HEAD OF PROCESSION COMING DOWN BROADWAY, NEW YORK CITY.
Said Walter Q. Gresham, United States Judge: "I belonged to General Sherman's command when he entered Kentucky, at Louisville, in the summer of '61, since which time we have maintained an unbroken friendship.
"Besides being a man of great genius he was generous, frank and confiding. No officer of high rank whom I met during the war was more patient than General Sherman with subordinates, so long as he believed that they were trying to do their duty; and no officer was more merciless in dealing with shirks, cowards and pretenders.
"In brilliancy of conception and boldness of execution, perhaps he had no equal on either side during the civil war. Like other great and successful men he encountered the envy and jealousy of those less gifted and magnanimous than himself.
"He was intensely patriotic and always willing to endure hardship and privation. His patriotism was of that intense kind that he would at any time have willingly sacrificed his life for the cause he served so brilliantly and well. His great courage, generosity, frankness, and patriotism endeared him to all the officers and men who served under him, and in every State of the Union they are now mourning his loss.
"I spent some time with him at his home in New York three weeks ago last Sunday. He was then well, cheerful, and bright. He indulged much during the afternoon in reminiscence, and related a number of incidents of the war which I had forgotten. He mentioned a large number of mutual army friends who had died, and remarked:
"'Gresham, we will join them soon.'"
Ex-President Hayes paid this tribute to his military genius:
"The only comparison of value that I choose to offer comes from abroad. We hear in regard to Sherman, from the French generals nothing but praise; from the German generals the same; from the English, General Wolseley speaks of him in terms that are altogether complimentary. Says Wolseley, however, 'Lee was a great general, and next to him was Sherman.' I would change the order. I admit for Lee a great character, accomplishments as a soldier and as a man, praise in every way except his unfortunate lack of wisdom. I do not now speak of motives, but of the military genius who was the military genius of the war. Place Lee where Sherman was. Place Sherman where Lee was. Place Lee at Chattanooga, even with Sherman's army. Would he have found his way to Atlanta, and at Atlanta cut loose from his base of supplies and entered upon the wild march for the sea three hundred miles away? I believe no man lacking the genius of Sherman would have entered on that march to the sea. But come nearer home. Lee had the same opportunity, only it was ten times better than that Sherman had at Atlanta. Suppose Sherman had been in command of the army of Lee. Washington at that time lay completely in the power of an enterprising and daring commander, and with Washington captured, intervention from abroad would have come. I do not predict final defeat, for throughout all the action the finger of God was present, guiding and directing. I cannot believe that under any circumstances the cause of liberty and union could have failed, but at Washington was the chance of victory, and Lee failed to take it. More than that, he went to the Potomac, crossed it, and our disorganized army, without a commander, being divided between Pope and McClellan, was ten days behind him, and he marched on into Pennsylvania; and what did he do, and what would Sherman have done? Lee did not dare to lose communication with his base of supplies, and was driven back from Antietam with a divided army. Had Sherman been at the head of that army, and that distance between him and the pursuing forces, he would have gone to Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Buffalo, Cleveland, Cincinnati, and then cut his road back into Virginia. A little band of 4000 men under Morgan went through Ohio and Indiana, and Lee, with his great army, with nothing before him but wealth and supplies and cities able to pay tribute for not being burned, is not to be compared with Sherman."
General Slocum said: "I have been acquainted with General Sherman since the beginning of the war. I first met him at Bull Run and afterward in the West, when my corps was sent there to reinforce Rosecrans. At that time he was tall and angular and his general appearance was much the same as it was in later life. My services with him began just before the capture of Atlanta. In that campaign the minutest details were attended to by General Sherman himself. Details as to the exact amount of ammunition to be taken by each corps, the exact amount of stores of each and every kind, were specified in his orders. During the campaign he alternated between General Howard and myself, riding with General Howard one day and with me the next. He was a great and most interesting talker, and the pleasantest days that I spent during the war were those when I was accompanied by General Sherman. He had been stationed at Charleston before the war and was familiar with the topography of South Carolina. He had information that no maps contained. He seldom forgot anything that could ever be of any use to him to remember. Once I thought I would test his knowledge by introducing the subject of the manufacture of salt, a subject with which I thought I was perfectly familiar, having lived at Syracuse. I found that he knew more about it than I did. He said that his wife had some relatives there, and that years before he had visited them and had been taken through the salt works. Not a fact connected with the manufacture of salt had escaped his memory.