earnest we of the north still try reconciliation, etc. I
am putting the screws to some, but find more trouble in
combatting the North whose merchants and traders
think they have a right to make money out of the pres-
ent state of things, and Memphis was on my arrival
fast becoming a depot of supplies for the hostile army
in the interior.
"If Mr. Lincoln had accepted the fact of war on the
start and raised his army, as I then advised, of a million
of men, the South would have seen they had aroused a
lion. Whereas by temporizing expedients, first 75,000,
then ten new regiments, then half a million, etc., they
find it necessary again and again to increase the call.
Well, at last I hope the fact is clear to their minds that
if the North design to conquer the South, we must begin
at Kentucky and reconquer the country from there as
we did from the Indians. It was this conviction then
as plainly as now that made men think I was insane.
A good many flatterers now want to make me a
prophet. ..."
"Memphis, August 20, 1862.
"... I see the Cincinnati papers are finding fault
with me again. Well, thank God, I don't owe Cincin-
nati anything, or she me. If they want to believe re-
porters they may. Eliza Gillespie can tell you whether
I take an interest in the sick or no. I never said I did
not want cowards from the hospital. I said the Sanitary
Committee had carried off thousands who were not sick,
except of the war, and for my part I did not want such to
232 SHERMAN'S HOME LETTERS
return. Men who ran off at Shiloh and escaped in
boats to Ohio and remain absent as deserters will be of
no use to us here. This is true and those deserters
should know it; but the real sick receive from me all
possible care. I keep my sick with their regiments,
with their comrades, and don't send them to strange
hospitals. Our surgeon has a very bad way of getting
rid of sick instead of taking care of them in their regi-
ments, and once in the general hospitals they rarely
return. This cause nearly defeated us at Shiloh, when
57,000 men were absent from their regiment without
leave. McClellan has 70,000 absent from his army.
This abuse has led to many catastrophes, and you can't
pick up a paper without some order of the President
and Secretary of War on the subject.
"If the doctors want to do charity let them come here,
where the sick are, and not ask us to send the sick to
them. As to opening the liquor saloons here, it was
done by the city authorities to prevent the sale of
whiskey by the smugglers. We have as little drunken-
ness and as good order here as in any part of the volun-
teer army.
"Cincinnati furnishes more contraband goods than
Charleston, and has done more to prolong the war
than the State of South Carolina. Not a merchant
there but would sell salt, bacon, powder and lead, if
they can make money by it. I have partially stopped
this and hear their complaints. I hope Bragg will
bring war home to them. The cause of war is not
alone in the nigger, but in the mercenary spirit of our
countrymen."
THE WAR BEGUN 233
"Memphis, September 12, 1862.
"... My predictions of last fall are not much wide
of the truth now. The southern leaders don't wait till
the time comes, they prepare beforehand. The whole
of last year has been consumed by them in preparation,
and now they have a larger army and as well armed as
we have. I still don't see the issue of events, but surely
we must do more than brag or else the South will carry
the war into Africa. I see the people have made a clear
sacrifice of Pope and McDowell, and are now content
with having killed two of their own generals. This is a
glorious war! With thousands of armed enemies now in
the loyal states of Kentucky and Maryland the people
are content to kill Pope and McDowell. Well, it may
be all right, but I would advise a different course. In-
stead of thinking of us away to the front, they think of
themselves. . . ."
VIII
VICKSBURG
1863
When the autumn of 1862 was well advanced, Mrs.
Sherman and the children came to Memphis for a visit.
About the middle of November Sherman was sum-
moned to a meeting with Grant in Columbus, Ken-
tucky, where they discussed the first movement towards
the taking of Vicksburg. In December Sherman set
out upon an unavailing attempt to capture the strong-
hold in co-operation with Admiral Porter. This failure
was followed immediately by the success at Arkansas
Post, one of the early moves in the deadly game of
wresting Vicksburg from the Confederate army. To
this purpose a little more than the first six months of
1863 was devoted. It was a period of constant struggle,
not only with the enemy, but with the great ally of
whichever side could control it, the Mississippi River.
The final overthrow of Vicksburg was for Sherman, as
we shall see, "the first gleam of daylight in this war."
It marked a definite period of Sherman's own develop-
ment, and with the letter written on the day after the
capitulation, the present chapter will end.
