Campfire and Battlefield / An Illustrated History of the Campaigns and Conflicts of the Great Civil War

by Rossiter Johnson; Selden Connor; John Brown Gordon; Henry W. B. Howard; O. O. Howard; John Tyler Morgan; John Clark Ridpath

IMPORTANT HISTORY SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE GROUP OF SHERMAN AND HIS GENERALS.

(See [page 30].)

This picture was to consist of General Sherman, his two army-commanders, and the four corps-commanders in charge at the close of the war.

MAJOR-GENERAL OLIVER O. HOWARD.

It does not, however, contain the portrait of General Blair, who was absent on a short leave. At the time the photograph was taken, I [General Howard] was no longer connected with General Sherman's army. My picture was included for the following reason:

After the army's arrival near Washington, I was assigned to other duty, and General Logan took my place in command of the Army of the Tennessee. When the group was made up, as I had been so long identified with that army, General Sherman desired me to be included. General Logan was seated for the picture where I would have sat, had there been no late change of commanders. In all the field operations from Atlanta to the sea, and from Savannah through the Carolinas to Raleigh, and on to Washington, I was denominated "the right wing commander," and General Slocum "the left wing commander." The division of cavalry under Kilpatrick was sometimes independent of either wing, but usually reported for orders to one wing or the other, as Sherman directed.

The right wing was the "Army of the Tennessee;" the left wing, the "Army of Georgia." In the field service, from Atlanta on, each wing had two army corps, as follows: the right wing, the Fifteenth and Seventeenth; the left wing, the Fourteenth and Twentieth Corps. When General Logan passed to the charge of the Army of the Tennessee, General Hazen was assigned to command the Fifteenth Corps. Though absent, General Blair retained the Seventeenth Corps. After our march, for some reason—I think for Mower's promotion—Gen. A. S. Williams had been relieved from the Twentieth Corps, and General Mower assigned to his place. The Fourteenth Corps, which Gen. George H. Thomas had so long and so ably commanded, was during all that march under the direction of Gen. Jefferson C. Davis.

It may be of interest, while inspecting this noted picture, to recall something characteristic of the men who compose it. Let us begin with the junior officer of the group.

MAJOR-GENERAL JEFFERSON C. DAVIS.

General Davis, promoted to a volunteer appointment from the regular army, became early conspicuous as a successful commander in Missouri and other Western fields. For example, he captured one thousand prisoners at Milford, repelled Confederate attack upon Sigel's centre at Pea Ridge, commanded a division at Stone River, and took as prisoners one hundred and fourteen of Wheeler's raiders.

MAJOR-GENERAL JEFFERSON C. DAVIS.

In August, 1862, ill-health constrained him to leave the front for a short time, when he visited his home in Clarke County, Ind. The northward movement of the Confederates against Louisville subsequently caused him to hasten to that city and volunteer his services to General Nelson.

This general, William Nelson, a native of Kentucky, was a middle-aged naval officer at the breaking out of the war. His experience in Mexico, his strong character as a loyal Kentuckian, had caused his transfer to the army. Among undisciplined masses of volunteers he had already done wonders. He attained special distinction as a division commander under Buell at the fiercely contested battle of Shiloh; but with all his patriotism, energy, and capability, he was a martinet in discipline, very often giving great offence by his rough language and impatient ways.

Gen. Jefferson C. Davis had hardly come in contact with Nelson when he was subjected to treatment that offended him greatly.

Davis was of slender build, while Nelson was a large and powerful man. Davis endeavored, without success, to get an apology from Nelson for hard words and mistreatment. Abbott, in his History of the Civil War, shows how he was met:

"Here he (Davis) was outrageously insulted by General Nelson, and after demanding an apology and receiving only reiterated abuse, he (Davis) shot him on the stairs of the Galt House. General Nelson died in a few hours. General Davis was arrested, but was soon released, sustained by the almost universal sympathy of the public and of the army."

