FROM ARCHBISHOP KENRICK.
St. Louis, Feb. 14th, 1891.
To Mr. P. T. Sherman:—
Accept my heartfelt sympathy with yourself and sisters.
Peter Richard Kenrick,
Archbishop of St. Louis.
[CHAPTER XXXII.]
TRAITS AND INCIDENTS.
His Positive Refusal to be a Presidential Candidate—Remembering a California Drummer—Dealing with a Newspaper at Memphis—Suppressing Praise of Himself at Savannah—Confiscating Medicine—The Electoral Commission—His Love of Music—Excuses for Swearing—A Tribute to his Mother—An Incident at Yale—Expressions of Kind Feeling toward the South and toward his Foes.
The lives of few men have contained more picturesque incidents than did Sherman's. His nervous, impulsive nature and frank, open manner made him the hero of many episodes which are the delight of story-tellers. His conversation, also, bristled with epigrammatic sayings well worth repeating and preserving. His death called forth a perfect flood of reminiscences. Every one who had ever known him had something to relate regarding him; some humorous or dramatic incident, some kind deed, some quaint or wise remark. Many of these are doubtless apocryphal; and of those that are true even the compass of a biography will give space for but few. But no biography of Sherman would be complete without some of them, in which the nature of the man so clearly stands revealed.
Reference has already been made to Sherman's dislike of politics. He was often spoken of as a candidate for the Presidency, but never with his own approval or consent. As early as February, 1876, he wrote to a friend as follows:
"I never have been, and am not now, and never shall be, a candidate for the high office of President before any convention of the people. I shall always prefer to see that office filled by one of the millions who in the Civil War stood by the Union firm and unequivocally; and of these I notice many names willing and capable. Prominent among them is that of General Hayes, now Governor of Ohio, whom we know as a fine officer and a gentleman in every sense. I do not, however, wish to be understood as presuming to advise anybody in the choice of the man. My wife and family are strong Catholics, but I am not; that, however, is nobody's business. I believe in the common schools, and don't stop over the little matters which seem to be exaggerated by the press. In some quarters, however, these schools are extravagant and indulge in costly buildings and expensive teachers, so as to be too heavy a burden to the taxpayers. This tendency ought to be checked, which may easily be done without making it a political question. Self-interest will regulate this and make them free schools to all and capable of imparting the rudiments of a good English education."
Being asked, after the publication of this letter,—which by the way, he did not expect,—whether he really meant it, he said he did.
"Suppose you were nominated?"
"I would decline."
"Suppose the nomination were unanimous and enthusiastic?"
"I would decline anyway. I cannot think of any circumstances that would induce me to accept the nomination. There are so many men in the country better fitted for the place than I am. I have no civil experience, as every President should have. The country wants a change in this respect. Military men know no way of settling troubles except to fight, and our country is now so peaceful that a different policy is needed. We want a civic President, and not a military one."
THE RIDERLESS WAR-HORSE
And years after that he again declared that he was not a candidate for the Presidency; that if nominated he would decline, and if elected he would refuse to serve.
An incident which occurred in Philadelphia some three years before his death illustrates Sherman's remarkable powers of memory.
He was visiting his daughter, and while sitting at the open window smoking one midsummer night he saw the policeman pass, and as the patrolman halted a moment the General was noticed to give him a keen glance and utter an exclamation. The next evening he told some one to say to the policeman on the beat, when he passed, that the General wanted to speak to him. When the officer entered he straightened up and gave General Sherman the regular military salute.
"Ah, ha," said the General. "I thought so. Now, where was it I saw you before? Do you know me?"
"Oh, yes," said the bearded patrolman. "I knew you when you were a lieutenant. I was your drummer in California."
"Ha, ha, I thought so; and wait a bit. So you were that little drummer boy, and your name—your name's Hutchinson."
Another authentic story reveals the kindly humor of the man, even amid the stern scenes of war. It is told by Mr. H. L. Priddy, who, with a Mr. Brower, conducted The Argus newspaper at Memphis when Sherman was commander there. "The Argus" says Mr. Priddy, "was the only paper published at Memphis then. Brower and I had to simulate a degree of loyalty, but whenever we got a chance we cheered the Stars and Bars. General Sherman gave us considerable latitude, but finally we went too far, and he called us down. He did it in a gentlemanly way, however, that didn't wound our feelings. He galloped up to the office one day about noon, threw the bridle rein of his big black stallion to an orderly and strode into the editorial room. A crowd of citizens gathered on the other side of the street mourned for the fate of the newspaper and the editors. I think they had an idea that Sherman was going to amputate our heads and 'pi' all the forms. But he didn't. He sat down and rested his feet on the table and said:
"'Boys' (we were both youngsters), "I have been ordered to suppress your paper, but I don't like to do that, and I just dropped in to warn you not to be so free with your pencils. If you don't ease up you will get into trouble."
"We promised to reform, and as the General seemed so pleasant and friendly, I asked him if he couldn't do something to increase the circulation of currency. There was no small change, and we had to use the soda water checks of a confectioner named Lane. We dropped soda water checks in the contribution box at the church, paid for straight whiskey with them and received them for money. If Lane had closed his shop the checks would have been worthless.
"General Sherman comprehended the situation, and quick as a flash said: 'You need a medium of exchange that has an intrinsic value. Cotton is king here. Make cotton your currency. It is worth $1 a pound. Make packages containing eight ounces represent 50 cents, four ounces 25 cents, and so on. Cotton is the wealth of the South right now. Turn it to money.'
"'But the money drawers wouldn't hold such bulky currency,' said I.
"'Make 'em larger,' said the General, and with that he strode off.
"As he mounted his horse and galloped away he shook his whip at Brower and me and shouted: 'You boys had better be careful what you write, or I'll be down on you.'"
At Savannah, just after he had captured it, Sherman had another controversy with a newspaper man, one "Tom" Miles, from Boston. The latter, on getting into Savannah with the army, went prospecting round the city, and presently, according to the teller of the story, in The Boston Post, found himself in a vacated printing office. It presented a golden opportunity. There were types and presses and all the paraphernalia essential to business, with a form on the press, which the printer had left in his flight, and Miles, taking out the editorial and other offensive matter, filled its columns with healthy Union sentiment, with the aid of one or two of the craft whom he had discovered in the army. His leader was a rich specimen of crowing over the victory, in which he extolled General Sherman as the greatest hero since Alexander, and his army the finest and best disciplined that the world ever saw. With this grand flourish of trumpets the first number was issued, and Miles lay back in his editorial chair, contemplating his work with the belief that he had achieved the next triumph to Sherman's, and wondered what the conqueror would say when he saw the praises he had heaped upon him. The next morning as the General and his staff were about taking breakfast, a paper was handed to him, and he commenced to read the leader which was so lavish in his praise.
"Look here!" said he, red and furious. "What the d—— l does this mean? Who knows anything about this paper?"
His orderly, who had known something about its preparation, explained to him that it was the work of the literary gentleman who had followed the expedition.
"Well," said the General, "go down to the office and tell him to discontinue his paper or I'll put him under guard. I won't have such cursed stuff printed about me when I can prevent it. Abuse is bad enough, but this is a deuced sight worse."
Down went the orderly, and the confusion of poor Miles was overwhelming when he got the squelcher from the General commanding.
"Why, it was all praise," said he.
"No matter for that. If it had been the other way it would have been treated just the same."
So Miles moved a compromise—we hardly know what—and urged the official to express his regrets and beg the removal of the injunction, which was promised. The appeal was successful, and soon the officer came back to inform him that permission was granted him to run his paper, on condition that he should never mention the General's name again. This was agreed to, and the paper appeared. After a day or two an aide came down one morning with an order from General Sherman, for publication. Miles glanced it over and handed it back.
"It can't go in, sir," he said.
"Why not?" asked the astonished messenger, who was a stranger.
"Because it has Sherman's name to it," was the reply.
"That's the reason why it must go in," urged the aide.
"And that's the reason why it shan't. He stopped my paper for praising him, and I promised him that his name should never appear in my columns again, and hang me if it shall."
Miles stood resolute, and the officer returned for orders, expecting the ordering out of a file of men and an arrest, but was astonished to see the General burst into the heartiest laugh and hear him confess that the printer had the best of it. The messenger was sent back with a conciliatory note, and there was no more trouble.
Sherman himself once related an interesting story about a prominent citizen of Savannah who came to his headquarters after he had captured that city. The gentleman was in great trepidation and informed the General that he had some valuable pictures in his house. The General said they were entirely safe. He said he also had a collection of family plate of great intrinsic value, and, on account of its associations, very precious to him and his family. The General told him he would put a guard about his house if necessary. Then, in a burst of frank confidence, produced by this generous response to his fears, he revealed to General Sherman that he had buried in his back yard a large quantity of priceless Madeira, of the oldest and rarest vintages, and estimated to be worth over $40,000 before the war. The General responded at once: "That is medicine, and confiscated to the hospital." What the hospital did not need he distributed among the troops.
General Sherman was fully informed of the movements of Jefferson Davis, and in a position to put his hand upon and arrest him at almost any time after Davis left Richmond. He consulted Mr. Lincoln as to what he would better do, saying to the President that he did not know but what he, the President, would be relieved by not having the President of the Southern Confederacy on his hands, and asking for instructions. President Lincoln's instructions were given in this form: "Sherman, many years ago, up in Illinois, I knew a temperance lecturer who had been an habitual drunkard. He met, on an anniversary occasion, a number of his old boon companions. They were urging him to celebrate it with them in the usual way, and he finally said: 'Boys, I must stick to my principles; but if you could get some whiskey into my water unbeknownst to me I might join you!'"
The General after that made no effort to capture Jefferson Davis, and regretted that he did not reach the schooner in which he was intending an escape to Cuba.
Abram S. Hewitt, in addressing the Chamber of Commerce, New York, told of an experience of his with General Sherman, then in command of the army, at the time of the Electoral Commission's existence. There was a good deal of apprehension lest Congress might break up without settling the contest for the Presidency. "If Congress failed to do its duty, what will you do under the circumstances?" Mr. Hewitt asked the General.
"I have sworn to obey the Constitution of the United States," was the answer, "and I will do my duty. The term of President Grant expires at noon on March 4. The people of the United States have elected a President and competent authority will decide who is elected."
"But if Senate and House fail to agree?"
"Then, if I must, I shall obey the man selected by the Senate."
"That reply," said Mr. Hewitt. "I felt meant much for the peace of the country, although the General's choice was not my own. To him we owe not only much for the termination of the civil war, but for the preservation of peace."