234
VICKSBURG 235
"On Board Forest Queen,
"Milliken's Bend, January 4, 1863.
"Well, we have been to Vicksburg and it was too
much for us, and we have backed out. I suppose the
attack on Holly Springs and the railroad compelled
Grant to fall behind the Tallahatchie, and consequently
the Confederates were enabled to reinforce Vicksburg.
Besides, its natural strength had been improved by a
vast amount of labor, so that it was impossible for me
to capture or even to penetrate to the road from which
alone I could expect to take it. For five days we were
thundering away, and when my main assault failed, and
Admiral Porter deemed another requiring the coopera-
tion of the gunboats 'too hazardous,' I saw no alter-
native but to regain my steamboats and the main river,
which I did unopposed and unmolested. To reembark
a large command in the face of an enterprising and suc-
cessful enemy is no easy task, but I accomplished it.
McClernand has arrived to supersede me by order of
the President himself. 1 Of course I submit gracefully.
The President is charged with maintaining the govern-
ment and has a perfect right to choose his agents. My
command is to be an army corps composed of Morgan
L. Smith's old command (poor Morgan now lies
wounded badly in the hip on board the Chancellor, and
1 On January 2, Sherman had learned that McClernand had
" orders from the War Department to command the expeditionary
force on the Mississippi River" (Memoirs, I, 322). On January
24, Sherman wrote to his wife: "It was simply absurd to super-
sede me by McClernand, but Mr. Lincoln knows I am not anxious
to command, and he knows McClernand is, and must gratify him.
He will get his fill before he is done."
236 SHERMAN'S HOME LETTERS
his division is commanded by Stuart), and the troops
I got at Helena commanded by Fred Steele whom I
know well. These are all new and strange to me but
such is life and luck. Before I withdrew from the
Yazoo I saw McClernand and told him that we had
failed to carry the enemy's line of works before Vicks-
burg, but I could hold my ground at Yazoo — but it
would be useless. He promptly confirmed my judg-
ment that it was best to come out into the main river at
Milliken's Bend. We did so day before yesterday, and
it has rained hard two days and I am satisfied that we
got out of the Swamp at Chickasaw Bayou in time, for
now water and mud must be forty feet deep there. . . .
Regulars did well, of course, but they or no human
beings could have crossed the bayou and live. People
at a distance will ridicule our being unable to pass a
harrow bayou, but nobody who was there will. In-
stead of lying idle I proposed we should come to the
Arkansas and attack the Post of Arkansas, fifty miles
up that river, from which the enemy has attacked the
river capturing one of our boats, towing two barges of
navy coal and capturing a mail, so I have no doubt
some curious lieutenant has read your letters to me.
We must make the river safe behind us before we
push too far down. We are now on our way to the
Post of Arkansas. McClernand assumed command
to-day, so I will not be care-worn again by the duty
of looking to supplies, plans, etc. ... It will in the
end cost us at least ten thousand lives to take Vicks-
burg. I would have pushed the attack to the bitter
end, but even had we reached the city unassisted we
VICKSBURG 237
could not have held it if they are at liberty to rein-
force from the interior. ..."
"Post of Arkansas, January 12, 1863.
"We carried the Post of Arkansas yesterday and cap-
tured all its stores and garrison, and Brigadier-General
Churchill, and three brigades of soldiers, I cannot tell
yet how many. They now stand clustering on the bank,
and will today be put on board of boats and sent to
Cairo. This relieves our Vicksburg trip of all appear-
ances of a reverse, as by this move we open the Arkansas
and compel all organized masses of the enemy to pass
below the Arkansas River, and it will also secure this
flank when we renew our attack on Vicksburg. ..."
"Camp near Vicksburg, January 28, 1863.
"... The politician thinks results can be had by
breath, but how painfully it begins to come home to the
American people that the war which all have striven so
hard to bring on and so few to avert is to cost us so many
thousands of lives. Indeed do I wish I had been killed
long since. Better that than struggle with the curses
and maledictions of every woman that has a son or
brother to die in any army with which I chance to be
associated. Of course Sherman is responsible. Seeing
so clearly into the future I do think I ought to get away.
