The death of General Sherman removed the last member of the triumvirate
of soldiers who achieved the highest distinction in the Civil War. In
the Senate one speaker gave him the highest place, but on the contrary
I cannot rank him above either Grant or Sheridan. When we consider the
vastness of the command with which Grant was entrusted through a period
of more than a year, the magnitude and success of his operations, and
the tenacity with which he prosecuted all his varied undertakings, it
must appear that neither Sherman nor Sheridan was entitled to the
position of a rival. As to Sherman, I can say from a long and intimate
acquaintance with him, and under circumstances when his real feeling
would have been disclosed, that he never assumed an equality with Grant.
As between Sherman and Sheridan it is not easy to settle the question
of pre-eminence. For myself the test would be this: Assume that Grant
had disappeared during the Battle of the Wilderness, would the fortunes
of the country have been best promoted, probably, by the appointment of
Sherman or Sheridan? I cannot now say what my opinion would have been
in 1864, but I should now have pronounced for Sheridan. He was more
cool and careful in regard to the plan of operations and equally bold
and vigorous in execution. General Grant expressed the opinion to me
in conversation that Sheridan was the best officer in the army. He
spoke of his care and coolness in the preparation of his plans and his
celerity in execution. Of "the younger set of officers" he placed Ames
(Adelbert) as the most promising.
In one of my last conversations with Sheridan he expressed the opinion
that the improvement in the material of war was so great that nations
could not make war, such would be the destruction of human life.
Upon his return from Germany at the end of the Franco-Prussian War, he
spoke very disparagingly of the military movements and among several
things he said that the French forces were placed where the Germans
would have dictated had they had the power. He added the either of
our armies at the close of the war could have marched over the country
in defiance of both the French and German forces combined. This was a
rash remark, probably; a remark which he could not justify upon the
facts. Without intending to betray any confidence, the remark, as
coming through me, got into the newspapers. Sheridan with a skill
superior to that of politicians caused the announcement to be made
that General Sheridan had never had any conversation with Governor
Boutwell in regard to the Franco-Prussian war.
At the end it may be claimed justly, that they were three great
soldiers--that they served the country with equal fidelity--that they
lived and acted without the manifestation in either of a feeling of
rivalry, and that they earned the public gratitude.
The death of General Sherman was followed to two contradictory
statements from his sons. The younger, Tecumseh, is reported as saying
that his father was never a Catholic, while the older, Thomas, who is
a priest of the Order of Jesuits, had stated over his signature that
his father was baptized as a Catholic, was married as a Catholic, and
that he had heard him say often, "that if there was any true religion
it was the Catholic."
All this may be true and yet General Sherman may not have been a
Catholic. His baptism may have been without his consent or knowledge,
his marriage by the Catholic Church may have been in deference to his
wife's wishes, and because he was wholly indifferent to the matter,
and the remark may have been made in the impression that there was no
true religion, and that the Catholic was as likely, or even more likely
to be true, than any other.
The statement made by Thomas puts an imputation upon General Sherman
that he ought not to bear. Of the thousands that one may meet in a
lifetime, General Sherman was among the freest from anything in the
nature of hypocrisy or dissimulation. Of those who knew him intimately
after the close of the war there are but few, probably, who did not
hear him speak with hostility and bitterness of the Catholic Church.
For myself I can say that I heard him speak in terms of contempt of
the church. On one occasion with reference to fasts and abstinence
from meat of Friday, he said:
"I know better than these priests what I want to eat."
General Sherman was not a friend to the Catholic Church in the last
years of his life and there is no honor in the attempt to enroll his
name among its devotees now that he is dead and cannot speak for himself.