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- Dec 21, 2015
One of my more recent acquisitions is Sherman's Civil War: Selected Correspondence of William T. Sherman, 1860-1865.
What got me interested in this book -- which is exactly what it describes: a collection of WTS letters 1860-1865 -- was the fact that often Grant biographies will quote partial contents of a letter from Sherman to Grant, and whilst I could look up the contents on the internet, it is fun to have a Grant biography in one hand, and these letters in the other -- flipping back and forth (I am exaggerating: handling the Chernow book and the Sherman book counts as physical exertion)
An example of how I used this book can be illustrated by this passage from Chernow's Grant:
Sherman ended this warmhearted letter with a start warning that Grant should beware the perils of Washington -- a pleas from one western man to another to avoid the insidious snares of the East. "Don't 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...Here lies the seat of the coming Empire, and from the West when our task is done, we will make short work of Charleston, ad Richmond, and the impoverished coast of the Atlantic" Ron Chernow, Grant, [p 338]
"...Time and time's influence 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 fortold to General Halleck, before he left Corinth, the inevitable result to him, and I now exhort you to come out west'' [Chernow's quote picks up here] Brooks D Simpson & Jean V Berlin, Sherman's Civil War: Selected Correspondence of William T. Sherman, 1860-1865, [p604]
For God's sake and for your country's sake, come out of Washington! I fortold to General Halleck, before he left Corinth, the inevitable result to him, and I now exhort you to come out west'' [Chernow's quote picks up here] Brooks D Simpson & Jean V Berlin, Sherman's Civil War: Selected Correspondence of William T. Sherman, 1860-1865, [p604]
I have not looked into this book myself Grant and Sherman: The Friendship that Won the War by Charles Bracelen Flood -- perhaps it needs to be added to the stack?
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