In subsequent years it was my lot to be on duty with General Davis. He reported to me and was under my command while pursuing the Confederates under Bragg, just after the battle of Missionary Ridge, November 25, 1863. His method of covering his front and flanks with skirmishers, and holding his troops well in hand for the prompt deployment, greatly pleased me. He was one of those officers constantly on the qui vive, impossible to surprise, difficult to defeat, and ever ready, at command, effectively to take the offensive. He succeeded to the Fourteenth Corps because Gen. John M. Palmer, offended at a decision of General Sherman, resigned the position. While Davis was a just man, he was strongly prejudiced against negroes, often, in his conversations, declaiming against them. But subsequent to the war, when commanding the State of Kentucky, acting as Assistant Commissioner for Freedmen, he took strong grounds against all lawless white men who sought to do them injury. In 1874, when a confusion of counsels had caused endless complications during the Modoc War in Southern Oregon, General Davis was, as a final resort, selected and despatched to the scene of operations. His unfailing courage and steady action soon ended the war. The Modocs were conquered, taken prisoners, and their savage and treacherous leaders punished.

I had many a conversation with General Davis. He would lead me when we were alone, in a few minutes, according to the bias of his heart, to the subject of his difficulty with Nelson. Though others exculpated him, his own heart never seemed to be at rest. It was more to himself than to others the one cloud in his otherwise unblemished, patriotic career.

MAJOR-GENERAL WILLIAM B. HAZEN

entered the military academy one year after me (1851), so that I was associated with him there for three years. As a young man, he was very thin of flesh, so much so as to cause remark. The first time I saw him after graduation, he was on a visit to West Point, in 1860. He had been in many Indian engagements in Texas and New Mexico, and had been brevetted for gallant conduct in battle; his arm at that time was in a sling, he having been wounded with an arrow.

MAJOR-GENERAL WILLIAM B. HAZEN.

A most wonderful change had taken place in his personal appearance. Instead of a young man of cadaverous build, he was large, fleshy, handsome. As a cadet he had been very retiring; now quite the opposite—in fact, he soon became remarkable among us for his bold frontier stories and an increased self-esteem.

Such was Hazen at the breaking out of the war. He went to the front in Kentucky, commanding the Forty-first Ohio Volunteers. During the series of operations and battles in which he was engaged, he maintained in his commands unusual neatness of attire and excellent discipline, and received for himself four brevets for gallant and meritorious service; the last being that of major-general in the regular army. Probably his most distinguished effort, one which called the especial attention of General Sherman to his merit, was the taking, under my orders, of Fort McAllister, December 13, 1864. He at that time had charge of a division, assisted in building a long bridge over the Ogeechee, crossed with his men, and, pushing on rapidly southward, completely environed Fort McAllister from sea-shore to sea-shore. General Sherman, with myself, more inland, were watching his operations in plain view from a rice-mill on the other side of the Ogeechee. The sudden and persistent attack, the exploding of numerous torpedoes, the tremendous vigor of the defence, afforded us an exciting scene, which ended in a much-needed victory; for this fort at the mouth of the river was the last obstruction between our army and the supplies which were coming from the sea. This success of Hazen caused me to recommend him for further promotion to the command of the Fifteenth Army Corps; and this was his crowning honor in the great war.

MAJOR-GENERAL JOSEPH A. MOWER.

I found General Mower in command of the First Division Sixteenth Army Corps (a little later, of a division in the Seventeenth Army Corps, under General Blair); that was when I came to the Army of the Tennessee at Atlanta. He was already well known in that army. In conversation around campfires staff-officers spoke of him in this way: "Mower is a rough diamond;" "He is rather a hard case in peace;" "He cannot be beaten on the march;" "You ought to see him in battle."

MAJOR-GENERAL J. A. MOWER.

