s ruthlessness, but no one can say
that he was not effective. He bore on hard but with the belief that
only such action could bring the war to a close. No one could come in
contact with him without feeling that he was a soft-hearted man. It
was one of the most interesting evenings of my life when, as a guest
of N.O. Nelson, the philanthropic captain of industry in St. Louis,
I was one of a company of a dozen to hear Sherman tell John Fiske his
story of the war. We sat at table from seven o'clock until midnight,
the two illustrious figures with their heads together exchanging a
rapid fire of question and answer, but the rest of us were by no means
silent. Sherman was full of affability and took good-naturedly the
sharp inquiries. "How was it, General, at Shiloh; was not your line
quite too unguarded on the Corinth side, and was not the coming on of
Sidney Johnston a bad surprise for you?" "Oh, later in the war," said
Sherman, "we no doubt should have done differently, but we got ready
for them as they came on." "Was there not bad demoralisation," I
said, "ten thousand or more skulkers huddled under the bluff on the
Tennessee?" "Oh," said Sherman, "the rear of an army in battle is
always a sorry place; but on the firing line, where I was, things
did not look so bad."--"Your adversaries, General, were often good
fellows, were they not, and you are good friends now?" "The best
fellows in the world," said Sherman, "and as to friendship, Hood wants
me to be his literary executor and take care of his memoirs."

He was ready to confess to mistakes, and with frank and proper
exultation pointed out the gradual improvement and the triumphant
result. Plenty of good stories and much hearty laughter came in among
the more tragic episodes. We saw John Fiske take it all in, swaying
in his chair ponderously back and forth, but the _War in the
Mississippi Valley_, which came out soon after, showed that his
memory retained every point. On another occasion, as Sherman on a
stormy night took me home in his carriage, we skirted the blocks which
had been the site of Camp Jackson, the first field of the Civil War
that Sherman had witnessed. That was the beginning of things in
the West, and he on that day only a by-stander. He was at the time
possibly irresolute as to what he should do, and he certainly had no
premonition of the large part he was destined to play. As he looked
out of the window that night into the driving storm on the spot wher