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