These expressions indicate somewhat the character of the man. About six feet in height, well proportioned and of great muscular strength, probably there was no officer in our picture group who was better fitted in every way for hard campaigning. On one occasion during the march through the Carolinas, as we approached the westernmost branch of the Edisto, all the country had apparently been swept by the inhabitants clean of supplies. The cattle and horses had been driven eastward beyond the river, and all food carried off or hidden. As I approached a house near the river crossing, I saw General Mower and his staff apparently in conversation with the owner, who had, for some purpose, remained behind his fleeing people in his almost empty tenement. Mower was asking him questions: these the man at first evaded, or answered derisively. Then, becoming angry at Mower's persistence, he refused to tell anything. The general, just as I was passing through the gate, said to an orderly, in his deep, strong, decisive voice: "Orderly, fetch a rope!" He did not intimate what he proposed to do with the rope, but one glance at Mower's face was sufficient for the stranger. He immediately became courteous, and gave Mower all the information he desired as to the roads, bridges, and neighboring country. A few days later I was with Mower's division when he fought his way across the main stream near Orangeburgh. His energy in leading his men through swamps, directing them while they were cutting the cypresses, making temporary bridges, wading streams, constructing and carrying the canvas boats, ferrying the river, and appearing with marvellous rapidity upon the enemy's right or left flank on the open fortified bluff of the eastern shore, drew my attention more than ever to Mower's capabilities. I remember when we stood together inside the first captured work, while our men were rushing for the railroad above and below the city, Mower dismounted, and looking at me with his face full of glad triumph, said: "Fait accompli! General, fait accompli!"

At Bentonville, the 20th and 21st of March, 1865, I saw Mower ride into battle. As he approached the firing, the very sound of it gave him a new inspiration; his muscular limbs gripped his horse, and he leaned forward apparently carrying the animal with him into the conflict. He was the only officer I ever saw who manifested such intense joy for battle. At last, having brought his division through the woods and a little beyond the left flank of the Confederate commander (General Johnston), Mower and one or two of his staff dismounted, so as to work himself with his men through a dense thicket where he could not ride. The point sought in Johnston's left rear was just gained by the indomitable Mower, when General Sherman called us off, saying "that there had been fighting enough." Concerning this event, General Sherman, in his "Memoirs," makes a significant remark:

"The next day (21st) it began to rain again, and we remained quiet till about noon, when General Mower, ever rash, broke through the rebel line, on his extreme left flank, and was pushing straight for Bentonville and the bridge across Mill Creek. I ordered him back, to connect with his own corps; and lest the enemy should concentrate on him, ordered the whole rebel line to be engaged with a strong skirmish fire."

MAJOR-GENERAL FRANCIS PRESTON BLAIR, JR.,

whose biography is in every public library, is too well known to require a detail of introduction.

MAJOR-GENERAL FRANCIS P. BLAIR, JR.

As early as 1843 he formed a law partnership with his brother Montgomery, in the city of St. Louis, Mo.; here he worked till his health gave way. Requiring a change of climate, he went to New Mexico. While he was there General Kearney, as soon as the Mexican war came on, began operations which ended in his grand march to the Pacific coast. Young Blair was a volunteer aid, and by his intelligence and energy gave that general the effective help which he needed. This short service in the Mexican war was enough to beget in Blair a taste for military reading and study; so that, being in St. Louis at the fever period of the outbreak of the great rebellion in 1861, he was not unprepared for the double part he was soon called upon to play.

Having been elected and sent to Congress in 1858, previously having had a term in the Missouri Legislature, in both as a "Freesoiler," he threw all his political ability and knowledge upon the side of the Union. As a military man, he promptly acted and greatly helped in organizing and raising troops. Probably it is due to his energy more than to anything else that St. Louis and Missouri were kept to the Union. Mr. Lincoln, who had the greatest confidence in Blair, commissioned him a brigadier-general in August, 1862. He performed thereafter no obscure part in all those battles along the Mississippi, which ended in the capture of Vicksburg. He was rapidly advanced from command of a brigade to that of a division and corps in Grant's Army of the Tennessee. His name and able work are identified with both the Fifteenth and Seventeenth Corps.