The President's placing McClernand here and the dead
set to ruin me for McClernand's personal glory would
afford me a good chance to slide out and escape the
storm and trouble yet in reserve for us. Here we are
at Vicksburg on the wrong side of the river trying to
238 SHERMAN'S HOME LETTERS
turn the Mississippi by a ditch, a pure waste of human
labor. Grant has come and Prime ' is here and they
can figure it out, but the canal won't do. We must
carry out the plan fixed up at Oxford. A large army
must march down from Oxford to Grenada and so on
to the rear of Vicksburg, and another army must be
here to cooperate with the gun-boats at the right time.
Had Grant been within sixty miles of Vicksburg, or
Banks near, I could have broken the line of Chickasaw
Bayou, but it was never dreamed by me that I could
take the place alone. McClernand or Grant will not
undertake it. Not a word of Banks. I doubt if he has
left or can leave or has any order to leave New Orleans.
Therefore here we are to sit in the mud till spring and
summer and maybe another year. Soldiers will soon
clamor for motion, life, anything rather than canal dig-
ging. The newspapers are after me again; I published
an order they must not come along on pain of being
treated as spies. I am now determined to test the
question. Do they rule or the commanding general ?
If they rule I quit. I have ordered the arrest of one,
shall try him, and if possible execute him as a spy.
They publish all the data for our enemy and it was only
by absolute secrecy that we could get to the Post of
Arkansas without their getting ahead. They did re-
veal our attempt to attack Haines's Bluff. I will never
again command an army in America if we must carry
along paid spies. I will banish myself to some foreign
country first. I shall notify Mr. Lincoln of this if he
attempt to interfere with the sentence of any court
1 Captain Prime of the Engineer Corpa.
VICKSBURG 239
ordered by me. If he wants an army he must conform
to the well established rules of military nations and not
attempt to keep up the open rules of peace. The South
at the start did these things, and the result has been,
they move their forces from Virginia to Mississippi and
back without a breath spoken or written. ..."
"Camp near Vicksbtjrg,
" February 22, 1863.
". . . As to my exposing myself unnecessarily, you
need not be concerned. I know better than C
where danger lies and where I should be. Soldiers
have a right to see and know that the man who guides
them is near enough to see with his own eyes, and that
he cannot see without being seen. At Arkansas Post
the ground was nearly level and the enemy could see
me, with officers coming and going and orderlies
grouped near. Of course they fired at me, one rifled
10 pounder repeatedly, and when I was grouping the
prisoners I recognized the very gun and asked for the
gunner, who proved to be a real Paddy, and I gave him
fits for aiming at me, which the fellow did not deny;
but we gave them a fair return and the account was
squared. ..."
"Camp near Vicksbtjrg, February 26, 1863.
"I have yours of the 14th inst. and indeed I think all
your letters have come somewhat in bunches, but I
think all are at hand up to that of the 14th. Of course,
I will heed your counsel about the newspaper corre-
spondents, but it is hard for me to know that they are
240 SHERMAN'S HOME LETTERS
used to spy out and report all our acts of omission and
commission to be published at home to prejudice t.~e
cause and advance that of the enemy. It is hard enough
to know that we have a strong well organized and vin-
dictive enemy in front and a more dangerous insidious
one within our very camp. These causes must defeat
us unless the people have resources enough to learn by
the slow and sad progress of time what they might so
much easier learn from books or the example of our
enemy. We look in vain to their newspapers for scraps
from which to guess at the disposition of their forces,
and know and feel all the time that every thing we do
or attempt to do is paraded in all our newspapers which
reach Vicksburg by telegraph from Richmond, Va. or
Memphis long before we are ourselves advised. I feel
also that our government instead of governing the coun-
try is led first by one class of newspapers, then another,
and that we are the mere shuttle-cocks flying between.
We get all the knocks and rarely see one grain of en-
couragement from 'home.' I see the eulogies of the
brave and heroic acts of men at Springfield, Illinois,
and Cincinnati, and rarely anything but the paid and
hired encomiums of some worthless regiment here,
that, understanding the notions of our people, can get
cheap reputation by writing for the press, and neglect-
ing all their duties here. The further we penetrate,
the further we remain from home, the less we are es-
teemed or encouraged. I did not intend to resign unless
the public opinion of the North made it prudent for the
President to recall me nominally to some other command,
or unless I detected in my own corps some symptoms of
VICKSBURG 241
the natural results of the continued attacks of the press.
