MAP OF CAROLINAS
CHAPTER XXV.
Wilmington—Peace Commissioners—General Sherman’s Statesmanship—His Characteristics—Interesting Recollections of General Sherman—His pure Character.
HE able General Schofield has been successful in the Department of North Carolina. Wilmington was compelled to strike the Confederate flag, and “Cavalry Sheridan” sent Early’s troops “whirling” from his path whenever they measured swords on the battle-field.
With light spreading toward the zenith from every part of the horizon of our land, the first spring month is passing away. The rebellion grows weak and furious, hastening to the overthrow for which all true freemen have prayed, and which despots great and small have only feared.
While General Sherman was on his way to Richmond, piercing the Carolinas with his lines of march and driving the rebel armies from his path, two important events transpired outside of martial movements. One was the sending of “peace commissioners” from Richmond, early in February, who were met near General Grant’s headquarters by the President and Secretary Seward, and whose conference left the question of peace where it was before, in the hands of Generals Grant and Sherman. The other memorable event was the passage of the Constitutional Amendment by Congress, forbidding, after its approval by three-fourths of the States, involuntary servitude, excepting for crime, throughout the land. It was an occasion of intense interest in the national Capitol, followed by similar scenes in the loyal North, giving to the celebration of Washington’s Birth Day an importance in connection with the recent victories which was never known before, nor is it likely to have again.
General Sherman has from the beginning of the war shown those great qualities of generalship rarely combined, even in successful commanders. His genius reminds us of Napoleon Buonaparte in the comprehensive appreciation of the entire field of action and the exact issue, in high military culture, in the daring campaigns which have given him a preëminence among the few who stand alone in their unquestioned mastery of the art of war and ability to meet its largest responsibilities, and in a statesmanship equal to his military attainments.
Whatever question in the complicated interests of the stirring times he touches, it finds a clear and decisive answer. He has studied history, and the principles which lie at the foundation of the Republic. He is not cruel, but believing war to be simply an engine of destruction to secure an ultimate good which can be reached by no peaceful means, his policy is the legitimate working of that engine. He would wield it with no tears of false philanthropy that would protract the appeal to its sanguinary settlement of difficulties, nor with the vacillation that would spare the enemy present suffering and secure a greater amount of sorrow in the future. Loyal, patriotic, and modest, he has kept his eye on the national ensign through untold labors and perils, amid detraction and the rivalries of a mean ambition, holding the rein upon his war-horse with a warm but unrelaxing grasp.
With a highly nervous temperament and manner, he is always calm and self-possessed in action. Genial and sincere his troops admire and love him, and are ready to follow him to the bosom of a boundless wilderness thronged with foes, or into the swamps waist deep to storm a fortress beyond.