NONE of his great contemporaries was universally beloved
more than General Sherman, perhaps none so much. The rare happiness was
his not only of becoming famous by taking a great part in a great
historic achievement, but of the complete enjoyment of fame. His later
years forecast the future. He saw not only that his name would be
remembered, but remembered with personal affection. Very few men have
been able to foresee this, and very few more clearly than Sherman. It is
due not to achievement alone, but to personal quality blended with
achievement.
In his last years he was wholly withdrawn from public affairs, and with
extraordinary tact, although constantly in the public eye and mind, and
although the sense of his historic personality, so to speak, was
constant, he refrained from declarations upon pending public questions,
and the remarks of his interviews were not devoted to subjects of
general controversy. This was doubtless the result of his accurate
apprehension of his relation to the country. He had been educated by it,
and had served it as a soldier. He had strong convictions and was frank
of speech, but he belonged to all. He could not well be a common
partisan. He was apparently untouched by political ambition. If he had
felt its spur at all, he was happily able to prefer the general
permanent affectionate popular regard to the fierce enthusiasm of a
political campaign and the passionate ardor of partisanship.
Whatever the reason, he held aloof. Perhaps at one moment, had he
assented, his name might have been caught up in a vast and tumultuous
political convention, and to a burning and skilful appeal to patriotism
and the still glowing memories of the war a palpitating party might have
responded, and made him its leader. But if others doubted and hesitated
he did not. He comprehended the situation as in a comprehensive and
far-extending military movement. He knew himself, and he refused. The
opportunity for which the most illustrious and the most famous of
Americans have longed and labored and pined offered itself to him,
unsought, unwished, and he smiled it away.
Among the chief figures of the epoch of the war probably Lincoln and
Sherman were the most individual and original. The most romantic and
picturesque of the many renowned events of that time was the march to
the sea. It has already a distinctive character, like that of the Greeks
in Xenophon's story of the ten thousand. When the news of its successful
issue reached this part of the country, it served to show the simple and
honest patriotism of one of the more unfortunate of the Union generals.
Burnside, after the explosion of the mine at Petersburg, had been
relieved, and was staying with a company of friends at a country-house
on Narragansett Bay. The company were all sitting one morning upon the
spacious piazza, when a messenger rode up and announced Sherman's
success. Burnside's delight was enthusiastic. All thought of himself
vanished. The good cause only was in his mind and heart, and, running to
his wife, he joyfully kissed her, saying, "I know that the company feels
as I do, and will forgive me."
It was the feeling of a soldier as simple and true-hearted and
patriotic, but not so fortunate, as Sherman; and it was the same candor
and manly sweetness of nature that softened Sherman's voice whenever he
spoke of the soldiers of the war to whom fate had seemed to be unkind.
He is gone, the last of the old familiar figures, some of his old foes
bearing him tenderly to the grave. And are not Lincoln, Grant, Sherman,
Sheridan, Porter, Seward, Chase, Stanton, Sumner, and their fellows,
historic figures worthy to rank with the elder Revolutionary group dear
to all Americans?