On one occasion, when visiting his sister, Mrs. Ewing, Gen. Sherman met four or five Presbyterian clergymen, and his patience was rather severely tried by their religious discussions, and what seemed to him their intolerant and one-sided views. One of them challenged him to offer any excuse for swearing, meeting him with the clinching statement that there could be no redemption for blasphemers.
"Were you," inquired the young soldier, "ever at sea in a heavy gale, with spars creaking and sails flapping, and the crew cowardly and incompetent?"
"No."
"Did you ever," he continued gravely, "try to drive a five-team ox-cart across the prairie?"
"No."
"Then," said Capt. Sherman, "you know nothing of temptations to blasphemy—you know nothing about extenuating circumstances for blasphemers—you are not competent to judge!"
Gen. Sherman was proud of tracing his powers of endurance to his mother, to whom he also frequently ascribed the heritage of other soldierly characteristics.
"She married very young," said the General—"her husband, who was not very much older, being a lawyer with hope and ambition for his patrimony and all the world before him where to choose. He chose Ohio, leaving his young wife in Jersey City while he made a home for her in what was then a far country.
"Soon as he had made a home for her she went to him. She rode on horseback, with her young baby in her arms, from Jersey City to Ohio, the journey occupying twenty-three days! What would a New York bride say to such a journey as that? I'm afraid she'd want to wait until her husband had made money enough to have a railroad built for her."
Israel Smith, of New Bedford, was Band-master of the Massachusetts 33d Regiment on the march from Atlanta to Savannah. In speaking of General Sherman Mr. Smith said: "He was very fond of music, and the 33d gave many a concert at his headquarters. One time when the regiment had gone into camp, General Sherman sent word to me to come to his headquarters and play for him. I sent word back that my men were mostly sick, not enough being left to give a decent concert. Whereupon Sherman sends back word. 'Bring over your band and play soft music to soothe my nerves.'" When the Army was drawn up around Savannah, the first concert in two weeks was given. When Smith was about to go away Sherman called him and said: "I want you to have your band in readiness to play next Thursday, in the square in Savannah." Early on Thursday morning Mr. Smith received his orders to march to the square, and there, while the city was being evacuated, he played the National airs.
Sherman went to Yale College in 1876, to see his son graduated. He was made the guest of honor of the occasion, given a seat next to President Noah Porter at all the exercises, and the degree of LL.D. was conferred on him. The displays of academic eloquence were long. During the orations Sherman slipped out of the chapel, and his absence was not noticed for some time. When it was noticed a deputation of the faculty rushed off to discover the whereabouts of their distinguished guest. Their quest was of short duration. On a bench in front of the chapel General Sherman was seated, puffing his cigar and engaged in animated conversation with an old negro who had just been discharged from the workhouse and who was smoking one of the General's havanas. He felt the need of a smoke, saw no reason why he should not take a cigar without disturbing any one, and had fallen into conversation with the only other occupant of the park bench. It afterward was made evident that General Sherman in his short conversation had learned more about the manner in which the New Haven workhouse was conducted than any member of the Yale faculty knew.
Sherman's interest in the Pacific Railroad was referred to by General Wager Swayne, who said:—
"As long ago as 1849 General Sherman wrote a letter to his brother, John Sherman, which the latter published in The National Intelligencer, advocating the construction of a railroad across the continent, and he was an untiring friend of the road from that time until its completion, in the summer of 1869.
"He told me that if at the time of writing that letter to his brother John he could have secured the immediate construction of a railroad across the continent by signing a contract to lay down his own life, he should have done it, he thought.
"In his "Memoirs" he gives an account of carrying from Sonoma, Cal., to Sacramento, to the commanding officer of the United States forces there, an order to make a survey of the Feather River, so as to ascertain the feasibility of constructing a railroad through the valley of that stream. That was the first survey ever made with a view to the construction of a transcontinental road, and while the General does not say so in his "Memoirs," I have from his own lips that the impulse and the conception were his own, and he procured the signature to the order of the commanding general by personal solicitation.
"When, at the close of the war, General Granville M. Dodge was called from the Army, being then still in service, to take charge of the construction of the Union Pacific road, General Sherman not only gave him leave cordially, but he also spontaneously promised him all possible assistance, and General Dodge has testified, in an elaborate paper, that he does not see how he could have built the road except with the countenance and support which he received from General Sherman, as the Indians were then a power on the plains.
"In the summer of 1869, twenty years after his first letter on the subject, General Sherman stood in the War Department, and heard the strokes from an electric bell, which announced the successive blows of the hammer on the last spike in the construction of the road, and he told me that in view of his long interest in the enterprise, he felt, as he himself put it, as if the Lord might come for him then."
General Cyrus Bussey, assistant Secretary of the Interior, was an old comrade and close friend of Sherman, and he said of him:
"I first met General Sherman at Benton Barracks, Mo., in November, 1861. I had reported there with a full regiment of cavalry. General Sherman had just assumed command, after having been relieved in Kentucky under a cloud, being charged with insanity. I spent many evenings with the General at his headquarters, and received from him many valuable lessons which greatly aided me as an officer of the Army during all my subsequent services. During the siege of Vicksburg I was chief of cavalry, and served immediately under General Sherman's command. I saw much of him during the siege, and led the advance of his army in the campaign to Jackson, against Joe Johnston's army, immediately after the fall of Vicksburg. After the enemy was routed and driven out of the country my command occupied the rear, and General Sherman accompanied me both on the advance and on the return to our camps in the rear of Vicksburg. So I had an excellent opportunity of becoming intimately acquainted with him, and there I formed a great admiration for him as a man and a general.
"One circumstance I wish to mention. While waiting at Jackson after the retreat of Johnston, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Mississippi tendered to General Sherman and his staff a banquet, at which General Frank P. Blair proposed a toast to General Grant. General Sherman rose and said: 'I want to respond to that toast. I see that many newspapers of the country have credited me with originating the plan adopted by General Grant for the capture of Vicksburg. I want to say that I am not entitled to this credit. General Grant alone originated that plan and carried it to successful completion without the co-operation of any of his subordinate officers, and in the face of my protest as well as that of many of the officers.'"
The question of the burning of Atlanta was often raised in the years after the war, and to the end of his life Sherman was denounced by many Southerners for what they were pleased to term his inhumanity and malice. In the spring of 1880, Captain Burke, commander of the "Gate City Guard," at Atlanta, wrote to him, calling his attention to a proposed memorial hall in that city, and Sherman made this reply:
"My Dear Sir.—Your letter of March 6 with inclosure, is received, and I assure you of my interest in the subject matter and willingness to contribute to the execution of your plan to erect in the city of Atlanta a memorial hall to commemorate the revival of sectional unity and sentiment—but were I to do so for the reasons set forth in the inclosed circular, I would be construed as indorsing the expressions which are erroneous, viz: 'During the late unfortunate war the city of Atlanta was destroyed by the forces of General Sherman,' and 'a wilderness of blackened walls recorded the fratricidal strife that deluged our country in misfortune,'
"Atlanta was not destroyed by the army of the United States commanded by General Sherman. No private dwelling was destroyed by the United States army, but some were by that commanded by General Hood along his line of defense. The Court House still stands; all the buildings on that side of the railroad and all those along Peachtree street, the best street in the city, still remain. Nothing was destroyed by my orders but the depots, workshops, foundries, etc., close by the depots, and two blocks of mercantile stores also close to the depot took fire from the burning storehouse or foundry, and our troops were prevented from checking the spread of the fire by reason of concealed shells loaded and exploding in that old building. The railroad car and machine shops on the edge of the town toward Decatur street, were burned before we entered Atlanta, by General Hood's orders."
To the Hon. Henry W. Grady, a few days later, Sherman said personally:
"The city of Atlanta was never burned as a city. I notice that the headquarters I occupied, all the houses about it, and the headquarters of the other officers were all standing when I revisited the place a year or two since. The residence streets were not burned at all."
"It was your intention, then, to burn only the heart of the city?"
"My intention was clearly expressed in a written order to General Poe. It was simply to burn the buildings in which public stores had been placed or would likely be placed. This included only four buildings, as I recollect: not over five or six. One of these was a warehouse above the depot, in which or under which were a number of shells. From this building a block of business houses took fire and the destruction went beyond the limits intended. The old Trout House was burned by some of the men, who had some reason for burning it. I ordered the round house burned. I wanted to destroy the railroad so that it could not be used. I then wanted to destroy the public buildings, so that Atlanta could not be used as a depot of supplies. I ordered, as I say, four or five houses set on fire, but as far as burning the city in the sense of wanton destruction, I never thought of such a thing. I shirked no responsibility that war imposed, but I never went beyond my duty."
His kindly feeling toward the city and people with whom he once dealt so sternly was well shown in a letter which he wrote in 1879 to Captain E. P. Howell, of the Atlanta Constitution.
"My opportunities for studying the physical features of Georgia," he said, "have been large. In 1843–4 I went from Augusta to Marietta in a stage (when Atlanta had no existence); thence to Bellefonte, Alabama, on horseback, returning afterwards, all the way on horseback, to Augusta by a different road; again, in 1864, I conducted, as all the world knows, a vast army from Chattanooga to Atlanta and Savannah, and just now have passed over the same district in railway cars. Considering the history of this period of time (35 years), the development of the country has been great, but not comparable with California, Iowa, Wisconsin, or Kansas, in all which States I have had similar chances for observation. The reason why Georgia has not kept pace with the States I have named is beyond question that emigration would not go where slavery existed. Now that this cause is removed there is no longer any reason why Georgia, especially the northern part, should not rapidly regain her prominence among the great States of our Union. I know that no section is more favored in climate, health, soil, minerals, water, and everything which man needs for his material wants, and to contribute to his physical and intellectual development. Your railroads now finished give your people cheap supplies, and the means of sending in every section their surplus products of the soil or of manufactures. You have immense beds of iron and coal, besides inexhaustible quantities of timber, oak, hickory, beech, poplar, pine, etc., so necessary in modern factories, and which are becoming scarce in other sections of our busy country.
"I have crossed this continent many times, by almost every possible route, and I feel certain that at this time no single region holds out as strong inducements for industrious emigrants as that from Lynchburg, Virginia, to Huntsville, Alabama, right and left, embracing the mountain ranges and intervening valleys, especially East Tennessee, North Georgia and Alabama. I hope I will not give offence in saying that the present population has not done full justice to this naturally beautiful and most favored region of our country, and that two or three millions of people could be diverted from the great West to this region with profit and advantage to all concerned. This whole region, though called 'southern,' is in fact 'northern'—viz.: it is a wheat-growing country; has a climate in no sense tropical or southern, but was designed by nature for small farms and not for large plantations. In the region I have named North Georgia forms a most important part, and your city, Atlanta, is its natural centre or capital. It is admirably situated, a thousand feet above the sea, healthy, with abundance of the purest water and with granite, limestone, sandstone and clay convenient to build a second London. In 1864 my army, composed of near a hundred thousand men, all accustomed to a northern climate, were grouped about Atlanta from June to November without tents, and were as vigorous, healthy and strong as though they were in Ohio or New York. Indeed, the whole country from the Tennessee to the Ocmulgee is famous for health, pure water, abundant timber and with a large proportion of good soil, especially in the valleys, and all you need is more people of the right sort.
