HEADQUARTERS FIFTH
DIVISION,
MEMPHIS, TENN., August 11, 1862.
Hon. S. P. CHASE, Secretary of the Treasury.
SIR: Your letter of August 2d, just received, invites my discussion
of the cotton question.
I will write plainly and slowly, because I know you have no
time to listen to trifles. This is no trifle; when one nation is at war with
another, all the people of the one are enemies of the other; then the rules are
plain and easy of understanding. Most unfortunately, the war in which we
are now engaged has been complicated with the belief on the one hand that all
on the other are not enemies. It
would have been better if, at the outset this mistake had not been made, and it
is wrong longer to be misled by it. The Government of the United States may now
safely proceed on the proper rule that all in the South are enemies of all in
the North; and not only are they unfriendly, but all who can procure arms now
bear them as organized regiments or as guerrillas. There is not a garrison in
Tennessee where a man can go beyond the sight of the flagstaff without being
shot or captured. It so happened that these people had cotton, and, whenever
they apprehended our large armies would move, they destroyed the cotton in the
belief that, of course, we would seize it and convert it to our use. They did
not and could not dream that we would pay money for it. It had been condemned
to destruction by their own acknowledged government, and was therefore lost to
their people; and could have been, without injustice, taken by us and sent away,
either as absolute prize of war or for future compensation. But the commercial
enterprise of the Jews soon discovered that ten cents would buy a pound of
cotton behind our army, that four cents would take it to Boston, where they
could receive thirty cents in gold. The bait was too tempting, and it spread
like fire when here they discovered that salt, bacon, powder, firearms,
percussion caps, etc., were worth as much as gold; and, strange to say, this
traffic was not only permitted but encouraged. Before we in the interior could
know it hundreds, yea thousands, of barrels of salt and millions of dollars had
been disbursed, and I have no doubt that Bragg's army at Tupelo, and Van Dom’s
at Vicksburg, received enough salt to make bacon, without which they could not
have moved their armies in mass, and from ten to twenty thousand fresh arms and
a due supply of cartridges have also been got, I am equally satisfied. As soon
as got to Memphis, having seen the effect in the interior, I ordered (only as to
my command) that gold, silver, and Treasury notes were contraband of war, and
should not go into the interior, where all were hostile. It is idle to talk
about Union men here: many want peace, and fear war and its results, but all
prefer a Southern, independent government, and are fighting or working for it.
Every gold dollar that was spent for cotton was sent to the seaboard to be
exchanged for banknotes and Confederate scrip, which will buy goods here and
are taken in ordinary transactions. I therefore required cotton to be paid for
in such notes, by an obligation to pay at the end of the war, or by a deposit
of the price in the hands of a trustee—viz., the United States quartermaster.
Under these rules cotton is being obtained about as fast as by any other
process, and yet the enemy receives no “aid or comfort.” Under the “gold” rule
the country people who had concealed their cotton from the burners, and who
openly scorned our greenbacks, were willing enough to take Tennessee money,
which will buy their groceries; but now that trade is to be encouraged and gold
paid out, I admit that cotton will be sent in by our own open enemies, who can
make better use of gold than they can of their hidden bales of cotton.
I may not appreciate the foreign aspect of the question, but
my views on this may be ventured. If England ever threatens war because we
don't furnish her cotton, tell her plainly if she can't employ and feed her own
people to send them here, where they can not only earn an honest living, but
soon secure independence by moderate labor. We are not bound to furnish her
cotton. She has more reason to fight the South for burning that cotton than us
for not shipping it. To aid the South on this ground would be hypocrisy which
the world would detect at once. Let her make her ultimatum, and there are
enough generous minds in Europe that will counteract in the balance. Of course
her motive is to cripple a power that rivals her in commerce and manufactures
that threaten even to usurp her history. In twenty more years of prosperity it
will require a close calculation to determine whether England, her laws and
history, claim for a home the continent of America or the isle of Britain.
Therefore, finding us in a death struggle for existence, she seems to seek a
quarrel to destroy both parts in detail.
Southern people know this full well, and will only accept
the alliance of England in order to get arms and manufactures in exchange for their
cotton. The Southern Confederacy will accept no other mediation, because she
knows full well that in old England her slaves and slavery will receive no more
encouragement than in New England.
France certainly does not need our cotton enough to
disturb her equilibrium, and her mediation would be entitled to a more
respectful consideration than on the part of her present ally. But I feel
assured the French will not encourage rebellion and secession anywhere as a
political doctrine. Certainly all the German states must be our ardent friends,
and, in case of European intervention, they could not be kept down.
With great
respect, your obedient servant,
W. T. SHERMAN, Major-General.
SOURCES: William T. Sherman, Memoirs of General William T. Sherman, by Himself, Volume 1, p. 266-8; Manning F. Force, General
Sherman, 92-4.
