"As long ago as 1849 General Sherman wrote a letter to his brother, John Sherman, which the latter published in The National Intelligencer, advocating the construction of a railroad across the continent, and he was an untiring friend of the road from that time until its completion, in the summer of 1869.
"He told me that if at the time of writing that letter to his brother John he could have secured the immediate construction of a railroad across the continent by signing a contract to lay down his own life, he should have done it, he thought.
"In his "Memoirs" he gives an account of carrying from Sonoma, Cal., to Sacramento, to the commanding officer of the United States forces there, an order to make a survey of the Feather River, so as to ascertain the feasibility of constructing a railroad through the valley of that stream. That was the first survey ever made with a view to the construction of a transcontinental road, and while the General does not say so in his "Memoirs," I have from his own lips that the impulse and the conception were his own, and he procured the signature to the order of the commanding general by personal solicitation.
"When, at the close of the war, General Granville M. Dodge was called from the Army, being then still in service, to take charge of the construction of the Union Pacific road, General Sherman not only gave him leave cordially, but he also spontaneously promised him all possible assistance, and General Dodge has testified, in an elaborate paper, that he does not see how he could have built the road except with the countenance and support which he received from General Sherman, as the Indians were then a power on the plains.
"In the summer of 1869, twenty years after his first letter on the subject, General Sherman stood in the War Department, and heard the strokes from an electric bell, which announced the successive blows of the hammer on the last spike in the construction of the road, and he told me that in view of his long interest in the enterprise, he felt, as he himself put it, as if the Lord might come for him then."
General Cyrus Bussey, assistant Secretary of the Interior, was an old comrade and close friend of Sherman, and he said of him:
"I first met General Sherman at Benton Barracks, Mo., in November, 1861. I had reported there with a full regiment of cavalry. General Sherman had just assumed command, after having been relieved in Kentucky under a cloud, being charged with insanity. I spent many evenings with the General at his headquarters, and received from him many valuable lessons which greatly aided me as an officer of the Army during all my subsequent services. During the siege of Vicksburg I was chief of cavalry, and served immediately under General Sherman's command. I saw much of him during the siege, and led the advance of his army in the campaign to Jackson, against Joe Johnston's army, immediately after the fall of Vicksburg. After the enemy was routed and driven out of the country my command occupied the rear, and General Sherman accompanied me both on the advance and on the return to our camps in the rear of Vicksburg. So I had an excellent opportunity of becoming intimately acquainted with him, and there I formed a great admiration for him as a man and a general.
"One circumstance I wish to mention. While waiting at Jackson after the retreat of Johnston, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Mississippi tendered to General Sherman and his staff a banquet, at which General Frank P. Blair proposed a toast to General Grant. General Sherman rose and said: 'I want to respond to that toast. I see that many newspapers of the country have credited me with originating the plan adopted by General Grant for the capture of Vicksburg. I want to say that I am not entitled to this credit. General Grant alone originated that plan and carried it to successful completion without the co-operation of any of his subordinate officers, and in the face of my protest as well as that of many of the officers.'"
The question of the burning of Atlanta was often raised in the years after the war, and to the end of his life Sherman was denounced by many Southerners for what they were pleased to term his inhumanity and malice. In the spring of 1880, Captain Burke, commander of the "Gate City Guard," at Atlanta, wrote to him, calling his attention to a proposed memorial hall in that city, and Sherman made this reply:
"My Dear Sir.—Your letter of March 6 with inclosure, is received, and I assure you of my interest in the subject matter and willingness to contribute to the execution of your plan to erect in the city of Atlanta a memorial hall to commemorate the revival of sectional unity and sentiment—but were I to do so for the reasons set forth in the inclosed circular, I would be construed as indorsing the expressions which are erroneous, viz: 'During the late unfortunate war the city of Atlanta was destroyed by the forces of General Sherman,' and 'a wilderness of blackened walls recorded the fratricidal strife that deluged our country in misfortune,'