"I am satisfied, from my recent visit, that Northern professional men, manufacturers, mechanics and farmers may come to Atlanta, Rome and Chattanooga with a certainty of fair dealing and fair encouragement. Though I was personally regarded the bete-noir of the late war in your region, the author of all your woes, yet I admit that I have just passed over the very ground desolated by the Civil War, and have received everywhere nothing but kind and courteous treatment from the highest to the lowest, and I heard of no violence to others for opinions' sake. Some Union men spoke to me of social ostracism, but I saw nothing of it, and even if it do exist it must disappear with the present generation. Our whole framework of government and history is founded on the personal and political equality of citizens, and philosophy teaches that social distinctions can only rest on personal merit and corresponding intelligence, and if any part of a community clings to distinctions founded on past conditions, it will grow less and less with time and finally disappear. Any attempt to build up an aristocracy or a privileged class at the South, on the fact that their fathers or grandfathers once owned slaves, will result in a ridiculous failure and subject the authors to the laughter of mankind. I refer to this subject incidentally because others have argued the case with me, but whether attempted elsewhere in the South, I am certain it will not be attempted in Georgia.
"Therefore, I shall believe and maintain that north Georgia is now in a condition to invite emigration from the Northern States of our Union and from Europe, and all parties concerned should advertise widely the great inducements your region holds out to the industrious and frugal of all lands; agents should be appointed in New York to advise, and others at Knoxville, Chattanooga, Rome, Atlanta, etc., to receive emigrants and to point out to them on arrival where cheap lands may be had with reasonable credit, where companies may open coal and iron mines, where mills may be erected to grind wheat and corn, spin cotton, and to manufacture the thousand and one things you now buy from abroad; and more especially to make known that you are prepared to welcome and patronize men who will settle in your region and form a part of your community.
"Your growth and development since the war have been good, very good—better than I was prepared to see; but compare it with San Francisco, Denver, Portland, Oregon, Leavenworth, Chicago, St. Louis, or hundreds of places I could mention, less favored in climate and location than Atlanta. These cities have been notoriously open to the whole world, and all men felt perfectly at liberty to go there with their families, with their acquired wealth and with their personal energy. You must guarantee the same, not superficially or selfishly, but with that sincerity and frankness which carries conviction.
GEN. LEW. WALLACE.
"Personally, I would not like to check the flow of emigration westward, because of the vast natural importance of that region, but I do believe that every patriot should do what he can to benefit every part of our whole country, and I am sure that good will result from turning a part of this great tide of human life and energy southward along the valleys of the Allegheny Mountains, especially of East Tennessee, northern Georgia and Alabama, and if I can aid you in this good work I assure you that I will do so with infinite pleasure.
"Excuse me if I ask you as an editor to let up somewhat on the favorite hobby of 'carpet-baggers.' I know that you personally apply the term only to political adventurers, but others, your readers, construe it otherwise. I have resided in San Francisco, Leavenworth and St. Louis, and of the men who have built up these great cities, I assert that not one in fifty was a native of the place. All, or substantially all, were 'carpet-baggers,' i.e., emigrants from all parts of the world, many of them from the South. Our Supreme Court, Congress and our most prominent and intellectual men, now hail from localities of their own adoption, not of their birth. Let the emigrant to Georgia feel and realize that his business and social position result from his own industry, his merits and his virtues, and not from the accidental place of his birth, and soon the great advantages of climate, soil, minerals, timber, etc., etc., will fill up your country and make Atlanta one of the most prosperous, beautiful and attractive cities, not alone of the South, but of the whole continent, an end which I desire quite as much as you do."
In the Spring of 1876 he talked at some length with a newspaper writer, about the South and the leaders of the late rebellion, and for the latter he expressed only esteem and friendship. "About two weeks ago," he said, "I received a letter from a mutual friend in New York, asking if I would recommend General Braxton Bragg for appointment in the Khedive's army. I promptly replied that it would afford me pleasure to promote the interests of Bragg in that direction. I feel very kindly to all the Southern Generals. In fact, I think people everywhere throughout the North and West cherish no bad feeling. Jeff Davis is the only exception made. I do not know why it is that the Northern people hate him so, but they do, and will never get over their feeling in that respect. Davis did no worse than anybody else, but I suppose the people are bound to have somebody to hate. For instance, the Southern people hate General Butler about as bad or worse than the Northerners hate Davis. I suppose the two sections, while determined to cultivate friendly feelings among the people at large, require something on which to expend the hate that will unavoidably show itself at intervals. So far as the Northern and Southern people are concerned, they are rapidly assimilating, and in a few years they will be one people in fact as well as in name. Put the Southern and Northern soldiers together and you have the strongest element, in a military sense, that could be gotten together for any national purpose. As fighters, they would be invincible. The Southerners are impetuous and will fight quicker and fiercer, but they give out sooner; the Northerners are slower, but they stay longer; they have more endurance, and fight steadier and more stubbornly. In fighting qualities, the South represents France, and the North England. Put the two together and the devil couldn't whip them."
"General, why don't you recommend Jeff Davis for an appointment in Egypt?"
"Oh, I wouldn't do that; anybody but Jeff; I would not indorse Jeff."
"Perhaps it would be a public benefaction to do so?"
"Well, I never viewed it in that light. On second thought, I would gladly indorse Jeff, if he would leave the country."
[CHAPTER XXXIII.]
REMINISCENCES.
Life at the Fifth Avenue Hotel—Ex-President Hayes's Memories—General Meigs's Tribute—Professor Howe on Sherman's School Days—A Visit to the Catskills—Sherman and Joe Johnston—Telling about Resaca—Thinking of the Sea—Marvellous Versatility—General Rosecrans' Reminiscences of Sherman at West Point.
A pleasant view of General Sherman's life in New York was given by Mr. Hiram Hitchcock, of the Fifth Avenue Hotel, at which house Sherman lived before he purchased a home. "He was," said Mr. Hitchcock, "a guest of this house off and on for many years, and as such he naturally became very much beloved by our whole household. After General Grant's funeral was over I spent the evening with General Sherman and he told me of his plans for the future; that he wanted to move quietly from St. Louis and locate in New York. He said that he thought he should enjoy New York very much, and his youngest son was then finishing his course at Yale, and the change would bring him near to New Haven. After that the General arranged by correspondence for his rooms on the parlor floor, Twenty-fifth street side. He came here with Mrs. Sherman and the daughters, and the youngest son used to come in frequently from Yale. At his first after-dinner speech in New York—that at the New England Society dinner—General Sherman referred to having moved to New York, and said that he had gone into winter quarters down at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, where there was good grass and water.
"The General was very particular to have everything arranged to suit Mrs. Sherman. He said that as to himself it did not make very much difference. He was used to roughing it and he could take anything, but he wanted Mrs. Sherman to be very nicely fixed and to have things to her own mind. On the other hand Mrs. Sherman said to me: 'It doesn't make so very much difference about me, but I wish to have the General comfortable. Dear old fellow, he has seen a great deal of roughing it, and I want him to be entirely at ease.' They were very happy and comfortable here during their two years' stay, which began on September 1, 1886, and General Sherman's idea in having a house was mainly to make it pleasanter and more agreeable, if possible, for Mrs. Sherman and the daughters; to give Mrs. Sherman a little more quiet than she could have at a hotel, although she lived very quietly here.
"During the General's residence here he was, of course, a conspicuous figure. He was always genial and affable to every one, very easily approached, and he received and entertained a great many of his old army companions and aided a vast number of them. In fact, no one knows how many army men General Sherman has, first and last, assisted pecuniarily and in various ways, helping them to get positions and giving them advice and encouragement. He used to meet hosts of friends and acquaintances in the hotel. I remember his saying once that he would have to stop shaking hands, for he had lost one nail, and if he didn't quit soon he would lose them all. If he went to the dining-room, people from different parts of the country who knew him would get up and go over to his table and talk to him.
"It was a sort of a reception with him all the time—one continuous reception. He was very democratic in all his movements, and he always dined in the public room.
"The General kept one room for a regular working-room for himself. There he had his desk, a large library, scrap baskets, letter files, etc., and that is where he was in the habit of receiving his friends.
"As for the society side of his life here, Miss Sherman and her father had regular weekly receptions during the season, in the large drawing-room.
"General Sherman was exceedingly particular with reference to financial affairs. There never was a more honest man born than General Sherman. He was particular to pay his bills of every sort in full and to pay them promptly. He could not bear to be in debt. It actually worried him to have a matter stand over for a day. He knew just exactly how his affairs stood every day, and he could not bear to owe a man anything for twenty-four hours. And he was just as honest and frank and faithful in speech and in every other element of his character. He carried his character right on the outside, and it was true blue.
"When he went to his house at No. 75 West Seventy-first street, we kept up our relations with him, and we would occasionally send up some little thing to him. Soon after he moved we sent him a couple of packages, and in acknowledgment he sent us this letter:—
"'75 West Seventy-first St., Sept. 28th, 1888.
Messrs. Hitchcock, Darling & Co., Fifth Avenue Hotel, N. Y.
Dear Sirs:—I am this moment in receipt of two boxes, the contents of which will, I am sure, be most acceptable to self and guests. With profound thanks for past favors, many and heavy, and a hearty wish for your continued prosperity, I am, and always shall be, your grateful debtor,
W. T. Sherman.'
"Whenever the old General would come to this part of the city he would drop in. If he was going to the theatre he would call in before or after the performance—at all hours, in fact, he would come, and between his engagements. He used to sit in this office and chat. He was in this office just after Secretary Windom's death, and was asking about that sad occurrence. The last time he was here was only a night or two before he was taken sick with the fatal cold which was the beginning of his last illness. I went to the door with him and bade him good-night, and he turned and said cheerily, 'Come up, Hitchcock, come up.' I said, 'I'll be up in a few days,' and off he moved in his quick way.
"The General was, as everybody knows, a splendid conversationalist. He had a wonderful fund of anecdote, story and reminiscence, and was a capital story-teller. He was never at a loss for a ready reply.
"This was one of his comments on a story that he was not quite ready to believe. 'Oh, well, you can tell that to the marines, but don't tell it to an old soldier like me.'