The first time I saw General Blair was on November 25, 1863; it was in the evening after Sherman's first hot charge up the rough steeps on the north end of Missionary Ridge. Part of my command had participated in the bloody work of the day, and General Grant had detached the remainder of my corps from General Thomas on the straight front, and sent us around to strengthen Sherman. It was an informal council of war in the woods, by a small campfire, where I met for the first time Generals Tom Ewing, Jefferson C. Davis, and Blair. The latter, who was obliged at times to go to civil duties in Congress, had then, as I was told, just returned from Washington. He brought to us the latest messages from Mr. Lincoln. He had on a light blue soldier's overcoat; it was distinguished by a broad, elegant fur collar. In repose and in photograph, Blair's countenance might pass one as ordinary; but as soon as he spoke it was suffused with light and animation. He was five feet ten, and not fleshy. He walked about the fire, and with his ready talk, never too serious, kept Sherman and all the party, for such a sad night, in fair humor; for our best men had been stopped short of the coveted tunnel, and many of them were driven with heavy losses down the rugged slopes. The whole man so impressed me that night, that I never forgot him. During the march to the sea, in skirmish, campaign, and battle, Blair was often with me; many a day's journey we rode side by side.

THE BATTLE OF ATLANTA, JULY 22, 1864—FULLER'S DIVISION RALLYING AFTER BEING FORCED BACK BY THE CONFEDERATES.

His mind was replete with knowledge. As we, talking together, recalled the battles of the Revolution in the Carolinas, and often differed in discussing them, Blair would say: "Well, general, let us go to Sherman; he never forgets anything!" I may add that the reference was always the settlement of the question, for Sherman's historic knowledge was unfailing. Blair's forte was the law. I knew fairly well the army regulations; but Blair always went back of the regulations to the statute law and the Constitution. His mind was a compendium—one always at hand for me; and it was pleasant to consult him, for he never took advantage in an ungenerous manner of the superiority of his knowledge, but ever, without abating his most loyal service, gave me the information I desired.

During the great march through Georgia and the Carolinas the necessity of "foraging liberally on the country," of destroying property, as cotton in bales, factories of all kinds, store-houses, and other buildings of a public and private nature, troubled General Blair very much. The conduct of bummers, camp-followers, and of many robbers, who preceded or followed in the wake of the armies in their destruction and depredation of private dwellings, vexed him still more. One day in May, 1865, as we were nearing North Carolina, Blair was riding with me for the day. After a period of silence, he said: "General, I am getting weary of all this business. Can't we do something to bring it to a close? All this terrible waste and destruction and bloodshed appear to me now to be useless." I do not remember my reply, but I do recall a visit I made to General Sherman about that time, when I urged him not to destroy the works at Fayetteville Arsenal, N. C. I said: "General, the war will soon be over; this property is ours [that is, the Government's]. Why should we destroy our own property?" The general replied with some little asperity to the effect: "They [meaning the Confederates] haven't given up yet. They shall not have an arsenal here!" In this matter General Blair's sentiment and mine had agreed.

At another time, noticing that Wheeler's (or Hampton's) cavalry were burning the cotton to prevent its falling into our hands, and that we were burning cotton to cripple the Confederate revenue, General Blair remarked: "Both sides are burning cotton; somebody must be making a mistake!"

These growing sentiments in genuine sympathy with the suffering people of the Carolinas, were Blair's thus early, and account, in a measure, for his subsequent political course; for, as Hammersley says:

"Brave and gallant soldier as he was, and uncompromisingly hostile as he was to the enemies of his country, when the war was over, and the Southern army had laid down their arms, he at once arrayed himself against those who were in favor of continuing to treat Southern people as enemies, and with voice and pen constantly urged the adoption of a liberal and humane policy. From this time he united with the Democratic party."

