"All well here and send love.
"Your brother,
"W. T. Sherman."
Soon after the receipt of this letter I was notified of the dangerous illness of my brother at his residence in the city of New York. I at once went to his bedside, and remained with him until his death, at two o'clock of Saturday, the 14th of February. In his later years, after his removal to New York, he entered into the social life of that city. He was in demand at weddings, dinners, parties, reunions of soldiers, and public meetings, where his genial nature and ready tact, his fund of information and happy facility of expression, made him a universal favorite. He was temperate in his eating and drinking, but fond of companionship, and always happy when he had his old friends and comrades about him. He enjoyed the society of ladies, and did not like to refuse their invitations to social gatherings. In conversation with men or women, old or young, he was always interesting. He was often warned that at three score and ten he could not endure the excitement of such a life, and he repeatedly promised to limit his engagements. Early in February he exposed himself to the inclement weather of that season, and contracted a cold which led to pneumonia, and in a few days to death. He was perfectly conscious of his condition and probable fate, but had lost the power of speech and could only communicate his wishes by signs. His children were with him, and hundreds daily inquired about him at his door; among them were soldiers and widows whom he had aided.
During the last hours of General Sherman, his family, who had been bred in the Catholic faith, called in a Catholic priest to administer extreme unction according to the ritual of that church. The New York "Times," of the date of February 13, made a very uncharitable allusion to this and intimated that it was done surreptitiously, without my knowledge. This was not true but the statement deeply wounded the feelings of his children. I promptly sent to the "Times" the following letter, which was published and received with general satisfaction:
"A paragraph in your paper this morning gives a very erroneous view of an incident in General Sherman's sick chamber, which wounds the sensitive feelings of his children, now in deep distress, which, under the circumstances, I deem it proper to correct. Your reporter intimates that advantage was taken of my temporary absence to introduce a Catholic priest into General Sherman's chamber to administer the rite of extreme unction to the sick man, in the nature of a claim that he was a Catholic. It is well known that his children have been reared by their mother, a devoted Catholic, in her faith, and now cling to it. It is equally well known that General Sherman and myself, as well as all my mother's children, are, by inheritance, education, and connection, Christians, but not Catholics, and this has been openly avowed, on all proper occasions, by General Sherman; but he is too good a Christian, and too humane a man, to deny to his children the consolation of their religion. He was insensible at the time and apparently at the verge of death, but if he had been well and in the full exercise of his faculties, he would not have denied to them the consolation of the prayers and religious observances for their father of any class or denomination of Christian priests or preachers. Certainly, if I had been present, I would, at the request of the family, have assented to and reverently shared in an appeal to the Almighty for the life here and hereafter of my brother, whether called a prayer or extreme unction, and whether uttered by a priest or a preacher, or any other good man who believed what he spoke and had an honest faith in his creed.
"I hear that your reporter uttered a threat to obtain information which I cannot believe you would for a moment tolerate. We all need charity for our frailties, but I can feel none for anyone who would wound those already in distress."
President Harrison announced General Sherman's death to both Houses of Congress in the following words:
"To the Senate and House of Representatives: The death of William Tecumseh Sherman, which took place to-day at his residence in the city of New York, at 1 o'clock and 50 minutes p. m., is an event that will bring sorrow to the heart of every patriotic citizen. No living American was so loved and venerated as he. To look upon his face, to hear his name, was to have one's love of country intensified. He served his country, not for fame, not out of a sense of professional duty, but for love of the flag and of the beneficent civil institutions of which it was the emblem. He was an ideal soldier, and shared to the fullest the esprit de corps of the army; but he cherished the civil institutions organized under the constitution, and was a soldier only that these might be perpetuated in undiminished usefulness and honor. He was in nothing an imitator.
"A profound student of military science and precedent, he drew from them principles and suggestions, and so adapted them to novel conditions that his campaigns will continue to be the profitable study of the military profession throughout the world. His genial nature made him comrade to every soldier of the great Union army. No presence was so welcome and inspiring at the camp-fire or commandery as his. His career was complete; his honors were full. He had received from the government the highest rank known to our military establishment, and from the people unstinted gratitude and love. No word of mine can add to his fame. His death has followed in startling quickness that of the Admiral of the Navy; and it is a sad and notable incident that, when the department under which he served shall have put on the usual emblems of mourning, four of the eight executive departments will be simultaneously draped in black, and one other has but to-day removed the crape from its walls
"Benj. Harrison.
"Executive Mansion, February 14, 1891."