LANCASTER, OHIO, Dec.
29, 1863.
My Dear Brother:
. . . I hear you have gone on to New
York, and therefore I must go off without seeing you. I have been off the line
of communication since leaving Memphis, save a few hours at Bridgeport, during
which I had hardly time to put my official signature to papers demanding my
hand. I have made a report of our movements up to the return to Bridgeport and
enclose it with this, a copy which I brought here, and which you may keep,
only, of course, under the confidence of absolute secrecy until the War
Department thinks proper to make the original public. . . .
I suppose you will read this report, and I invite attention
to the part referring to the assault on Tunnel Hill. I know that Grant in his
report will dwell on this same part. I was provoked that Meigs, looking at us
from Chattanooga, should report me repulsed, and that Mr. Stanton should
publish his letter as semi-official. Meigs apologized to me for using Thomas's
name instead of mine throughout, which he charged to a copyist, but made no
amends for the repulse. The whole philosophy of the battle was that I should
get, by a dash, a position on the extremity of the Missionary Ridge, from which
the enemy would be forced to drive me, or allow his depot at Chickamauga
station to be in danger. I expected Bragg to attack me at daylight, but he did
not, and to bring matters to a crisis quickly, as time was precious, for the
sake of Burnside in East Tennessee, Grant ordered me to assume the offensive.
My report contains the rest. Again, after the battle, Granger was ordered to
push for Knoxville, but his movements were so slow that Grant, impatient,
called on me, and my move was the most rapid of the war and perfectly
successful. I could have gone on after Longstreet, but Burnside ranked me, and
it was his business, not mine. So I reinforced him all he asked, and returned.
The Fifteenth Corps, now Logan's, and Dodge's division of
the Sixteenth Corps are now at work on the railroad from Nashville to Decatur,
and from Decatur to Stevenson, thus making a triangle of railroad which it is
estimated will relieve the great difficulty of supplies which has paralyzed the
Army of the Cumberland. This will take five weeks. I leave my headquarters at
Huntsville, and go in person down the Mississippi to strike some lateral blows,
to punish the country for allowing guerillas to attack the boats. I go on
Friday to Cincinnati, and thence to Cairo, where with Admiral Porter I will
concert measures to produce the result. I expect to send one expedition up the
Yazoo, and go myself with another up Red River, levying contributions to make
good losses to boats, and punish for deaths and wounds inflicted. I think we
can make people feel that they must actually prevent guerillas from carrying
out their threats that though we have the river, it will do us no good. My
address will be Memphis, for a month, and Huntsville after. We can hardly
fashion out the next campaign, but it looks as though we should have to move
from the Tennessee River. I should prefer to take Mobile and the Alabama as
well as the Chattahoochee, and move east from Montgomery and Columbus, Miss.
I wish you would introduce a bill in Congress increasing the
number of cadets on this basis — one from each congressional district per
annum. In districts not represented, vest the appointments in the Secretary of
War out of boys not over eighteen in the armies in the field, to be selected in
any manner that may be prescribed by law, or by the regulation of the President.
This would hold out to young fellows the prospect of getting a cadetship. Last
summer we were called on to recommend candidates, and I was amazed to find so
many worthy applicants. All who came forward for examination preferred West
Point to a commission. The great want of the army is good subordinate officers.
The army is a good school, but West Point is better. It is useless to deny that
a special preliminary education is necessary to the military officers, and the
cheapest school is now at West Point and is susceptible of infinite increase. .
. .
I think the President's proclamation unwise. Knowing the
temper of the South, I know that it but protracts the war by seeming to court
peace. It to them looks like weakness. I tell them that as they cool off, we
warm to the work. That we are just getting ready for the war, and I know the
effect is better than to coax them to come back into the Union. The
organization of a Civil Government but complicates the game. All the Southern
States will need a pure military Government for years after resistance has
ceased. You have noticed the debate in Richmond, on the President's
proclamation. That is a true exhibit of the feeling South. Don't fall into the
error that the masses think differently. Of course property-holding classes
South deplore the devastation that marks the progress of their own and our
armies, but the South is no longer consulted. The Army of the Confederacy is
the South, and they still hope to worry us out. The moment we relax, they gain
strength and confidence. We must hammer away and show such resistance, such
bottom that even that slender hope will fail them.
I still am opposed to all bounties. The draft pure and
simple, annual, to fill vacancies in the ranks. Pay of men in the front
increased to even forty dollars a month, and that of men at depots and to the
rear diminished to a bare maintenance if not less. Four hundred dollars bounty
is an absurd commentary where two-thirds draw bounty and remain absent from their
rank and are discharged for disability without hearing a shot. Deal with the
army as you would if you were hiring men for special work. Pay those who do the
work high; those who are sick, unfortunate, or shirking, pay little or nothing.
The same of officers from the major-general to lieutenant. The President must
make vacancies for the rising officers, the "creations" of the war. I
am willing to quit if a younger and better man can be found for my place. . . .
Your affectionate
brother,
W. T. SHERMAN.
SOURCE: Rachel Sherman Thorndike, Editor, The
Sherman Letters: Correspondence Between General and Senator Sherman from 1837
to 1891, p. 216-9