Blair died in July, 1875. He was of a jovial turn and convivial, but I think he enjoyed the relief of fun and frolic more than the pleasures which attend high living. Like his father and his brother, he was a man of marked ability; he had great acquirements; he was a determined enemy, but an unswerving and generous friend. In political life his course seemed to lack consistency; but when judged from an unpartisan bias, his was, we may be sure, the outward manifestation of a persistent, patriotic spirit.

MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN A. LOGAN.

A young man received a musket-shot wound through both thighs; he repaired to the doctor to have his wound dressed, and asked if he could have it dressed at once, so that he might return to the fight. The surgeon told him he was in no condition to admit of his return, but should go to the hospital. The youth remarked that he had fired twenty-two rounds after he was wounded, and thought he could fire as many more if his wound were dressed. Finding it impossible to detain him, the doctor dressed the wound, and the young man returned to his comrades in the struggle, dealing out his ammunition to good account until the day was over, as if nothing had happened to him.

MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN A. LOGAN.

This brave young man afterwards became Gen. John A. Logan. He had such a striking face that, once seen, it was never forgotten. There was the straight and raven hair, that, thrown back from his forehead, was long enough to cover his ears, and make vertical lines just behind his eyes. There were the broad brow, the firm round chin, and strong neck. There was the broad, well-cut mouth, always crowned by a dark, heavy mustache. But the features first seen, and never forgotten, were those black eyes with brows and lashes to match. At times those eyes were gentle, pleasant, winning; at times they were cold and indifferent; but at the least excitement they would quicken, and under provocation flash fire. Logan's whole figure, not above five feet nine, was closely knit. His true portrait is everywhere caught by the photographer, the caricaturist, the painter; but we seldom meet with a portraiture of the man that animated that splendid tenement. Abbott compares him with McPherson and contrasts him with Hood. He says: "When Logan was McPherson's successor on the field of Atlanta, rivalling his predecessor in bravery, patriotism, and military ability." ... When speaking of him and Hood, he says: "General Logan was by no means his inferior in impetuous daring, and far his superior in all those intellectual qualities of circumspection, coolness, and judgment requisite to constitute a general."

I hardly think that one who knew both would speak just that way of Hood and Logan. The fact is, the two men were very much alike. Both were impetuous, both brave, and both able generals. Hood was put into the place of General Johnston by Davis with orders to fight desperately; had Logan been sent to Nashville to relieve General Thomas when it was contemplated, he would have done precisely as did Hood—he would have fought, and at once. He might have been defeated—as Thomas was not. Before Sherman threw his forces upon Hood's communications, Logan was greatly depressed concerning the proposed plan. "How can it succeed?" he asked. But when the first battle came on, all his pluck, forethought, energy, Samson-like, came to him. Permit me to repeat my words at the time concerning him, just after that action:

"I wish to express my high gratification with the conduct of the troops engaged. I never saw better conduct in battle. General Logan, though ill and much worn out, was indefatigable, and the success of the day is as much attributable to him as to any one man...."

As I now estimate General Logan, I think him like Napoleon's Marshal Murat. He was made for battle; the fiercer, the better it seemed to suit his temper; but the study of campaigns and military strategy was not his forte. His personal presence was not only striking, but almost resistless. The power of love and hate belonged to his nature. If a friend, like Andrew Jackson, he was a friend indeed; but if an enemy, it was not comfortable to withstand him. Logan had a good loyal heart; he sincerely loved his country and her institutions. He is justly enrolled as a hero and patriot.

MAJOR-GENERAL HENRY WARNER SLOCUM.

In the very beginning of Slocum's career, one characteristic becomes noticeable from his earliest childhood—he always had a wholesome object in view; so that, when he attained one elevation, he fixed his eye steadily upon another still higher, and bent his energies to attain it.

MAJOR-GENERAL HENRY WARNER SLOCUM.