"I think there was one very striking peculiarity about General Sherman. Of course we have seen it in different public men, but I think it might be said of Sherman fully as strongly as of any other public man, either in military or civil life, that he was as brave as a lion and as gentle as a woman. When anything touched him it revealed the sympathy of his nature. He was wonderfully kind-hearted.
"If there was an uncompromising patriot anywhere in the country it was General Sherman, and he manifested that in every walk of life, every expression, every look. He was a true hero. He was not only one of the great men, but one of the purest men of his time."
Ex-President Hayes was much affected by the death of Sherman, whom he knew well, though he had not served under him in the army. He said:
"My intimate acquaintance with General Sherman dates only since the war. I had been on friendly terms with him for about twenty-five years. He was so well known to the whole people, and especially to the Union soldiers, that there is hardly any reason for off-hand talk about him. There are probably few men who ever lived in any country who were known and loved as General Sherman was. He was the idol of the soldiers of the Union Army. His presence at soldiers' meetings and with soldiers' societies and organizations was always hailed with the utmost delight. When the General was present the enthusiasm created by his inspiring presence was such as to make him the chief attraction at all important gatherings. He was always cordial and very happy in his greetings to his comrades. He was full of the comrade spirit, and all, from the humblest soldier to the corps commander, were equally gratified by the way in which they were met and greeted by General Sherman.
"He will be greatly missed and greatly mourned by the whole body of men who served with and under him, and, indeed, by all the soldiers of all the armies. He was generally regarded by them as the military genius of the war. He was a voluminous writer, and a ready, prompt and capital talker. Probably no man who was connected with the war said as many things which will be remembered and quoted hereafter as did General Sherman.
"In figure, in face and in bearing he was the ideal soldier. I think that it can be said of him as he once said of another, that 'with him gone, the world seems less bright and less cheerful than it was before.' The soldiers in looking around for consolation for his death will find much in the fact that he lived so long—almost twenty-six years after the final victory. There is also probably some consolation in the fact that he has gone before age and disease had impaired his wonderful powers and attractions. He was, in short, the most picturesque, magnetic and original character in the great conflict. He was occasionally, in his writings and talk, wonderfully pathetic. I recall nothing connected with the war that was finer in that way than a letter which he wrote, probably during the second year of the war, when his son, about ten years old, who was named after the General, died in camp. The boy fancied that he belonged to a regiment of his father's command, and the members of the regiment were very attentive to him during his sickness, and at the time of his death. General Sherman wrote a letter to the men of the regiment, thanking them for what they had done. I cannot now recall the terms of that letter, but I doubt not that if it were now published many an eye would moisten as it was read.
"A very noble trait in the character of General Sherman was the fidelity of his friendships. His loyal support of Grant under all the circumstances cannot be surpassed in all the history of the relations between eminent men engaged in a common cause."
"I recall a telegram received from General Sherman one November day in 1864," said General W. S. Rosecrans, "while I was in the Department of the Missouri. The telegram read: 'I start to-day for Atlanta and will make Rome howl.'
"And he did it, too," continued General Rosecrans. "I had known General Sherman since 1838, although I was not thrown much with him in service. In 1850 he was paying court to Miss Ewing, and after their engagement he came all the way to Newport to invite me to the wedding.
"I had always been a great admirer of General Sherman. His character as a man was one to command admiration. Of course it is difficult to select for comment thereon any particular passage of a life that was so busy and so full of great deeds."
General Meigs said: "The first time I met General Sherman was on the return of McDowell's army. I called on him at his headquarters across the river from Bull Run. Sherman at that time was in the prime of life, and the measure I then took of him has been fully justified. His nature was naturally genial and democratic, notwithstanding his West Point training.
"While we were talking, an enlisted man—an Irish soldier—approached, and in rich Irish brogue asked the General to put his finger in the muzzle of his gun to see that it was clean. Sherman tried to put him off, but the Irishman insisted, when, to get rid of him, Sherman complied and laughingly remarked: 'Now go off and mind your business.'
"Previous to the war he had served on the Cherokee Commission, and his experience at that time, he afterward told me, was valuable, as the Cherokee reservation was located in a large portion of the country through which he subsequently travelled with his army. Even while in Washington he was continually exploring the country, and in a very short time had its topography thoroughly mapped in his mind. I may say that there never was a great general—and Sherman certainly ranks among the greatest—who did not possess this invaluable faculty, which Marmont, in his treatise on the service of war, says enables a man not only to see what lies directly before him but what lies far beyond the scope of his vision. Another valuable trait he possessed was that he reached his conclusions promptly and then acted upon them. More than one general failed to achieve greatness in the Union army because he hesitated when he should have acted.
"General Sherman socially was one of the most charming of men. If he was brilliant on the field of battle, in the social circle he was the prince of entertainers. His manhood was symmetrical, his talents as a general of the first rank and his fame immortal."
Professor W. P. Howe, of Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, a son of Sherman's old schoolmaster, wrote as follows in the Iowa State Register:
"My father had the high privilege of very largely moulding the character and the career of General Sherman, as well as the destiny of many others who afterwards became distinguished in the history of our beloved country. General Sherman and Senator John Sherman were both students under my father's care and instruction for several years, at the high school and female seminary located at Lancaster, Ohio. My father, the late Professor Samuel L. Howe, was for many years the principal of said academy, and here, in the above quiet little village, was the family home of the Shermans. Mrs. Sherman, the mother, was at the time a widow, living a quiet and secluded life, but a woman of great force of character, and determined that her children should have the fullest opportunity for mental and moral development. My father fitted young Sherman for West Point, and was careful and thorough to the last degree in everything pertaining to his profession. But he was especially devoted to the inculcation of moral principle, heart culture, in the minds of his pupils. He constantly instilled these great essential principles into the receptive minds of the young men under his care with all the power at his command. And when love failed to accomplish the work, then physical discipline was called in. Now the Sherman boys were proud, high-spirited fellows, like most American lads, and often wanted their own way, and at one time the government of the academy depended upon who should rule, they or their teacher. Being duly informed, the widow Sherman attended the college in person and said the proper correction should be administered under her own eye,—and it was thus given, but I have often heard my good father say that the boys gave him a long and severe struggle, and that his clothing was badly torn and disarranged in the contest. But here was General Sherman's first great and grand lesson in discipline; a lesson no doubt, which proved of immense value to him during the remainder of life. From this time forward the boys were the models of the school, and occupied the front rank both in moral and mental leadership.
"Brigadier-General Stone, who commanded a brigade in the Fifteenth Army Corps in 1864, submitted for publication some personal reminiscences of General Sherman. In one of these interviews, he (Sherman) paid the following just and generous tribute to his old teacher:
"'General Stone, I consider Prof. Samuel L. Howe to be one of the best teachers in the United States. I owe more to him for my first start in life than to any other man in America.'
"Any teacher, any family, might well be proud of a tribute like the above, coming from such an exalted source, and very truthfully may I add to the above that during all of his life General Sherman entertained the highest regard for, and ever manifested a lively and affectionate interest in, his venerated teacher and his family.
"In the year 1877 my revered and honored father departed this life at Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, and perhaps the following autograph letter from General Sherman, written to me in reference to that event, may still more clearly illustrate the affectionate and lovable side of that great man's character:—
"'Headquarters U. S. Army, Washington, D. C.,
April 26th, 1877.Warrington Howe, Esq.
"'Dear Friend:—I have received your letter, with the newspaper slip containing the full and just tribute to your father, the late Samuel L. Howe. I regret extremely that in my perambulations over this great country of late years, I never had the chance to meet your father, which I wanted to do. And now, though forty long and eventful years have passed since I left his school at Lancaster, Ohio, I can recall his personal appearance to mind as clearly as though it were yesterday. I have always borne willing testimony to his skill and merits as a teacher, and am sure that the thorough modes of instruction in arithmetic and grammar pursued by him prepared me for easy admission to West Point, and for a respectable standing in my class. I have heard from time to time of the changes that attended his useful career, and am glad to learn that he has left behind the flourishing academy at Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, with children qualified to take up his work where he left off, and carry it to completion.
"'I beg you will convey to your mother the assurance of my great respect and sympathy in her great affliction. I recall her also to memory; a young mother, living in the house of "Papa" Boyle, close by the school-house built by Mr. Howe in the old orchard, and it is hard for me to realize that she is now a widow and a grandmother. I feel sure, however, that Mr. Howe has left behind him hundreds and thousands that revere his memory, and will perpetuate it by deeds and virtues which his example and precept suggested. Truly your friend,
'W. T. Sherman.'
"The above letter has been preserved by me with religious care during all these years, and will be so long as life shall last. In a few brief closing words permit me to say that the high privilege of having moulded and directed such a character as that of General Sherman—a character which has so eminently honored our country and blessed the age in which we live—is a matter of honorable and just pride to any man and family and a constant source of inspiration to high and noble living."
Mr. Charles F. Wingate said of Sherman, as he knew him near the end of his life:
"I had heard General Sherman at the famous dinner given many years ago, at the St. Nicholas Hotel, where General Grant, Henry Ward Beecher, Lawrence Barrett and Joseph Howard, Jr., also made memorable speeches, but I never came in personal contact with the hero of the March to the Sea, until the summer of 1889, when he made a too brief visit to Twilight Park, in the Catskills. He had been staying at the Mountain House, I think, and rode over with two ladies of his family to call upon some friends in the Park, so that I had an opportunity of talking freely with him. My previous impressions were all upset by this experience. Instead of the hard-featured, grim martinet, depicted in his photographs, loquacious, opinionated and over-bearing, whom I expected to see, the great General impressed me as almost handsome, with fine, courtly, dignified bearing, affable, unpretentious, kind-hearted and without the slightest trace of vanity or egotism. I watched him critically during his entire stay, and was unable to detect any sign of self-consciousness. He seemed as natural, as warm-hearted and as simple as a child. He greeted everybody with cordiality, and made us all feel at ease in his company.
"There was a group of carpenters—all native Americans—working upon a new cottage near by, who were naturally anxious to see the General, especially as some of them had served in the war. He went over to meet them in the frankest manner, and when an old veteran, some seventy years of age, said to him, 'I am glad to see you, General,' Sherman responded in his hearty manner, I know you're glad to see me and I'm glad to see you, too,' and he shook hands with the delighted workman in true democratic fashion.