In either event being foot-loose I would be justified
before God and man in making my own choice of
vocation. My old troops believe in me, but in this
move I had a new batch that did not know me and I
had reason to apprehend mistrust on this point, as some
of them are known to me, like , to be mere politi-
cians who come to fight not for the real glory and suc-
cess of the nation but for their own individual aggrand-
izement. Let any accident befall me or any temporary
rumor like that at Vicksburg, the same howl will be
renewed because these buzzards of the press who hang
in scent about our camps know full well that death
awaits them whenever I have the power or when time
develops their true character and influence. You in
Ohio have one or two papers to conciliate, here we have
all — St. Louis, Chicago, New York, Cincinnati, Charles-
ton, Atlanta and Vicksburg. Now these are all an-
tagonistic save in one particular, in esprit de corps.
They stand by each other as a profession, but each
gathers facts and draws its pictures to suit the home
market, and really the Southern correspondents are the
more fair. Were I to judge of public opinion by the
tone of the press I would say we were here regarded as
an enemy to the North and rather favorable to the South.
Of course, I shall no longer attempt to exclude spies
from camp, and allow these to come and go freely and
collect their own budgets. The ram Queen of the West
was captured by the enemy in Red River and yesterday
came close up to Vicksburg with the Rebel flag flying in
defiance. We have an iron boat below, the Indianola,
242 SHERMAN'S HOME LETTERS
but night before last heavy firing was heard until about
one o'clock, when it ceased, and this fact being followed
by the appearance of the captured ram looks bad. 1
fear the Indianola is gone, and that the enemy has re-
covered the use of the river below Vicksburg. This to
us is a bad blow, and may lead to worse consequences.
I at once established a battery of 20 pound rifles below
the town and made other dispositions, but the ram
has again gone below. I fear for the safety of the In-
dianola. If sunk it is not so bad, but if like the Queen
of the West she has fallen into the hands of the enemy,
it may prove a calamity. Rain, rain, — water above,
below and all round. I have been soused under water
by my horse falling in a hole, and got a good ducking
yesterday walking where a horse could not go. No
doubt they are chuckling over our helpless situation in
Vicksburg. Accounts from Yazoo and Providence
Lake favorable, but rain, rain, and men can't work —
indeed hardly a place to stand, much less lie down. . . ."
"Camp before Vicksburg,
"March 13, 1863.
"... The waters are still rising and Kilby Smith's
Brigade is roosting on the levee with bare standing
room. McClernand's Corps is at Milliken's Bend, and
my Corps strung along the levee for four miles. The
levee is about ten feet wide at top with sloping sides
and can hold all the men and maybe horses in case of
an absolute flood. We have not steamboats enough to
float us and if we had there is no dry land to go to. An
expedition has entered the Yazoo from above, and
VICKSBURG 243
when it is heard from we probably will make another
dash at Vicksburg or Drumgould's. I see the whole
North is again in agonies about the amount of sickness
down here. It is not excessively hot, more than should
be expected, not more than we had on the Potomac and
Tennessee, and our supplies are the best I ever saw.
There is a deep laid plan to cripple us laid by Jeff Davis
who is smart and knows our people well. By a few
thousands of dollars well invested in newspapers he can
defeat any plan or undertaking. Many really well dis-
posed men have come from St. Louis, Cincinnati and
Washington and have been amazed by the falsehood of
these stories. Only one man of the regulars has died
since we left Memphis. My old regiments are all in
fine health and spirits. Some of the new regiments
have passed through the ordeal which afflicts all new
troops. . . .
"The War Department have not given me any staff,
and yet have taken from me the right to appoint any.
The truth is now as it always was, that persons at a
distance are neglected and those near the seat of power
petted. We have made further progress than any
army, with less means. In Vicksburg we meet our
match and time must solve the difficulty; but so long
as our camps are full of newspaper spies revealing each
move, exaggerating our trouble and difficulties and giv-
ing grounds for discontent, success cannot be expected.
1 "The new Conscript Law is the best act of our govern-
ment and Mr. Lincoln can no longer complain of want
of power. He now is absolute dictator and if he don't
use the power some one will. ..."
244 SHERMAN'S HOME LETTERS
"Camp before Vicksburg, March 30, 1863.