Early in life he cherished a desire for a cadetship at West Point; this desire was gratified in 1848. Sheridan speaks in his "Memoirs" of his (Slocum's) studious habits and willingness to aid others. I was myself at the academy and remember his strong character when the pro-slavery sentiment at West Point was so great as to lessen the popularity of any one even suspected of entertaining abolition views. He fearlessly and openly expressed himself as an opponent to human slavery.

General Slocum graduated high in his class; saw service in the Seminole wars in Florida, and remained stationed in the South until 1857, when, having studied law, he resigned to practise his profession in Syracuse, N. Y., being a representative at Albany in 1859, and instructor of militia from 1859 to 1861. When Fort Sumter fell he tendered his services, and was given the command of the Twenty-seventh New York Volunteers, which he led in a charge at Bull Run, where he was severely wounded. In August, 1861, he was made brigadier-general of volunteers, and took a brigade in General Franklin's division. When Franklin passed to the command of a corps, Slocum took the division. His work was noticeable on the Peninsula, at Yorktown, West Point, Gaines's Mill, Glendale, and Malvern Hill, and on each occasion he received the praise of his commanders. At South Mountain his division drove the enemy from its position with such a rush as to prevent any chance of rallying, which act brought him still more commendation. It was Slocum who led the advance of Franklin's corps to the field of Antietam, and enabled us to recover and hold much ground that had been taken from us in the first struggle.

By October of 1862 Slocum's manifest ability had given him the Twelfth Corps, with which his name is so closely identified. In the Chancellorsville campaign it was Slocum who made the march around Lee's left, and showed himself the "cool, self-poised, and prompt commander that he had always been, and which made him distinguished even in the brilliant group of generals of which he was a member." It would require the whole history of Gettysburg to fairly portray Slocum's part there. The most impressive incident of that battle to me was Slocum's own battle on the 3d day of July, 1863. For five anxious hours Slocum commanded the field to our right; that dreadful struggle went on until Ewell with Early's and Edward Johnson's large divisions was forced to give up and abandon his prize of the night before. Slocum's resolute insistence, on the 2d, upon leaving Greene and his brigade as a precaution when General Meade ordered the Twelfth Corps to be sent to his (Meade's) left, with Greene's marvellous night battle, and more still, Slocum's organized work and engagement of the following morning, in my judgment prevented Meade losing the battle of Gettysburg.

The disaster at Chickamauga took Slocum's corps from the Rappahannock to Tennessee. Soon after his arrival he was sent to command the district of Vicksburg, where his work consisted of expeditions to break up bridges and railroads and to repel rebel raids. When the death of General McPherson, Slocum's department commander, at Atlanta, caused so many changes, Slocum was brought to that city to command the Twelfth Corps. When, a little later, we swung off on Hood's communications, Slocum being located south of the Atlanta crossing of the Chattahoochee River, it was his quick perception that recognized the significance of the final explosions, and it was he who pushed forward over the intervening six miles and took possession of that citadel of Georgia; and it was his despatch to his watchful commander, thirty miles away, that inspired that brief proclamation, "Atlanta is ours, and fairly won!"

In the march to the sea and through the Carolinas, General Sherman had given to Slocum the left wing, the Army of Georgia. He crossed the Savannah River when the high waters made it most difficult, pushing and fighting through the swamps of the Carolinas. He fought the battle of Averysboro, and later took a leading part at Bentonville, where Johnston, the toughest Confederate of them all, surrendered, and we turned our faces homeward.

At the close of the war General Slocum resigned from the army and engaged in civil pursuits, adding to his magnificent military reputation a civil repute for ability, honesty, and probity in business as well as in political affairs.

GENERAL WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN.

