"As to Canada, we want no part of that, any more than we do of Mexico. We have enough poor land already. [Laughter.] Our present domain comprises about 3,700,000 square miles, and that is bigger than the civilized domain of any country except Russia. In Belgium and parts of France the population is forty times denser than ours at present; so we see what room we have to grow. I can remember when we used to cross the San Joaquin valley, twenty or thirty years ago, and thought it was a poor, miserable place, because our cattle suffered so in the passage, but now the land is worth there $100 an acre, while I wouldn't have given two cents for 1,000 acres then. [Laughter.]
"But the country is growing in other ways. Up here at Harvard, we have college youths spending $10,000 a year—more than the pay of a Lieutenant-General, by the way [laughter]—and if De Witt Clinton, who is entitled to the credit of building the Erie Canal, the first great artery of internal commerce, were to rise and look around him to-day, he would see many things to surprise him. Among others, he would be startled at the spectacle presented four years ago in these United States, of the election of a man to the Chief Magistracy and the appointment of others in his cabinet, representing the opposition that confronted us twenty years ago in the Civil War, when we fought to save the country. The people submitted to that without one single whimper. [Applause.] But they have again chosen a man of our own style and stamp, and I, for one, say openly that I am glad of it. [Renewed applause.] I am not only proud of Ben Harrison as one of our soldier-boys, but I am glad that in the hour of our danger he stood by the American flag and was true to it."
At an Ohio Society dinner in New York, April 7, 1888, he made this address, on old times in his native State:
"My young friends from Ohio, whilst you bear your honored State in memory, honored memory, never reflect upon others. [Laughter.] There were good men born long before they were in Ohio. [Renewed laughter.] There are a great many good men born in other States out of Ohio. [Continued laughter.] I have encountered them everywhere on this broad continent and in Europe. There seems to be a pretty fair representation of Ohio in this great city of New York, and I claim you have the same right here as the native-born citizens [laughter], not by sufferance but by right; and I hope you will bear in mind that you are citizens of a greater country, the United States of America. [Loud applause.] As your president has well told you in eloquent words to-night, our friends in Marietta are celebrating a past of vast importance in the history of Ohio, and the United States, and of all mankind. One hundred years ago there landed at Marietta that little body whose influence was then felt and is now felt all over the earth's surface; an organized body of men with discipline, seeking to make homes for themselves and their families and to rear up a State, free, where all men could enjoy liberty and the pursuit of happiness in their own way and at their own time. Ohio was the first of the States created; not the first of the thirteen, but it was the child of the Revolution, although the ordinance of 1787 preceded the Constitution by two years. Yet it was made by the same men, breathing the same spirit of freedom and nationality.
"I was born in the town of Lancaster, and I doubt if any town anywhere possessed a larger measure of intelligence for its numbers, about 3,000. There was General Beecher, Henry Stanbury, Thomas Ewing, William Irvine. [A voice—"Tom Corwin.">[ Yes; he belonged in Lebanon, and I knew him well. His name suggests to me something which I am frequently reminded of when I go to Ohio. In these modern times I don't think they're as good as they used to be in those early days. I suppose it is a common weakness with old men to view things in that way. I could recount a great many things about those early days. My memory goes back to 1826. I remember perfectly the election of General Jackson in 1828. I remember the coffin handbills put out by The Cincinnati Gazette to stigmatize Armstrong and Arbuthnot. At that time I belonged to a strict Whig family, and we all thought Jackson a tyrant. I have come to the conclusion in later years that old Jackson was a very clever fellow. There used to be a man in Columbus named Gustavus Swain, and what he didn't know about Ohio nobody did. Ohio had its fun and its serious times, and always bore in mind that they were the first free State northwest of the Ohio. Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Minnesota followed afterward by catching the inspiration from her. [Applause.] It travelled beyond. I went with McCook to Arizona and found our fellows there from Yellow Creek. Everywhere we stopped we met them. They didn't know they were from Ohio, but he convinced them they were. [Laughter.]
