Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1867-11-22
THE OPINION or a SOLDIER.

General Sherman's speech at the
reunion of the officers of the Army of the
Tennessee, in st. Louis, on the 18th
instant, contained, after rehearsal OF
the achievements Of that army during
the war, an appeal to the good sense Of
his countrymen, North and South, which
is full of soldierly magnanimity and
fervor. If slavery is held to be the real
cause of our civil war, then General
Sherman, himself born of New England
parents, honestly believes that the
people of New England, in common with
all the great North who shared in the
original causes, and enjoyed large part
of the profits resulting from cotton and
slave labor, should be charitable and
liberal in the FINAL distribution of the
natural penalties" He proceeds:
If children must inherit the sins Of
their fathers, even in the third and
fourth generations, then none of US who
trace our origin back to the earlier days
of this republic can escape this mathe-
NAUTICAL and philosophical conclusion !;
or in the language of DR.. Draper
Guilty, then, both Of us in the sight Of
God, let us not vex each other with mu-
tual elimination, but bear our punish
ment with humility" How has this
punishment been partitioned by the
results of the war 2 We of the North
have to mourn the loss OF fathers, broth
ers. sons and friends, and are burdened
with a vast national debt binding on us
in fact, in law and in honor, never,
| hope, to be questioned by any
honorable man in America till every
cent is paid. Look to the South, and
you who went with me through that land
can best say if they, too, have not been
fearfully punished Mourning in every
household, desolation written in broad
characters across the whole face of their
country, cities in ashes and fields laid
waste, their commerce gone, their sys-
fem of labor annihilated and destroyed.
Ruin, poverty, and distress everywhere,
and now pestience adding the very cap
sheaf to their stack of misery; her
proud men begging for pardon and
appealing for permission to raise food
for their children; her five millions of
slaves free, and their value lost to their
former masters forever.
With our population increasing thirty
three per cent every ten years; with our
national wealth developing in even
greater ratio; with our frontiers pushing
back in every direction with farms and
villages and cities rapidly covering our
vast national domain; with mines of
gold and silver and iron and coal pour
ing out wealth faster than ever did the
cotton fields Of the South, with forty
thousand miles Of finished railroads, and
other thousands in progress-can any
one doubt our present strength, or cal
culste our future destiny2 If our friends
at the South will heartily aud cheerfully
Join with rs in this future course, l, for
one, would welcome them back, our
equals, but not our superiors, and lend
them a helping hand.
When men Ike General Sherman take
issue in this wise with the confscation
and destruction policy just reiterated
more venomously than ever by Thaa-
deus Stevens, we may hope on that the
real Grand Army Of the Republic -
soldiers who fought in the war aud de
not buster in time Of peace,-are in no
danger Of becoming Radical enthusiastic
.Nep F0rk World.