Thursday, March 28, 2013

Major General William T. Sherman to Senator John Sherman, March 24, 1864

On March 24, 1864, General Sherman writes from his headquarters, then at Nashville, Tenn.

I went to Cincinnati with Grant to see Ellen. I stayed but two days, and am now here. I go to Decatur, Huntsville, and Chattanooga, to be gone a week, and then return here. I shall have plenty to do. I am bored for photographs, etc. I send you the only one I have, which you can have duplicated, and let the operator sell to the curious. Give Grant all the support you can. If he can escape the toils of the schemers, he may do some good. He will fight, and the Army of the Potomac will have all the fighting they want. He will expect your friendship — we are close friends. His simplicity and modesty are natural and not affected. Whatever part is assigned me I will attempt, cost what it may in life and treasure. . . .

And again he writes: —

Grant encourages his juniors and takes pleasure in supporting them. . . . Newspaper men are afraid of me, and I hope before the war is much older we shall be allowed to conscript every citizen of good physique found about our camps, on the ground that he has fled to escape the draft. Such an order would have an admirable effect.

SOURCE: Rachel Sherman Thorndike, Editor, The Sherman Letters: Correspondence Between General and Senator Sherman from 1837 to 1891, p. 223-4

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