"My own father was Judge of the Supreme Court in Ohio when he died in Lebanon, and 'Tom' Corwin was with him then. I remember perfectly well how we were all cast down by the news of his death, sudden and unexpected, with eleven children and a salary of $300 to bring them up on. How that task was ever accomplished I don't know. [Laughter.] You see some of us are still alive. [Renewed laughter.] I am one of those living who, owing to the kindness of his father, stand before you to-night as representative of the State of Ohio. [Applause.] Vive la bagatelle. Enjoy the hour. Take the world as you find it. It will grow vast enough, but I don't know whether it will grow better." [Applause.]
One of his last speeches was made before his Grand Army comrades, at their National Encampment at Milwaukee, August 28, 1889. "Boys," he said, "my speaking days are over. I am not going to make any more speeches. If you want a speech, take Senator Manderson. I think he can make a good speech. I am always glad to see so many soldiers looking hearty and healthy. I think we can stand on our legs yet. I like to see that our old Uncle Sam takes pretty good care of these old soldiers. Uncle Sam cannot make old men young, but he can make young men just as good as you or I ever were. I see that Milwaukee is full of them, and they are coming out of the bushes everywhere. If you think you are the only old soldiers, you are mistaken. There were old soldiers before you, and there will be again. Such is the providence of the world. Just as good men were born a thousand years ago and will be born a thousand years hence. All we have to do is to do our parts in this short period of life honorably and honestly. I think we can pass the grand tribunal and say, 'We have tried to do our best,' and the sentence will be, 'Well done.'
"We have passed through one crisis of our country's history. I don't see any chance of another, but nobody knows the future. Bring up your children to love and venerate the old soldiers who fought in 1861 and 1865, and make them uncover their heads when they see that little banner that you followed in the days which tried us to the utmost. Let us venerate that flag and love our country and love each other, and stand by each other, as long as we have heads on our shoulders and legs on our bodies. These old soldiers who marched against the enemy in those trying days, a grateful country tries its best to assist, and will, I think—in fact, I am sure—be good to you when you get too old, all that is necessary. But keep young as long as you can, and do not go into a soldiers' home if you can help it."
At about this time he wrote to the editor of The Chronicle, at Augusta, Georgia, this letter, in reply to the question why he did not, on his great march through Georgia, go to that city instead of Savannah:
"My Dear Sir: I am just back from a visit to my daughter, who resides at Rosemont, near Philadelphia, and find your letter of the 18th.
"The 'March to the Sea,' from Atlanta was resolved on after Hood had got well on his way to Nashville. I then detached to General Thomas a force sufficient to whip Hood, which he, in December, 1864, very handsomely and conclusively did. Still I had left a very respectable army, and resolved to join Grant at Richmond. The distance was 1,000 miles, and prudence dictated a base at Savannah or Port Royal. Our enemies had garrisons at Macon and Augusta. I figured on both and passed between to Savannah. Then starting northward, the same problem presented itself in Augusta and Charleston. I figured on both, but passed between. I did not want to drive out their garrisons ahead of me at the crossings of the Santee, Catawba, Pedee, Cape Fear, etc. The moment I passed Columbia the factories, powder mills and the old stuff accumulated at Augusta were lost to the only two Confederate armies left—Lee's and Hood's. So if you have a military mind, you will see I made a better use of Augusta than if I had captured it with all its stores, for which I had no use. I used Augusta twice as a buffer; its garrison was just where it helped me. If the people of Augusta think I slighted them in the winter of 1864-'65 by reason of personal friendship formed in 1844, they are mistaken; or if they think I made a mistake in strategy, let them say so, and with the President's consent I think I can send a detachment of 100,000 or so of 'Sherman's bummers' and their descendants, who will finish up the job without charging Uncle Sam a cent. The truth is, these incidents come back to me in a humorous vein. Of course the Civil War should have ended with Vicksburg and Gettysburg. Every sensible man on earth must have then seen there could be but one result. The leaders of the South took good care not to 'die in the lost ditch,' and left brave men like Walker, Adams, Pat Clebourne, etc., to do that.
Yours truly,
W. T. Sherman."