With regard to the central figure of this group, General Sherman himself, libraries are so full of his characteristic work and worth that I will simply add to the above sketches a few items. Those have been chosen which are the more personal. It is said that when his father gave him the name of the great Indian chief, Tecumseh, he remarked: "Who knows but this child may be a fighter?" It is indeed remarkable how often names are prophetic. A fighter he was, but one thoroughly equipped with that most valuable weapon to a general, namely, such knowledge of history as to make him an authority to all of us. Any disputed point we carried to him; we relied upon his being able to set us right. Indeed, one of his most marked characteristics was his quick perception and exceedingly retentive memory. This he evidenced in many ways; years after he ascended the Indian River in Florida he remembered with minute distinctness what he saw, from the shape of the inlet to the roosting pelicans along the mangrove islands. Talking with him before the battle of Kenesaw Mountain, I found him so conversant with the Chattahoochee Valley and the roads to and from Marietta, and all the features of that region, that I was astonished, and asked him where he had gotten such valuable information. He said he had gained it twenty years before, when travelling through the country as a member of a board of officers detailed to appraise horses lost in the Florida war. During his service in the South before the war he travelled much, and appears to have remembered ever after, with wonderful distinctness, the features of the country.

Sherman was, above all, pure in his patriotism and free from thought of self. When, from his position at the Military Seminary in Louisiana, he saw the conflict coming, he wrote: "I accepted this position when the motto of the seminary, inserted in marble over the main door, was, 'By the liberality of the General Government of the United States.'—'The Union'—'Este perpetua.' ... If Louisiana withdraws from the Federal Union, I prefer to maintain my allegiance to the old Constitution as long as a fragment of it survives;" adding, "for on no account will I do any act or think any thought hostile to or in defiance of the old government of the United States." When his clear perception of the magnitude of the struggle before us made him declare to Secretary Cameron that it "was nonsense to carry on a picayune war; that sixty thousand men were needed for immediate work to clear Kentucky and Tennessee; and two hundred thousand men to finish the war in that quarter;" and when the supposed extravagance of his demands led to the suspicion that his mind was unbalanced, thus placing him under a cloud, no selfish thought seems to have occurred to him. Instead of dwelling upon the injustice done him, he devoted all his knowledge, his wonderful energy and skill, to aiding General Grant; and, further, while under this cloud he gathered and sent forward to Grant much-needed supplies and men. He put order among quartermasters and commissaries anew, equipped new commands, and pushed them, never thinking of himself, to the front. This energy and generosity General Grant promptly acknowledged; and it was here, after the battle of Fort Donelson, that the celebrated Army of the Tennessee was born.

General Sherman's organizing powers have been tested by results. Doubtless his brilliant genius gave more or less inspiration to his subordinates, and his magnetic influence lifted up to prominence some very common men; yet, no proof-sustaining bridge can be condemned! He generously gave both confidence and scope to his officers, just as Grant had given confidence and scope to him; and such sunshine develops men and makes them strong. His memory was phenomenal; he had acquired knowledge with intense rapidity, from observation and from books, from childhood to age; and by a thousand tests he showed that he had forgotten nothing that he had once learned. Who could estimate the number of officers and men he knew at the close of the war? And at the time of his death thousands claimed his personal recognition.

He led his quartermasters in their plans and estimates for his army; he was quicker than his chief commissary in figuring the rations for a month's supply; he was equal to the great engineering general in everything that pertains to the construction of railroads and the running of trains; he was more than a match for his Confederate adversaries in field correspondence with them at Atlanta—a correspondence rapid and pungent, which involved laws of war and of nations.

When the Hon. Thomas Ewing, in kindness to General Sherman's family, offered to adopt a child, his choice fell upon Tecumseh. Mr. Ewing's testimony, after a little experience with him as a member of his family, is, "That he was a lad remarkable for accuracy of memory and straightforwardness."

When truthfulness is the corner-stone of a character—all things being equal—we have reason to anticipate a strong superstructure. How this was realized in Sherman, the world knows.

Loyalty to family, loyalty to friends, loyalty to society about him, loyalty to duty and country, he quickly observed in another. And this loyalty was a marked characteristic of his own great soul.

OLIVER OTIS HOWARD,
Major-General U. S. Army.

GOVERNOR'S ISLAND, N. Y., July 6, 1894.