"His remarkable vigor was shown by the quietness with which he mounted a steep stairway leading to a cottage on a hillside. The exertion did not affect him in the least and he seemed the youngest and most alert of the party. When offered some refreshment on the piazza, he raised his glass and, glancing around, said, 'Gentlemen, in the famous words of John Phenix, I impair my own health by drinking yours.' While seated there, he told many interesting anecdotes of famous men whom he met—Lincoln, Grant, Von Moltke, Bismarck and others. He did not monopolize the conversation and only spoke of his experience in response to questions. One of the gentlemen present had been connected with the United States Sanitary Commission, and this fact suggested some of the topics touched upon. Reference was made to the horrors of war and the difficult position of a commander who has to order an assault which he knows will lead to great sacrifice of life. Sherman replied that such matters become a necessity, and are part of the soldier's business, however trying. Personal feelings cannot be considered on such occasions.
"As we left the cottage, he turned and looked around, saying, with a characteristic laugh, 'How are the points of the compass here? I am an old campaigner and like to know the exact location of places where I have been entertained, so that I can find them again.'
"I was anxious that my boy, who was off fishing, should see the hero of the war, at the impressionable age of youth, and he fortunately came up just then with a son of MacGahan, the famous war correspondent in the Balkans. Sherman had known the latter intimately, having traveled 500 miles in his company during his Russian journey. He greeted both boys in a fatherly fashion, and at my request gave each of them a visiting card as a memento of the meeting. Presently I ventured to say:
"'General, these youngsters have no conception of a commander doing anything but prancing around in full uniform, on a fiery steed, or leading charges sword in hand, and cutting down a score of fellows with his own hand. Won't you tell them if you ever did any actual fighting like Cæsar and Alexander, and how many hundred men you have killed?'
"Sherman laughed good-naturedly, and patting the boys on the head said that he was usually away from the thick of the fighting, and he only remembered once engaging personally in it. He and his staff were under fire, and he noticed one man on the other side who seemed to be in plain view, and who was peppering them as fast as he could load and fire. Acting upon a sudden impulse Sherman turned to a Union soldier standing near by, and seizing his rifle took a snap-shot at the Rebel, who disappeared, 'and that,' said Sherman, 'was the only time I ever shot any one.'
SHERMAN SENTIMENTS APPROVED.
"Reference being made to his Russian visit, he related an account of a grand reception which he attended in St. Petersburg, where he was introduced to two charming ladies who spoke English, and invited him to call at their residence. To his dismay, Sherman could not find any card or scrap of paper to set down the address, so he gallantly wrote it on his white glove.
"'It was one of those regular Russian names—two coughs and a sneeze,' he explained, 'and I never could have remembered it otherwise.'
"And so the hour passed pleasantly until the carriage returned, and the hero drove off with his companions, leaving a delightful impression upon all who had met him. These may seem trifling incidents, but they picture the defender of the Republic as he appeared in familiar intercourse toward the close of his remarkable career. Only a month before his death I received a note written in his neat chirography apologizing for his failure to attend the annual dinner of the Twilight Club, to which he had been especially invited. There is a certain quaintness in the abbreviations and a stately sweep in the signature which suggests Washington's letters. It is a model of easy courtesy:
"'Dear Sir: I thank you for your kind remembrance and invitation for the 8th inst. of your Twilight Club, and regret that during my two weeks' absence at Washington and Phila., from which I have just returned, my factotum has committed me to more engagements next week than I can fulfil. With best compliments to Yr. brother, I am sincerely yours,
Wm. T. Sherman.'
"Other and far less occupied men will ignore or forget such matters, but General Sherman was punctilious in the performance of the smallest duty."
Some interesting personal reminiscences of Sherman, beginning at the end of the war, were given by a writer in the New York Evening Post. "The first time I remember seeing Sherman near at hand," he said, "was at the grand review at Washington in May, 1865, when, dismounting from his horse at the grand stand as his army marched by, he ascended the steps to meet the President and Cabinet. My seat was close by, so that I could almost touch him as he passed up, and I can never forget his firm, vigorous step, still less the nervous quivering of his lip and the bristling up of his tawny moustache as he met Secretary Stanton, who had treated him so roughly about Johnston's capitulation. He drew back as Stanton stood ready to extend his hand and, bowing slightly, took his seat. It reminded me of a tiger-cat or lion meeting an enemy and ready to spring at his throat. There is no question that Sherman, though a generous enemy, was a good hater.
"The next occasion which brings him to mind is my return from Florida in 1870, when I met an ante-bellum acquaintance, Col. Archie Cole. He had been on Lieut.-Gen. Joe Johnston's staff, and told me, in grandiloquent language, of the plans they had concocted for trapping and destroying Sherman at Atlanta, which he said would have changed the whole result of the war. These plans, he boasted, were only disturbed by Jefferson Davis's appointment of Hood in the place of Johnston. I heard the story without much accepting it, but did accept Col. Cole's invitation to meet Gen. Joe Johnston at his rooms at a Savannah hotel, where, accordingly, I encountered the great rebel, and got from him a pretty strong confirmation of the idea, then prevailing among Gen. McClellan's friends, that he (McClellan), having the ironclad Merrimac on his flank at Norfolk, was fully justified by military axioms in going to Yorktown instead of taking the James River base before the wonderful Monitor met and repulsed the Confederate ram.
"I did not ask Johnston about his proposed capture of Sherman, but on my way North met and sat by the latter at Wm. H. Aspinwall's dinner party, in New York, given to General Sherman, two or three days after I had seen Johnston and his staff officer at Savannah. Among others, there was present a rebel, from Richmond, perhaps a Major-General, who was then making iron at the Tredegar Works. In a pause in the conversation I said to General Sherman: 'I have just been South, where I saw your old opponent, Joe Johnston, and had a talk with him and one of his staff officers; the latter thought you were in a very tight place at Atlanta, and that Johnston's removal changed the whole history of the war. I suppose when General Johnston was removed by Jeff. Davis, you must have been mighty glad to see him replaced by an inferior, mad-cap soldier like Hood? How was it?' 'Well,' said the General, with his usual frankness, 'of course I was glad to lose Johnston from my front, but it really made no great difference in the long run, and one day, when Johnston (who had been at West Point with me) and I were sitting under a shade tree in North Carolina, waiting to hear whether his terms of capitulation were ratified by Grant, I said, "Tell me, Joe, did it make any difference, except a few days, more or less in time, and some bloodshed? We had beaten you then, and, with the pick of the Northern armies at my elbow, you could not long have stopped our march." Johnston readily acceded to that,' said Sherman, 'and that was the simple truth and all there was to it.'
"Finding him ready, as usual, to speak out, notwithstanding his having the rebel Major-General sitting opposite, I said, 'I saw too, General, what they call down there "Sherman's monuments"—blackened chimneys and ruins—painting you as quite a monster of cruelty.' The General's face grew grave, and he tersely said, the company all attention now, 'I'll just tell you the only case when I hesitated to push discipline and punish my officers for wilful destruction. Of course marauders and camp-followers burned, robbed, and committed outrages we could not always reach, but the one other case was this. One day Colonel ---- of the —— th Ohio, was brought to headquarters under arrest for burning a plantation house. On being questioned he said:
"'Well, General, I have no defence to make; shoot me, but hear my story first. (He was not a literary fellow, and did not put into Latin "Strike but hear.") Escaping from prison some time ago, I was caught by bloodhounds and d—— d rebels, and brought to this plantation house; while I lay there, torn and bleeding, the owner came out and kicked and cursed me, and I swore if I lived I would pay him off. I have gone and done it, and am now ready for a file of men and muskets to square my accounts.'
"'What,' said Sherman, 'could I do? I had to pass it by quietly; but that was the only case when I forgave such a breach of the orders only to burn buildings under certain exigencies of war.' All this was said earnestly, but without exaggeration, and I shall not soon forget his face and the withering look he cast at our vis-á-vis rebel, who sat and took the medicine like a good enough fellow, as he really was.
"The last time I saw General Sherman was when Porter brought him, in the Tallapoosa, to Cape Cod and stood next to him at a deer hunt. The General was brimming over with the enjoyment of his holiday, and when at night the boys and girls sang his old war songs, I thought they would never get him back to the ship."
One evening, it is related, General Sherman went into a club of which he was an honorary member. At that time a hot Presidential campaign was going on and the subject most warmly discussed at the club that evening was politics. When the General entered the room there was a spontaneous cry for his opinion. General Sherman was not a politician, and he said that he would rather not say anything about the campaign. But he told a story, and it was a good story—a military tale which described a driving charge in the face of shot and shell. This story was about the battle of Resaca, and when it was ended a young man went up to General Sherman and asked him what the battle of Resaca was. For a moment General Sherman was taken back. "Resaca," he said, "don't you know about Resaca?" Then, while every one was waiting to shake hands with him or to get a word with him, he stood in one corner with the young man and spent fifteen minutes in telling him all about Resaca. Meanwhile his many friends stood about waiting for him to end his conversation with the young man, to whom the General had never before spoken.
Sherman once remarked, in conversation with a friend, that a woman had asked him how he felt when he got ready to make his great march to the sea. The General had a wonderful smile, which spoke volumes. He looked afar off, and then turning quickly said: "When she asked me what I thought, I said to her that I thought of the sea."
Colonel L. M. Dayton, who served on Sherman's staff during the war, said that what struck him most in the General's character was his versatility. "I cannot help believing," he said, "that as a general he was greater than any other the war produced. He planned a campaign to its uttermost limit before he began active operations. For instance, in the Vicksburg campaign, while General Grant might not have figured out his movements beyond the actual capture of that city itself, General Sherman in his place would have outlined clearly what he would do with his men after the siege and what disposition he would make of the baggage and siege guns.
"When we started out from Atlanta on the march to the sea nobody knew what our objective point on the Atlantic coast was except a few members of the staff and the authorities at Washington. Everybody else simply knew that we were going to march across Georgia to the coast. When General Sherman reached Savannah, which of course was all along known to the authorities as our objective point, he was greatly surprised to find that a gunboat had been despatched down the coast to meet him there. The captain of this gunboat had succeeded in ascending Ossabaw Sound and the Ogeechee River, which lies just back of Savannah, and made instant communication with the General. An important official document which had been brought down in this way was handed to General Sherman in my presence. When he received it he got excited and seemed vexed about something. I noticed his color rising and a look of irritation in his eye as well as the nervous motion of the left arm which characterized him when anything annoyed him. It seemed, for instance, as if he was pushing something away from him.
"'Come here, Dayton,' said he, and we went into the inner room of the building where he made his headquarters. As soon as we got inside he began to swear, and I could see that he was greatly opposed to the suggestions that had apparently been contained in the document. 'I won't do it,' he would say to himself several times over; 'I won't do anything of the kind.'
