Senator Evarts said that the afflicting intelligence of the death of General Sherman had touched the Senate with the deepest sensibilities; that that grief was not a private grief; nor was it limited by any narrower bounds than those of the whole country. The affections of the people toward its honorable and honored men did not always find a warm effusion, because circumstances might not have brought the personal career, the personal traits, the personal affectionate disposition of great men, to the close and general observation of the people at large. But of General Sherman no such observation could be truly made. Whatever of affection and of grief Senators might feel was felt, perhaps, more intensely in the hearts of the whole people. To observers of his death, as they had been of his life, General Sherman had been yesterday the most celebrated living American. He was now added to that longer and more illustrious list of celebrated men of the country for the hundred years of National life. One star differed from another star in glory, but yet all of those stars had a glory to which nothing could be added by eulogy, and from which nothing could be taken away by detraction. They shone in their own effulgence, and borrowed no light from honor or respect. It had been said already that General Sherman was the last of the commanders. If those who had passed out of life still watched over and took interest in what transpired in this world (and no one doubted it), what great shades must have surrounded the death-bed of General Sherman! And who could imagine a greater death-bed for a great life than that which had been watched over in a neighboring city during the week? It had been reserved for him (Mr. Evarts) at the declining hour of the day, as a Senator from the State which General Sherman had honored by his late home, and in which he had died, to move, out of respect to his memory, that the Senate do now adjourn.
Lawrence Barrett, the eminent actor, paid this eloquent tribute to his friend in the columns of The New York Tribune:
"The funeral cortege has passed. The emblems of war, which had for many years been laid aside, have once again been seen sadly embellishing the soldierly equipage whereupon the lifeless body rests. Old comrades, lifelong friends, statesmen and great civilians have followed the mournful pageant with fruitless regrets. The instruments which in battle days sounded to the charge or the retreat, which sang reveille to the waking morn or gave the sternest good-night, when all was well; which through a quarter of a century of peace have greeted the retired warrior at feast and civic parade with harmonies upon his achievements—these now beat the last mournful cadences leading to an earthly camping-ground beneath whose sod the mortal remains of our great soldier shall rest beside his loved ones, forever dead to triumph or threnody.
"The last of the immortal trio has joined his waiting comrades. Already in the fields of the blessed one may believe that their spirits sadly regard our simple tributes to the earthly casket which holds the dust of Sherman. The mourning thousands who have lined the highway of the sad procession have gone to their homes with a tenderer reflection upon the meanings of existence and death. And even as his valor in the written story had awakened a stronger patriotism than had before existed, so in his death and in the last tributes paid to the hero a fresher and purer sense of patriotic duty springs up in our hearts to link us to the inheritance he helped to gain.
"History will gather up and weave into enduring form the achievements of the soldier and the statesman. In that final summary sectional prejudice and personal bias may bear their natural parts. Only in a remote future, when all the sorrowful effects of the great Civil War have lost their nearness—only when its beneficence in knitting closer the bonds of friendship and National brotherhood shall be recognized, when no newly-made grave sends up reproachful reminders to bereaved hearts, only then can the hero's place be immutably fixed on the heroic calendar. To the scholar and the sage may be left that office. The records of his military life, his general orders, his plans, his deeds, will guide the historian into a proper estimate of the dead soldier's station in the military Valhalla.
"But how shall the innumerable civic deeds of this dead man be recorded or find place for reference? In the musty archives of no war office are they registered. Upon no enduring parchment are they written. They would escape definition in the attempt to define them. They are engraved upon hearts still living—they sweeten the lives still unsummoned—they are too sacred for utterance. Yet they are the crown of Sherman's achievement. Wherever this man's hand was extended it brought glad strength; wherever his voice was heard it aroused emotions of grateful tenderness; wherever his form was seen it gladdened loving eyes. He survived a civil war for a quarter of a century—to show to us that the soldier's armor is less becoming than the garb of civil life, that the pomp and circumstance of war are loud preludes of beneficent peace.
"No intrusion of personal relation shall sully this poor testament to the dead. No one can claim the inheritance of such a large-hearted bounty. But in the name of the drama which he loved, in the names of the actors whom he respected, it is proper that no tardy recognition should follow his death. He had a scholar's love for what was highest in the art—whether in the walk of tragedy or comedy. He had a warm affection for those who labored in this atmosphere. He had also a large sympathy for those performances which afford recreation and amusement to the largest class of the community. His voice was never hushed when called to aid in the needs of the player. He was no ordinary first-nighter. He had a simple and affecting belief that his presence might be useful to those who were seeking public suffrage across the foot-lights, and he could not but know that his indorsement was valuable and trustworthy. He was one of the incorporators of 'The Players,' upon whose muster-roll no nobler name appears. His imposing character gave dignity to those deliberative meetings out of which that organization grew into its present useful life.
"And should contemporary history fail to do him justice—should the bitterness of the Civil War make a just estimate of his worth impossible in biographical annals—should envy or malice deface the white shaft which should symbolize his deeds—then the dramatist will lovingly bear up the garments of his glory—keep them from soil within that Valhalla where Cæsar and Alexander, Frederick and Gustavus, live imperishably enshrined. Therein shall be cherished the insignia and the characteristics of the most notable figure of modern or ancient soldiery.
"Again in future nights shall we see the pomp and glory of Union making war—once again its gallant leader shall pass before the eyes of a curious posterity in the drama's immortal keeping, and the gallant spirit whose influence in life so often attended the presentment of Cæsar and Antony and Cassius and the Roman group shall, in death, mingle with their essence, tenderly restored by the dramatists whom he inspired, by the actors whom he loved."
