tic, and just, as the great
prototype Washington; as unselfish, kind-hearted, and honest, as a
man should be; but the chief characteristic in your nature is the
simple faith in success you have always manifested, which I can
liken to nothing else than the faith a Christian has in his
Saviour.

This faith gave you victory at Shiloh and Vicksburg. Also, when
you have completed your best preparations, you go into battle
without hesitation, as at Chattanooga--no doubts, no reserve; and I
tell you that it was this that made us act with confidence. I knew
wherever I was that you thought of me, and if I got in a tight
place you would come--if alive.

My only points of doubt were as to your knowledge of grand
strategy, and of books of science and history; but I confess your
common-sense seems to have supplied all this.

Now as to the future. Do not stay in Washington. Halleck is
better qualified than you are to stand the buffets of intrigue and
policy. Come out West; take to yourself the whole Mississippi
Valley; let us make it dead-sure, and I tell you the Atlantic slope
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; still
much remains to be done. Time and time's influences are all with
us; we could almost afford to sit still and let these influences
work. Even in the seceded States your word now would go further
than a President's proclamation, or an act of Congress.

For God's sake and for your country's sake, come out of Washington!
I foretold to General Halleck, before he left Corinth, the
inevitable result to him, and I now exhort you to come out West.
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. Your sincere
friend,

W. T. SHERMAN

We reached Memphis on the 13th, where I remained some days, but on
the 14th of March received from General Grant a dispatch to hurry
to Nashville in person by the 17th, if possible. Disposing of all
matters then pending, I took a steamboat to Cairo, the cars thence
to Louisville and Nashville, reaching that place on the 17th of
March, 1864.

I found General Grant there. He had been to Washington and back,
and was ordered to return East to command all the armies of the
United States, and personally the Army of the Potomac. I was to
succeed him in command of th