"The document was an official order from Secretary Stanton, approved by General Grant, for General Sherman to wait with his army at Savannah for transports which had been sent down the coast to convey them by sea to the mouth of the James, and then to ascend that river to co-operate with Grant. General Sherman had all along intended to march his army up the coast, across country, and he sat down at once and wrote a letter to General Grant explaining to him why he was opposed to taking a sea voyage with his men; how he thought such an experience would demoralize them with sea-sickness, confinement in close quarters and lack of exercise, and how he had decided to take all the responsibility and march them up by land, in accordance with his original plans. He said he would be at Goldsboro, N. C., on the 21st day of March, 1865, and that if any other orders were sent to him there they would reach him promptly. So closely did he calculate that on the 23d of March he was in possession of Goldsboro.
"As Sherman had at that time practically an army of a hundred thousand men, which could easily annihilate any opposition he might meet with on his march, the wisdom of his course was at once apparent to the authorities, and no attempt was made to interfere with his execution of his plans. As a matter of fact he did encounter Joe Johnston on the way up the coast and defeated him at Bentonville. That, I believe, was his last battle. No other general would have dared to do what Sherman did in this instance. The boldness of his military genius and his keen insight into the future were admirably illustrated by it."
General Rosecrans, who has already been quoted, had many reminiscences of Sherman, beginning with his cadet days at West Point, which school he entered two years later than Sherman. To Mr. Frank G. Carpenter, the well known writer, General Rosecrans said:
"Sherman was two classes above me, but he was one of the most popular and brightest fellows in the academy. I remember him as a bright-eyed, red-headed fellow who was always prepared for a lark of any kind, and who usually had grease spots on his pants. These spots came from our clandestine midnight feasts, at which Sherman usually made the hash. He was considered the best hash maker at West Point, and this in our day was a great honor. The food given the cadets then was furnished by contract. It was cheap and poor, and I sometimes think that the only meals we relished were our midnight hash lunches. We prepared for them by slipping boiled potatoes into our handkerchiefs when at the table and hiding these away inside our vests. One of us would steal a lump of butter during a meal, and by poking it into a glove we could fasten it by means of a fork driven into the under part of the table and keep it there until we got ready to leave. In addition to this we would steal a little bit of bread, and some of the boys had in some way or another got hold of stew-pans. After the materials were gotten, one of the boys who had a retired room where there was least danger of discovery would whisper invitations to the rest to meet him that night for a hash feast. When we got there Sherman would mash the potatoes and mix them with pepper, salt and butter in such a way as to make a most appetizing dish. This he would cook in the stew-pan over the fire. We had grates in those days, and when it was done we would eat it sizzling hot on our bread, which we had toasted. As we did so we would tell stories and have a jolly good time, and Sherman was one of the best story-tellers of the lot. He was by no means a goody-goody boy, and he was one of those fellows who used to go down to Benny Haven's of a dark night, at the risk of expulsion, to eat oysters and drink beer.
"Not long ago, while General of the army, he went to West Point, and, in company with the commandant of cadets, made an inspection tour of the barracks. He was'nt looking for contraband goods, but he got to talking about our old school days at West Point, and he said: 'When I was a cadet one of the considerations was as to what we were to do with our cooking utensils and other things during our summer vacations, and we used to hide our things in the chimney during the summer months. I wonder if the boys do so still.' This visit was made during the month of June, and when Sherman said this he was in one of the cadet's rooms. As he spoke he went to the fire-place and stuck his cane up the chimney. As he did so a frying pan, an empty bottle, a suit of citizen's clothes and a board which had been stretched across the chimney came flying down, and the cadets who occupied the room were thunder-struck. General Sherman laughed, and telling the commandant not to report the young men, he went to another room.
"Sherman," continued Gen. Rosecrans, "stood sixth in his class at West Point, and he was very high in mathematics. He could have taken the honors, but he did not care for study, and he was blunt in his ways. He had no policy or diplomacy about him, and if one of the professors asked him to do a problem he would blurt out at times, 'I can't do it.' 'Why?' the professor would ask. 'Well, sir, to be frank with you, I haven't studied it.' Nevertheless, he stood so well as an honest, bright student that he was never punished for such remarks, but his carelessness, of course, cut down his average."
[CHAPTER XXXIV.]
SHERMAN'S OWN WORDS.
Speech At a Clover Club Dinner—A Famous New England Society Dinner—Teaching Geography in Georgia—Speaking for the United States—Old Times in Ohio—At a Grand Army National Encampment—Why He did not March to Augusta—One of His Last Letters—A Story of Grant—Congratulations to President Harrison.
General Sherman displayed his marked ability as a letter-writer early in life, as a lad at West Point. To the end of his days he wielded the same vigorous and trenchant pen. Nor was he less effective as a speaker. The graces of oratory, as taught in schools, he did not aspire to display. His eloquence was of a more impressive type than that; it was the eloquence of a man of action. Ideas were plenty in his fertile brain, and, as an omnivorous reader he had acquired a vast vocabulary. When he arose to speak, therefore, he had but one thing to do: to express his thoughts in words with the same directness and vigor with which he would, on occasion, have wrought them out in deeds. He was a spirited and dramatic story-teller, and his fund of anecdotes seemed inexhaustible. "Stage-fright" was of course unknown to him, though the circumstances of his speaking affected him much.
Some years before his death, it is related, he was a guest at a Clover Club dinner, in Philadelphia. This Clover Club was composed of newspaper men, authors, artists, etc., and its ruling idea was non-formality. No guest was too eminent to be exempt from practical jokes and guying. So when General Sherman rose to speak, having been called upon, he was greeted by a storm of applause. This applause was renewed whenever he attempted to open his mouth, until at last, surprised, indignant and hurt, he shut his teeth together like a sprung rat-trap and sat down. A moment later the Club struck up the tune "Marching Through Georgia," and they all joined in the song with a will. As the ringing words of that song filled the hall and the compliment contained in them went into the heart of the old warrior, he saw that the joking was all good-natured. He grew mellow again, and as he looked about the board and saw good-fellowship, good-nature and admiration in every countenance, the tears came to his eyes and he rose and made one of the best speeches that has ever been delivered before them. He made his speech without interruption, and the applause which followed it at the end was genuine enough and not facetious.
One of Sherman's most notable and most characteristic speeches was made at the dinner of the New England Society, in New York, on December 22d, 1886. It was as follows:—
Mr. President and Gentlemen of the New England Society of New York.—Were I to do the proper thing, I would turn to my friend on the left and say amen, for he has drawn a glorious picture of the War, in language stronger than even I or my friend Schofield could dare to use. But looking over the Society to-night, so many young faces here, so many old and loved ones gone—I feel almost as one of your forefathers. [Laughter and applause.] Many and many a time have I been welcomed among you. I came from a bloody civil war to New York in years gone by—twenty or twenty-one, may be—and a committee came to me in my room and dragged me unwillingly before the then New England Society of New York, and they received me with such hearty applause and such kindly greetings that my heart goes out to you now to-night as their representatives. [Applause.] God knows, I wish you, one and all, all the blessings of life, and enjoyment of the good things you now possess and others yet in store for you, young men.
"I hope not to occupy more than a few minutes of your time, for last night I celebrated the same event in Brooklyn, and at about two or three o'clock this morning I saw this hall filled with lovely ladies waltzing [laughter,] and here I am to-night. [Renewed laughter. A voice—You're a rounder, General.] But I shall ever, ever recur to the early meetings of the New England Society, in which I shared with a pride and satisfaction which words will not express, and I hope the few words I now say will be received in the kindly spirit they are made in, be they what they may, for the call upon me is sudden and somewhat unexpected.
"I have no toast. I am a loafer. [Laughter.] I can choose to say what I may—not tied by any text or formula. I know when you look upon old General Sherman, as you seem to call him [Oh, oh!]—pretty young yet, my friends—not all the devil out of me yet, and I hope still to share with you many a festive occasion—whenever you may assemble, wherever the sons of New England may assemble, be it here under this Delmonico roof or in Brooklyn, or even in Boston, I will try to be there. [Applause.]
"My friends, I have had many, many experiences, and it always seems to me easier to recur to some of them when I am on my feet, for they come back to me like the memory of a dream, pleasant to think of. And now to-night, I know the Civil War is uppermost in your minds, although I would banish it as a thing of trade, something too common to my calling: yet I know it pleases the audience to refer to little incidents here and there of the great Civil War, in which I took an humble part. [Applause.] But I remember, one day away down in Georgia, somewhere between, I think, Milledgeville and Milan, I was riding on a good horse and had some friends along with me to keep good fellowship, you know. [Laughter.] A pretty humorous party, clever good fellows. [Renewed laughter.] Riding along, I spied a plantation. I was thirsty, rode up to the gate and dismounted. One of these men with sabres by their side, called orderlies, stood by my horse. I walked up on the porch, where there was an old gentleman, probably sixty years of age, white-haired and very gentle in his manners—evidently a planter of the higher class. I asked him if he would be kind enough to give me some water. He called a boy, and soon he had a bucket of water with a dipper. I then asked for a chair, and called one or two of my officers. Among them was, I think, Dr. John Moore, who recently has been made Surgeon-General of the Army, for which I am very grateful—even to Mr. Cleveland. [Laughter and applause.] He sat on the porch, and the old man held the bucket up to me, and I took a long drink of water and may have lighted a cigar [laughter], and it is possible I may have had a little flask of whiskey along. [Renewed laughter.]
"At all events, I got into a conversation; and the troops drifted along, passing down the roadway closely by fours, and every regiment had its banner, regimental or national, sometimes furled and sometimes afloat. The old gentleman says: 'General, what troops are these passing now?'
As the color-bearer came by, I said: "Throw out your colors. That is the 73d Iowa."
"The 73d Iowa! 73d Iowa! Iowa! 73d! What do you mean by 73d?"
"Well," said I, "habitually a regiment when organized, amounts to 1,000 men."
"Do you pretend to say Iowa has sent 73,000 men into this cruel Civil War?" [Laughter.]
"Why, my friend, I think that may be inferred."
"Well," says he, "Where's Iowa?" [Laughter.]
"Iowa is a State bounded on the east by the Mississippi, on the South by Missouri, on the west by unknown country, and on the north by the North Pole."
"Well," says he, "73,000 men from Iowa? You must have a million men."
Says I: "I think about that."
Presently another regiment came along.
"What may that be?"
I called to the color-bearer: "Throw out your colors and let us see," and it was the 17th or 19th—I have forgotten which—Wisconsin.
"Wisconsin! Northwest Territory! Wisconsin! Is it spelled with an O or a W?"
"Why, we spell it now with a W. It used to be spelled 'Ouis.'"
"The 17th! that makes 17,000 men?"
"Yes, I think there are a good many more than that. Wisconsin has sent about 30,000 men into the war."
Then again came along another regiment from Minnesota.
"Minnesota! My God! where is Minnesota? [Laughter] Minnesota!"
