"He will be greatly missed and greatly mourned by the whole body of men who served with and under him, and, indeed, by all the soldiers of all the armies. He was generally regarded by them as the military genius of the war. He was a voluminous writer, and a ready, prompt and capital talker. Probably no man who was connected with the war said as many things which will be remembered and quoted hereafter as did General Sherman.
"In figure, in face and in bearing he was the ideal soldier. I think that it can be said of him as he once said of another, that 'with him gone, the world seems less bright and less cheerful than it was before.' The soldiers in looking around for consolation for his death will find much in the fact that he lived so long—almost twenty-six years after the final victory. There is also probably some consolation in the fact that he has gone before age and disease had impaired his wonderful powers and attractions. He was, in short, the most picturesque, magnetic and original character in the great conflict. He was occasionally, in his writings and talk, wonderfully pathetic. I recall nothing connected with the war that was finer in that way than a letter which he wrote, probably during the second year of the war, when his son, about ten years old, who was named after the General, died in camp. The boy fancied that he belonged to a regiment of his father's command, and the members of the regiment were very attentive to him during his sickness, and at the time of his death. General Sherman wrote a letter to the men of the regiment, thanking them for what they had done. I cannot now recall the terms of that letter, but I doubt not that if it were now published many an eye would moisten as it was read.
"A very noble trait in the character of General Sherman was the fidelity of his friendships. His loyal support of Grant under all the circumstances cannot be surpassed in all the history of the relations between eminent men engaged in a common cause."
"I recall a telegram received from General Sherman one November day in 1864," said General W. S. Rosecrans, "while I was in the Department of the Missouri. The telegram read: 'I start to-day for Atlanta and will make Rome howl.'
"And he did it, too," continued General Rosecrans. "I had known General Sherman since 1838, although I was not thrown much with him in service. In 1850 he was paying court to Miss Ewing, and after their engagement he came all the way to Newport to invite me to the wedding.
"I had always been a great admirer of General Sherman. His character as a man was one to command admiration. Of course it is difficult to select for comment thereon any particular passage of a life that was so busy and so full of great deeds."
General Meigs said: "The first time I met General Sherman was on the return of McDowell's army. I called on him at his headquarters across the river from Bull Run. Sherman at that time was in the prime of life, and the measure I then took of him has been fully justified. His nature was naturally genial and democratic, notwithstanding his West Point training.
"While we were talking, an enlisted man—an Irish soldier—approached, and in rich Irish brogue asked the General to put his finger in the muzzle of his gun to see that it was clean. Sherman tried to put him off, but the Irishman insisted, when, to get rid of him, Sherman complied and laughingly remarked: 'Now go off and mind your business.'
"Previous to the war he had served on the Cherokee Commission, and his experience at that time, he afterward told me, was valuable, as the Cherokee reservation was located in a large portion of the country through which he subsequently travelled with his army. Even while in Washington he was continually exploring the country, and in a very short time had its topography thoroughly mapped in his mind. I may say that there never was a great general—and Sherman certainly ranks among the greatest—who did not possess this invaluable faculty, which Marmont, in his treatise on the service of war, says enables a man not only to see what lies directly before him but what lies far beyond the scope of his vision. Another valuable trait he possessed was that he reached his conclusions promptly and then acted upon them. More than one general failed to achieve greatness in the Union army because he hesitated when he should have acted.
"General Sherman socially was one of the most charming of men. If he was brilliant on the field of battle, in the social circle he was the prince of entertainers. His manhood was symmetrical, his talents as a general of the first rank and his fame immortal."