, and march on this city, whilst Thomas, my lieutenant, should dispose of Hood. The idea, the execution and strategy are all good, and will in time be understood. I don't know that you comprehend the magnitude of the thing, but you can see the importance attached to it in England where the critics stand ready to turn against any American general who makes a mistake or fails in its execution. In my case they had time to commit themselves to the conclusion that if I succeeded I would be a great general, but if I failed I would be set down a fool. My success is already assured, so that I will be found to sustain the title. I am told that were I to go north I would be feted and petted, but as I have no intention of going, you must sustain the honors of the family. I know exactly what amount of merit attaches to my own conduct, and what will survive the clamor of time. The quiet preparation I made before the Atlanta Campaign, the rapid movement on Resaca, the crossing the Chattahoochee without loss in the face of a skilful general with a good army, the movement on Jonesboro, whereby Atlanta fell, and the resolution I made to divide my army, with one part to take Savannah and the other to meet Hood in Tennessee, are all clearly mine, and will survive us both in history. I don't know that you can understand the merit of the latter, but it will stamp me in years to come, and will be more appreciated in Europe than in America. I warrant your father will find parallel in the history of the Greeks and Persians, but none on our continent. For his sake I am glad of the success that has attended me, and I know he will feel more pride in my success than you or I do. Oh that Willy were living! how his eyes would brighten and his bosom swell with honest pride if he could hear and understand these things. . . .

You will doubtless read all the details of our march and stay in Savannah in the papers, whose spies infest our camps, spite of all I can do, but I could tell you thousands of little incidents which would more interest you. The women here are, as at Memphis, disposed to usurp my time more from curiosity than business. They had been told of my burning and killing until they expected the veriest monster, but their eyes were opened when Hardee, G. W. Smith and McLaws, the three chief officers of the Rebel army, fled across the Savannah river consigning their families to my special care. There are some very elegant people here, whom I knew in better days and who do not seem ashamed to call on the “vandal chief.” They regard us just as the Romans did the Goths and the parallel is not unjust. Many of my stalwart men with red beards and huge frames look like giants, and it is wonderful how smoothly all things move, for they all seem to feel implicit faith in me not because I am strong or bold, but because they think I know everything. It seems impossible for us to go anywhere without being where I have been before. My former life from 1840 to 1846 seems providential and every bit of knowledge then acquired is returned, tenfold. Should it so happen that I should approach Charleston on that very ground where I used to hunt with Jim Poyas, and Mr. Quash, and ride by moonlight to save daytime, it would be even more strange than here where I was only a visitor. Col. Kilburn arrived here from Louisville yesterday, and begged me to remember him to you. I continue to receive letters, most flattering, from all my old friends and enclose you two, one from General Hitchcock and one from Professor Mahan. Such men do not flatter and are judges of what they write. . . .

SOURCES: M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Editor, Home Letters of General Sherman, p. 324-7.  A full copy of this letter can be found in the William T Sherman Family papers (SHR), University of Notre Dame Archives (UNDA), Notre Dame, IN 46556, Folder CSHR 2/20

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Major General William T. Sherman to Thomas Ewing, December 31, 1864

SAVANNAH, Geo., December 31, 1864.

I have received yours of the 18th, and by Christmas day you must have heard that my army had possession of Savannah and all its Forts which have heretofore defied the Navy and the expeditions hitherto sent against it. I ought to have caught its garrison but the swampy ground prevented my reaching the Causeway on the South Carolina shore, but if Hardee had given me two more days I would have closed that also. As it was, however, only his men escaped, and with Savannah I got all the guns, stores and gun-boats which made it formidable. Of course I feel a just pride in the satisfaction you express, and would rather please and gratify you than all the world beside. I know full well that I enjoy the unlimited confidence of the President and Commander in Chief, and better still of my own army. They will march to certain death if I order it, because they know and feel that night and day I labor to the end that not a life shall be lost in vain. I always ignore secondary objects and strike at principals with a foreknowledge that the former follow the latter, nor are my combinations extra hazardous or bold. Every movement I have made in this war has been based on sound military principle, and the result proves the assertion. At Atlanta I was not to be decoyed from the fruits of my summer's work, by Hood's chasséeing to the left, but I sent my oldest lieutenant in whom I had confidence (Thomas) to Tennessee, and give him a liberal part of my veterans and all my recruits, which I knew would enable him to cope with Hood defensively, as also hold the vital parts of former conquests: there again has my judgment been verified by events. Nor was I rash in cutting loose from a base and relying on the country for forage and provisions. I had wagons enough loaded with essentials, and beef cattle enough to feed on for more than a month, and had the Census statistics showing the produce of every county through which I designed to pass. No military expedition was ever based on sounder or surer data.

Besides, my Army has by time and attention acquired too much personal experience and adhesion to disintegrate by foraging or its incident disorganizing tendency. I have just reviewed my four Corps and challenge competition for soldierly bearing and behavior. No city was ever occupied with less disorder or more system than this of Savannah, and it is a subject of universal comment that though an army of 60,000 men lay camped around it, women and children of an hostile people walk its streets with as much security as they do in Philadelphia. I attach much importance to these little matters, as it is all important our armies should not be tainted by that spirit of anarchy that threatened the stability of our government, but on the contrary that when war does end we may safely rest the fabric of government if necessary on the strong and safe base of a well disciplined army of citizens. . . .

SOURCES: M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Editor, Home Letters of General Sherman, p. 320-2