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[575] tory; but, I confess, your common-sense seems to have supplied all these.

Now, as to the future. Don't stay in Washington. Come West: take to yourself the whole Mississippi valley. Let us make it dead-sure—and I tell you, the Atlantic slopes and Pacific shores will follow its destiny, as sure as the limbs of a tree live or die with the main trunk. We have done much, but still much remains. Time, and time's influences, are with us. We could almost afford to sit still, and let these influences work.

Here lies the seat of the coming empire; and from the West, when our task is done, we will make short work of Charleston and Richmond, and the impoverished coast of the Atlantic.1

Your sincere friend.


Before Grant reached Washington, he received the following magnanimous dispatch from the man whom he was about to supersede: ‘The Secretary of War directs me to say that your commission as ’

1 On the 29th of December, Sherman had written to Grant: ‘In relation to the conversation we had in General Granger's office, the day before I left Nashville, I repeat, you occupy a position of more power than Halleck or the President. There are similar instances in European history, but none in ours. For the sake of future generations, risk nothing. Let us risk—and when you strike, let it be as at Vicksburg and Chattanooga. Your reputation as a general is now far above that of any man living, and partisans will manoeuvre for your influence; but, if you can escape them, as you have hitherto done, you will be more powerful for good than it is possible to measure. You said that you were surprised at my assertion on this point, but I repeat that from what I have seen and heard here, I am more and more convinced of the truth of what I told you. Do as you have heretofore done, preserve a plain military character; and let others manoeuvre as they will, you will beat them, not only in fame, but in doing good in the closing scenes of this war, when somebody must heal and mend up the breaches made by war.’

New York Appleton 1885.

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