On the death of General Rawlins, in the fall of 1869, Sherman was called upon to act for a time as Secretary of War. The experience did not please him. There was too much red tape, and too much division of authority, and he was glad to be relieved by General Belknap. In August, 1871, Rear-Admiral Alden asked him to go to Europe with him, in the frigate Wabash, and Sherman joyously accepted the invitation, as he had long wished to go abroad but had never yet done so. They sailed on November 11, and Sherman did not return until September 22 of the next year. He visited almost every part of Europe and Egypt, and had an opportunity of observing European methods in the great German army which had just been overrunning France.
Life at Washington, with Belknap's assumptions, was now increasingly distasteful to him, and he obtained permission from the President to remove the army headquarters to St. Louis. Thither he went in the fall of 1874, and once more was contented and happy. In the spring of 1876, however, he was recalled to Washington, on account of the Belknap scandal. General Belknap, Secretary of War, was charged with corrupt practices, and resigned, to avoid impeachment. Sherman was much shocked, for he had always esteemed Belknap highly. Referring to the case in a speech at a public banquet at St. Louis, before returning to Washington, he said:
"The army of 1776 was the refuge of all who loved liberty for liberty's sake, and who were willing to test their sincerity by the fire of battle; and we claim that the army of 1876 is the best friend of liberty, good order, and Government, and submits to any test that may be imposed. Our ancestors never said the soldier was not worthy of his hire; that the army was a leech on the body politic; that a standing army of 20,000 men endangered the liberties of 40,000,000 of people. These are modern inventions, modern party-cries to scare and confuse the ignorant. We are not of those who subscribe so easily to the modern doctrine of evolution, that teaches that each succeeding generation is necessarily better than that which went before, but each tree must be tested by its own fruit, and we can point with pride to our Sheridan, Hancock, Schofield, McDowell, and a long array of Brigadier-Generals, Colonels, Captains and Lieutenants, who, for intelligence, honor, integrity and self-denial, will compare favorably with those of any former epoch. We point with pride to our army, scattered through the South, along our Atlantic, Gulf and Lake forts, and in the great West, and claim that in all the qualities of good soldiers they are second to none. I see that some of you shake your heads and whisper Belknap. Why? What was his relation to the army? He was a Cabinet Minister, a civil officer, did not hold a commission in the army at all. We contend that when he was an officer he was an honorable man and rendered good service, and that this entitles him to charitable consideration. 'Lead us not into temptation' is a prayer some of us seem to have forgotten, and we of the army can truthfully say that this offence, be it what it may, is not chargeable to the army, for he was not subject to military law or jurisdiction.
"At this moment the air is full of calumny, and it is sickening to observe that men usually charitable and just, are made to believe that all honesty and virtue have taken their flight from earth; that our National Capital is reeking with corruption; that fraud and peculation are the rule, and honesty and fidelity to trust the exception. I do not believe it, and I think we should resist the torrent. Our President has surely done enough to entitle him to absolute confidence, and can have no motive to screen the wicked or guilty. At no time in the history of the country, have our courts of law, from the Supreme Court at Washington down to the District Courts, been entitled to more respect for their learning and purity; and Congress is now, as it has ever been and must be from its composition, a representative body, sharing with the people its feelings and thoughts, its virtues and vices. If corruption exist, it is with the people at large, and they can correct the evil by their own volition. If they have grown avaricious and made money their God, they must not be surprised if their representatives and servants share their sin. What are the actual facts? We have recently passed through a long civil war, entailing on one moiety of the country desolation and ruin,—on all a fearful debt,—States, counties, and cities follow the fashion, until the whole land became deeply in debt. The debts are now due, and bear heavily in the shape of taxes on our homes, on property, and business.
"Again, the war called millions to arms, who dropped their professions and business, and found themselves without employment when the war was over. These naturally turned to the National Government for help; and the pressure for office, at all times great became simply irresistible. The power to appoint to these offices is called 'patronage,' and is common to all Governments. Then, again, arose a vast number of claims for damages for seizures and loss of property by acts of war. These all involved large sums of money, and money now is, as it always has been, the cause of a life-struggle—of corruption. Yes, money is the cause of corruption to-day as always. Men will toil for it, murder for it, steal for it, die for it. Though officers and soldiers are simply men subject to all temptations and vices of men, we of the army feel, or rather think we feel, more in the spirit of Burns:
"'For gold the merchant plows the main,
The farmer plows the manor;
But glory is the soldier's prize,
The soldier's wealth is honor.'"
Sherman set out in July, 1877, for a tour through the Indian country and the far Northwest. He was absent from home 115 days, and travelled nearly 10,000 miles. After visiting Tongue River and the Big Horn, he went to the Yellowstone National Park. In relating the story of his adventures, he said:
"Descending Mount Washburn, by a trail through woods, one emerges into the meadows or springs out of which Cascade Creek takes its water, and, following it to near its mouth, you camp and walk to the great falls and the head of the Yellowstone canyon. In grandeur, majesty, and coloring, these, probably, equal any on earth. The painting by Moran in the Capitol is good, but painting and words are unequal to the subject. They must be seen to be appreciated and felt.
"Gen. Poe and I found a jutting rock, about a mile below the Seron Falls, from which a perfect view is had of the Seron Falls canyon. The upper falls are given at 125 feet and the lower at 350. The canyon is described as 2,000 feet. It is not 2,000 immediately below the Seron Falls, but may be lower down, for this canyon is thirty miles long, and where it breaks through the range abreast of Washburn may be 2,000 feet. Just below the Seron Falls, I think 1,000 feet would be nearer the exact measurement; but it forms an actual canyon, the sides being almost vertical, and no one venturing to attempt a descent. It is not so much the form of this canyon, though fantastic in the extreme, that elicited my admiration, but the coloring. The soft rocks through which the waters have cut a way are of the most delicate colors,—buff, gray, and red,—all so perfectly blended as to make a picture of exquisite finish. The falls and canyon of the Yellowstone will remain to the end of time objects of natural beauty and grandeur to attract the attention of the living.
"Up to this time we had seen no geysers or hot springs, but the next day, eight miles up from the falls, we came to Sulphur Mountain, a bare, naked, repulsive hill, not of large extent, at the base of which were hot, bubbling springs, with all the pond crisp with sulphur, and six miles from there up, or south, close to the Yellowstone, we reached and camped at Mud Springs. These also are hot, most of them muddy. Water slushed around as in a boiling pot. Some were muddy water and others thick mud, puffing up just like a vast pot of mush. Below the falls of the Yellowstone is a rapid, bold current of water, so full of real speckled trout, weighing from six ounces to four and a half pounds, that, in the language of a settler, it is 'no trick at all to catch them.' They will bite at an artificial fly, or, better, at a live grasshopper, which abound here; but above the falls the river is quiet, flowing between low, grassy banks, and finally ending, or rather beginning, in the Yellowstone Lake, also alive with real speckled trout. Below the falls these trout are splendid eating, but above, by reason of the hot water, some of the fish are wormy and generally obnoxious by reason thereof, though men pretend to distinguish the good from the bad by the color of the spots. I have no hesitation in pronouncing the Yellowstone, from the Big Horn to the source, the finest trout-fishing stream on earth.