"Minnesota is away up on the sources of the Mississippi River, a beautiful territory, too, by the way—a beautiful State."
"A State?"
"Yes, has Senators in Congress, good ones, too. They're very fine men—very fine troops."
"How many men has she sent to this cruel war?"
"Well, I don't exactly know; somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 men, probably. Don't make any difference—all we want." [Laughter.]
"Well," says he, "now we must have been a set of fools to throw down the gage of battle to a country we didn't know the geography of! [Laughter and applause.] When I went to school that was the Northwest Territory, and the Northwest Territory—well," says he, "we looked upon that as away off, and didn't know anything about it. Fact is, we didn't know anything at all about it."
Said I: "My friend, think of it a moment. Down here in Georgia, one of the original thirteen States which formed this great Union of this country, you have stood fast. You have stood fast while the great Northwest has been growing with a giant's growth. Iowa to-day, my friend, contains more railroads, more turnpikes, more acres of cultivated land, more people, more intelligence, more schools, more colleges—more of everything which constitutes a refined and enlightened State—than the whole State of Georgia."
"My God!" says the man, "it's awful. I didn't dream of that."
"Well," says I, "look here, my friend, I was once a banker, and I have some knowledge of notes and indorsements, and so forth. Did you ever have anything to do with indorsements?"
Says he: "Yes, I have had my share. I have a factor down in Savannah, and I give my note and he indorses it and I get the money somehow or other. I have to pay it in the end, on the crop."
"Well," says I, "now look here. In 1861, the Southern States had 4,000,000 slaves as property, for which the States of Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and so forth were indorsers. We were on the bond. Your slaves were protected by the same law which protects land and other property. Now, you got mad at them because they didn't think exactly as you did about religion and about that thing and t'other thing; and like a set of fools you first took your bond and drew your name through the indorsers'. Do you know what the effect will be? You will never get paid for those niggers at all. [Laughter.] They are gone. They're free men now.
"Well," says he, "we were the greatest set of fools that ever were in the world." [Laughter.]
"And so I saw one reconstructed man in the good State of Georgia before I left it. [Laughter and applause.]
"Yes, my friends, in those days things looked gloomy to us, but the decree came from a higher power. No pen, no statesman, in fact, no divine could have solved the riddle which bound us at that time; nothing but the great God of War. And you and your fathers, your ancestors, if you please, of whom I profess to be one [applause], had to resort to the great Arbiter of Battles, and call upon Jove himself. And now all men in America, north and south and east and west, stand free before the tribunal of the Almighty, each man to work out his own destiny according to his ability, and according to his virtue, and according to his manhood. [Applause.] I assure you that we who took part in that war were kindly men. We did not wish to kill. We did not wish to strike a blow. I know that I grieved as much as any man when I saw pain and sorrow and affliction among the innocent and distressed, and when I saw burning and desolation. But it was an incident of war, and was forced upon us—forced upon us by men influenced by a bad ambition, not by the men who owned those slaves, but by politicians who used that as a pretext, and forced you and your fathers and me and others who sit near me, to take up arms and settle the controversy once and forever. [Cries of "good," and loud applause.]
"Now, my friends of New England, we all know what your ancestors are recorded to have been; mine were of a kindred stock. Both my parents were from Norfolk, Conn. I think and feel like you. I, too, was taught the alphabet with blows, and all the knowledge I possessed before I went to West Point was spanked into me by the ferule of those old schoolmasters. [Laughter.] I learned my lesson well, and I hope that you, sons of New England, will ever stand by your country and its flag, glory in the achievements of your ancestors, and forever—and to a day beyond forever, if necessary—giving you time to make the journey to your last resting-place—honor your blood, honor your forefathers, honor yourselves, and treasure the memories of those who have gone before you." [Enthusiastic applause.]
At the New York Chamber of Commerce dinner, on November 20, 1888, General Sherman responded to the toast. "The United States—with an educated community and patriotic people her success will continue to be commensurate with her opportunities and her power coextensive with her vast domain." He said:
"Mr. President and Gentlemen—When I first received your invitation I felt almost overwhelmed at the idea of being brought into the presence of the old merchants of New York, who guide the destinies of your city. Every man who loves his country, or who professes to do so, honors the merchant, the far-seeing man of affairs, who takes the whole universe into his calculations, and brings here the things we need and sends forth the things that we can spare and sell, and every man who honors the merchant must think with pride of New York, which exercises an influence over civilization, I am inclined to think, second only to London and greater than either Paris, Vienna or Berlin. [Applause.] And I believe, gentlemen, your influence will continue to grow—provided always that you deserve it. [Applause.]"
"When I got the toast, I was somewhat startled. I didn't know whether to take it in its grand sense or in its minor sense, like the motto in the copy-book that we used to pass around in our school-rooms; "Be virtuous and you will be happy." [Laughter.] That is a self-evident proposition, and so is the toast. Nevertheless, I turned to "Cosmos" and thought of Humboldt, and then to Burghaus, and then to my old friend William Gilpin. I don't know whether you know my old friend William Gilpin, but not to know him is to be yourself unknown. [Laughter.] He lectured in London, and he proved to the satisfaction of his small audience that wherever he was was the centre of creation. [Laughter.] I remember him when he lived in St. Louis—and of course that was the centre of the world [laughter], and when he moved up to Independence the world went with him. Finally, President Lincoln made him Governor of Colorado, and the centre of the world was easily transferred to Colorado. [Laughter.] So it was to the Garden of the Gods, when he subsequently went there.
"Well, he was a graduate of West Point and traveled once with me across this continent to San Francisco. Gentlemen, did it ever strike you that when you get to San Francisco you are only half-way across the United States? The Aleutian Islands, which we got with Alaska, extend further toward Asia than the continent of North America does to the east of San Francisco; and that was the fact that startled Gilpin. Every foot of that land, too, we have honestly come by.
"As to Canada, we want no part of that, any more than we do of Mexico. We have enough poor land already. [Laughter.] Our present domain comprises about 3,700,000 square miles, and that is bigger than the civilized domain of any country except Russia. In Belgium and parts of France the population is forty times denser than ours at present; so we see what room we have to grow. I can remember when we used to cross the San Joaquin valley, twenty or thirty years ago, and thought it was a poor, miserable place, because our cattle suffered so in the passage, but now the land is worth there $100 an acre, while I wouldn't have given two cents for 1,000 acres then. [Laughter.]
"But the country is growing in other ways. Up here at Harvard, we have college youths spending $10,000 a year—more than the pay of a Lieutenant-General, by the way [laughter]—and if De Witt Clinton, who is entitled to the credit of building the Erie Canal, the first great artery of internal commerce, were to rise and look around him to-day, he would see many things to surprise him. Among others, he would be startled at the spectacle presented four years ago in these United States, of the election of a man to the Chief Magistracy and the appointment of others in his cabinet, representing the opposition that confronted us twenty years ago in the Civil War, when we fought to save the country. The people submitted to that without one single whimper. [Applause.] But they have again chosen a man of our own style and stamp, and I, for one, say openly that I am glad of it. [Renewed applause.] I am not only proud of Ben Harrison as one of our soldier-boys, but I am glad that in the hour of our danger he stood by the American flag and was true to it."
At an Ohio Society dinner in New York, April 7, 1888, he made this address, on old times in his native State:
"My young friends from Ohio, whilst you bear your honored State in memory, honored memory, never reflect upon others. [Laughter.] There were good men born long before they were in Ohio. [Renewed laughter.] There are a great many good men born in other States out of Ohio. [Continued laughter.] I have encountered them everywhere on this broad continent and in Europe. There seems to be a pretty fair representation of Ohio in this great city of New York, and I claim you have the same right here as the native-born citizens [laughter], not by sufferance but by right; and I hope you will bear in mind that you are citizens of a greater country, the United States of America. [Loud applause.] As your president has well told you in eloquent words to-night, our friends in Marietta are celebrating a past of vast importance in the history of Ohio, and the United States, and of all mankind. One hundred years ago there landed at Marietta that little body whose influence was then felt and is now felt all over the earth's surface; an organized body of men with discipline, seeking to make homes for themselves and their families and to rear up a State, free, where all men could enjoy liberty and the pursuit of happiness in their own way and at their own time. Ohio was the first of the States created; not the first of the thirteen, but it was the child of the Revolution, although the ordinance of 1787 preceded the Constitution by two years. Yet it was made by the same men, breathing the same spirit of freedom and nationality.
"I was born in the town of Lancaster, and I doubt if any town anywhere possessed a larger measure of intelligence for its numbers, about 3,000. There was General Beecher, Henry Stanbury, Thomas Ewing, William Irvine. [A voice—"Tom Corwin.">[ Yes; he belonged in Lebanon, and I knew him well. His name suggests to me something which I am frequently reminded of when I go to Ohio. In these modern times I don't think they're as good as they used to be in those early days. I suppose it is a common weakness with old men to view things in that way. I could recount a great many things about those early days. My memory goes back to 1826. I remember perfectly the election of General Jackson in 1828. I remember the coffin handbills put out by The Cincinnati Gazette to stigmatize Armstrong and Arbuthnot. At that time I belonged to a strict Whig family, and we all thought Jackson a tyrant. I have come to the conclusion in later years that old Jackson was a very clever fellow. There used to be a man in Columbus named Gustavus Swain, and what he didn't know about Ohio nobody did. Ohio had its fun and its serious times, and always bore in mind that they were the first free State northwest of the Ohio. Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Minnesota followed afterward by catching the inspiration from her. [Applause.] It travelled beyond. I went with McCook to Arizona and found our fellows there from Yellow Creek. Everywhere we stopped we met them. They didn't know they were from Ohio, but he convinced them they were. [Laughter.]
"My own father was Judge of the Supreme Court in Ohio when he died in Lebanon, and 'Tom' Corwin was with him then. I remember perfectly well how we were all cast down by the news of his death, sudden and unexpected, with eleven children and a salary of $300 to bring them up on. How that task was ever accomplished I don't know. [Laughter.] You see some of us are still alive. [Renewed laughter.] I am one of those living who, owing to the kindness of his father, stand before you to-night as representative of the State of Ohio. [Applause.] Vive la bagatelle. Enjoy the hour. Take the world as you find it. It will grow vast enough, but I don't know whether it will grow better." [Applause.]