"I got back from an excursion up to Deer Creek in
connection with Admiral Porter the day before yester-
day, and being on General Grant's boat which lies about
four miles above me I wrote you a hasty note saying we
were all well. I don't know what the people and press
will make of this move, but I explain it to you. Our
difficulty at Vicksburg has been to get a foothold on
hard ground on that side of the Mississippi. We have
endeavored to get east of the Yazoo without success by
every possible channel, and Admiral Porter and General
Grant thought they had discovered a new route up Yazoo
and Steele's Bayou to Black Fork across into Deer
Creek, up Deer Creek to Rolling Fork and then into
Sunflower and Yazoo. I don't know if your maps show
this route, but there is a channel during high water.
Grant accompanied the Admiral up a short distance re-
turned and ordered me to follow, to reconnoitre, to
ascertain if the route was feasible to move my Corps.
I got one of the Admiral's little tugs and with only two
aids, Col. Johnson and Lt. Pitzman and my orderly
Boyer, pushed up and overtook the Admiral in Black
Bayou. I took no troops with me, but had ordered the
8th Missouri and some pioneers to go up in a steamboat
to clear out trees and overhanging branches. I saw
very soon that the channel was too narrow and ob-
structed by trees to be passable without a vast amount
of clearing, and soon reported that it would not do, but
the Admiral pushed up Deer Creek with his iron-clads.
He had not proceeded twenty miles before the channel
became so obstructed that he doubted his ability to pro-
VICKSBURG 245
ceed, and the enemy had detected the move and had
begun to fell trees across the channel. At last he called
on me for help; and having brought up three small
regiments I sent them forward and worked like a beaver
to get up more. I succeeded in getting up the better
part of two brigades and afoot started for the fleet. I
got there not a minute too soon. The enemy were
swarming about the fleet, had chopped down trees in
front and were in the act of doing the same below so as
to block them in. There were five iron-clads and three,
little tenders or tugs. Their heavy guns could not con-
tend with the rifle men who behind trees and logs picked
off every man who showed his head. I do believe if I had
not labored as I did, and moved as rapidly, the enemy
would have got the boats and the tables would have been
turned on us here at Vicksburg; but the Admiral had
actually resolved to blow them all up. The mud and
rain were terrific, but I marched afoot and the men were
tickled to see me there; and such cheers as the gun-boats
put up when they saw General Sherman! Of course
we soon cleared the ground, and not a shot was fired at
the gun-boats after I got there. For four days and
nights they were beset by a crowd of guerrillas and sol-
diers and could not sleep or rest; it was the lion in a net.
'The admiral was in the act of backing out when I
got to him, and his judgment was that the route was
impracticable. Of course, we gradually withdrew slowly
and leisurely, and the enemy followed us at a dis-
tance. No place on earth is favored by nature with
natural defense such as Vicksburg, and I do believe the
whole thing will fail and we will have to go back to the
246 SHERMAN'S HOME LETTERS
original plan, viz: the main army to move by land from
Memphis, Oxford, Grenada to Yazoo City and Vicks-
burg, whilst a smaller force hem in the river and attack
in flank contemporaneous with the arrival of the main
army. This was the original plan and the only one
certain of success. Grant may resolve to attack Haines'
Bluff, but we cannot bring our whole force to bear
there. The river does not admit of it. . . ."
"Camp at Vicksburg, April 10, 1863.
"... I was really amused at a circumstance to-day
that may be serious. Grant has been secretly working
by night to place some 30 pound rifle guns as close up
to Vicksburg as the water will permit, about 2,300 yards,
and to cover them against the enemies' cross batteries,
but to-day got the Memphis papers of the 7th giving a
minute and full account of them and their location.
Now he knows as we all do that the Secesh mail leaves
Memphis before day, as soon as the morning papers are
printed, reaches Hernando about 11a. m., and the tele-
graph carries to Vicksburg the news in a few minutes.
This explains a remark which Major Watts of the Con-
federate Army made to me at parting day before yester-
day. We met per appointment on a steamboat just
above Vicksburg, and after a long conference relating
to exchange of prisoners, Watts, who is a very clever
man, remarked: 'don't open those batteries to-morrow
(last) night, for I am to give a party and don't want to be
interrupted.' Of course the newspaper correspondents,
encouraged by the political generals and even President
Lincoln, having full swing in this and all camps, report