One of his last speeches was made before his Grand Army comrades, at their National Encampment at Milwaukee, August 28, 1889. "Boys," he said, "my speaking days are over. I am not going to make any more speeches. If you want a speech, take Senator Manderson. I think he can make a good speech. I am always glad to see so many soldiers looking hearty and healthy. I think we can stand on our legs yet. I like to see that our old Uncle Sam takes pretty good care of these old soldiers. Uncle Sam cannot make old men young, but he can make young men just as good as you or I ever were. I see that Milwaukee is full of them, and they are coming out of the bushes everywhere. If you think you are the only old soldiers, you are mistaken. There were old soldiers before you, and there will be again. Such is the providence of the world. Just as good men were born a thousand years ago and will be born a thousand years hence. All we have to do is to do our parts in this short period of life honorably and honestly. I think we can pass the grand tribunal and say, 'We have tried to do our best,' and the sentence will be, 'Well done.'
"We have passed through one crisis of our country's history. I don't see any chance of another, but nobody knows the future. Bring up your children to love and venerate the old soldiers who fought in 1861 and 1865, and make them uncover their heads when they see that little banner that you followed in the days which tried us to the utmost. Let us venerate that flag and love our country and love each other, and stand by each other, as long as we have heads on our shoulders and legs on our bodies. These old soldiers who marched against the enemy in those trying days, a grateful country tries its best to assist, and will, I think—in fact, I am sure—be good to you when you get too old, all that is necessary. But keep young as long as you can, and do not go into a soldiers' home if you can help it."
At about this time he wrote to the editor of The Chronicle, at Augusta, Georgia, this letter, in reply to the question why he did not, on his great march through Georgia, go to that city instead of Savannah:
"My Dear Sir: I am just back from a visit to my daughter, who resides at Rosemont, near Philadelphia, and find your letter of the 18th.
"The 'March to the Sea,' from Atlanta was resolved on after Hood had got well on his way to Nashville. I then detached to General Thomas a force sufficient to whip Hood, which he, in December, 1864, very handsomely and conclusively did. Still I had left a very respectable army, and resolved to join Grant at Richmond. The distance was 1,000 miles, and prudence dictated a base at Savannah or Port Royal. Our enemies had garrisons at Macon and Augusta. I figured on both and passed between to Savannah. Then starting northward, the same problem presented itself in Augusta and Charleston. I figured on both, but passed between. I did not want to drive out their garrisons ahead of me at the crossings of the Santee, Catawba, Pedee, Cape Fear, etc. The moment I passed Columbia the factories, powder mills and the old stuff accumulated at Augusta were lost to the only two Confederate armies left—Lee's and Hood's. So if you have a military mind, you will see I made a better use of Augusta than if I had captured it with all its stores, for which I had no use. I used Augusta twice as a buffer; its garrison was just where it helped me. If the people of Augusta think I slighted them in the winter of 1864-'65 by reason of personal friendship formed in 1844, they are mistaken; or if they think I made a mistake in strategy, let them say so, and with the President's consent I think I can send a detachment of 100,000 or so of 'Sherman's bummers' and their descendants, who will finish up the job without charging Uncle Sam a cent. The truth is, these incidents come back to me in a humorous vein. Of course the Civil War should have ended with Vicksburg and Gettysburg. Every sensible man on earth must have then seen there could be but one result. The leaders of the South took good care not to 'die in the lost ditch,' and left brave men like Walker, Adams, Pat Clebourne, etc., to do that.
Yours truly,
W. T. Sherman."
One of the last letters he ever wrote was as follows:
"No. 75 West Seventy-first Street, N. Y.
Thursday February 5, 1891.E. J. Atkinson, Esq., Secretary Memorial Committee, G.A.R.
"Dear Sir:—Your communication inviting me to share in your memorial services of Decoration Day, May 30, 1891, is received. I hereby accept and have marked my engagement book accordingly, so that I may not fall into the error of two years ago, which actually compromised me.
"The only probable interference is in the unveiling of General Grant's equestrian statue in Lincoln Park, Chicago, on a day not yet determined, when I must attend as President of the Society of the Army of the Tennessee. This unveiling was to have occurred in October, 1890, was postponed to this spring by reason of a failure in the casting, and I believe it will not be ready till this autumn. Therefore I beg you to remind me early in May, 1891, of this, my promise.
Sincerely yours,
W. T. Sherman."
When General Beauregard wrote a letter accusing him of cruel practices, in requiring prisoners of war to dig up torpedoes which the Rebel army had planted, Sherman made no reply; but some time later he said to a friend:
"I did not take any notice of Beauregard's letter. He is a very clever gentleman, and I like him personally; but he is wrong in his ideas of civilized warfare. It was no new thing to require prisoners to remove torpedoes which had been buried by the enemy. Wellington did it in Spain, and history furnishes a number of similar instances. I was justified not only by the rules of war but also by the best of humane principles. In the first instance where I had prisoners to perform such service, we were near a little town about forty miles from Savannah. The name of the place escapes me just now. News was brought to me that a gallant young officer had been frightfully wounded and his horse killed by the explosion of a torpedo buried by the rebels in the middle of the road. I filed my army to the right and flanked that part of the road where the explosives were supposed to be planted. The wagon trains had to pass over the dangerous ground, however, and I knew that the tramping of the mules and the heavy weight of the loaded wagons would surely explode any torpedoes which had been planted. I ordered a detail of prisoners to be sent ahead of the train, and with picks and shovels to dig up all explosives that could be found. It was not to protect my soldiers that I did this, but to save my train. My army had already obviated the danger by a right flank, and was safely out of harm's way. Prisoners should be protected, but mercy is not a legitimate attribute of war. Men go to war to kill and get killed, if necessary, and they should expect no tenderness. Each side protects itself as far as possible, and does all the harm it can to the opposing forces. It was, I think, a much better show of mercy for me to have the enemy do this work than to subject my own soldiers to so frightful a risk. At McAllister, when I made Major Anderson remove the torpedoes that had been planted there, he pretended that it was not civilized war to make him perform such a perilous feat. I told him he knew where the torpedoes were, and could safely remove them, while my men, in hunting for them, would be blown to pieces. He replied that the engineer had planted them, and he did not know where they were. I told him he knew better how to locate them than I did, and therefore he should do it. The fact that every torpedo was found and safely removed showed that my reasoning was right. I am not afraid to be judged either by contemporary or future historians on this subject."
The following anecdote of Grant was told, and illustrated with exquisite humor, by Sherman at a dinner:—
"Grant and I were at Nashville, Tenn., after the battle of Chattanooga. Our quarters were in the same building.
"One day Grant came into the room that I used for an office. I was very busy, surrounded with papers, muster-rolls, plans, specifications, etc., etc. When I looked up from my work I saw he seemed a good deal bothered, and, after standing around awhile, with his shoulders thrown up and his hands deep down in his trousers pockets, he said:
"'Look here, there are some men here from Galena.'
"'Well?' I said.
"Looking more uncomfortable every minute he went on:
"'They've got a sword they want to give me,' and, looking over his shoulder and jerking his thumb in the same direction, he added:
"'Will you come in?'
"He looked quite frightened at the idea of going to face them alone, so I put some weights on my several piles of papers to keep them from blowing around and went into the next room, followed by Grant, who by this time looked as he might if he'd been going to be court-martialed. There we found the Mayor and some members of the Board of Councilmen of Galena. On a table in the middle of the room was a handsome rosewood box containing a magnificent gold-hilted sword, with all the appointments equally splendid.
"The Mayor stepped forward and delivered what was evidently a carefully prepared speech, setting forth that the citizens of Galena had sent him to present to General Grant the accompanying sword, not as a testimonial to his greatness as a soldier, but as a slight proof of their love and esteem for him as a man, and their pride in him as a fellow-citizen.
"After delivering the speech the Mayor produced a large parchment scroll, to which was attached by a long blue ribbon a red seal as big as a pancake, and on which was inscribed a set of complimentary resolutions. These he proceeded to read to us, not omitting a single 'whereas' or 'hereunto.' And after finishing the reading he rolled it up and with great solemnity and ceremony handed it to Grant.
"General Grant took it, looked ruefully at it and held it as if it burnt him. Mrs. Grant, who had been standing beside her husband, quietly took it from him, and there was dead silence for several minutes. Then Grant, sinking his head lower on his chest and hunching his shoulders up higher and looking thoroughly miserable, began hunting in his pockets, diving first in one and then in another, and at last said: 'Gentlemen, I knew you were coming here to give me this sword, and so I prepared a short speech,' and with a look of relief he drew from his trousers pocket a crooked, crumpled piece of paper and handed it to the Mayor of Galena, adding, 'and, gentlemen, here it is!'"
When General Harrison was elected President, Sherman was called on for a speech at the Union League Club, New York, and responded thus:
"I am not, and never have been, and never will be, a politician; but I take a deep and lively interest in everything which occurs in this country. [Cheers.] I see yonder flag and beneath it the picture of one of my old, favorite soldiers, one who learned many lessons under my leadership. I know that he was true as steel then. I believe he will be to the end. [Cheers.] As a father loves to see his children advance in the scale of life, so I rejoice to hear of the good fortune of my old soldiers. I remember General Harrison when he was a colonel. He is not naturally a military man. His grandfather was, and I remember his grandfather when he was living down at North Bend, below Cincinnati. I knew his father. I was once at the old farm at North Bend, and saw little Ben in his panta-lettes. [Laughter and cheers.] Now he has become great. He is the impersonation of a cause. He is the impersonation of the ruling spirit of America for the next four years, and of its policy, according to Mr. Depew, for the next twenty-five years."
[Transcriber's Notes]
Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book.
Incorrect and missing page references in the Table of Contents have been corrected.
Unbalanced quotation marks were repaired when the intent was clear; otherwise they were unchanged.
Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained.
Some misspelled words or typographical errors occurred only once and have been corrected to the following: consummation, admissible, phenomenal, brimming, scandalous, iniquitous, poring, chaparral.
These typographical errors were not corrected: cravans (should be cravens), reconnoissance, reconnoisance (both should be reconnaissance), vis-á-vis (should be vis-à-vis).
Text uses "assult" and "assault", "wasn't" and "was'nt"; none changed.
The inconsistent spacing and use of small-caps for "A. M." and "P. M." has not been changed.
Page [180]: "Red Sea" was misprinted as "Red Rea"; correction made based on comparision with other printings of the same poem.
Page [336]: "the situation was known Hood" probably should be "known to Hood".
Page [341]: "worthy its great founder" probably should be "worthy of".
Page [347]: "marked and scared" probably should be "scarred".
Page [400]: "Villianow" and "Villainow" both appear and are unchanged here; current spelling is "Villanow".
Page [410]: "Buel" was spelled with just one "l". All other occurrences are spelled "Buell" but as they may refer to different people, this was not changed.
Page [431]: Text is missing after "Of course the abandonment to us by the enemy".
Page [436]: "sineury" probably should be "sinewy".
Pages [440] and [441] were printed in the wrong sequence; corrected here.