Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1879-09-20
GEN. SHERMAN'S LETTER.

Gen. Sherman has been invited to
attend a reunion of Federal and
Confederate soldiers at Salisbury,
North Carolina, and replied in q
plain, blunt letter, as follows:
1.-THE time is too remote for me to
make promise, but assure you that
1t would be most agreeable to me per-
sonally and socially to meet you on
any suitable occasion. There is no
use in my mincing terms. Whenever
and wherever the honest men OF
North Carolina seek to allay sectional
and party animOsities and TO cultivate
feelings of fraternal respect for their
fellow citizens of the United States, it
will be to me most tempting to come
to Salisbury. I would far prefer to
come alone than, as before, with vast
army, leaving desolation behind, but 1
must not be construed as asserting to
the proposition that Confederate and
Union men were alike worthy of cele-
bration for the terrible history of
186l-65. 1 would much prefer to come
on some civil occasion, when all are
absolutely equal and all alike interest
ed in The present and future OF our
common country. There were few
Union soldiers in North Carolina
during the war, though we be-
lieve the people generally were
opposed to secession, and / will say
that your meeting, if confined to the
surviving soldiers of North Carolina
will be in fact Confederate reunion
where I would certainly be out OF
place. All soldiers in their social re-
unions glorify their deeds of herOism
and this reunion will hardly be an ex-
ception, and it would be strange
sight for Gen. Sherman to cheer the
victories of his enemies and respond
to the claim that because the soldiers OF
North Carolia were brave and true to
their State aud section, their cause
was as sacred as ours, which finally
triumphed and made our Union more
glorious and more Tesplendent than
before. Were [ present and you
should suppress this natural feeling, ]
would feel myself an intruder, marring
the natural happiness of the occasion
I know that the soldier element was
the first to lay aside the angry partisan
feelings of the war, and are the leader:
in the new epoch which is sure to ado
wealth and prosperity to our whole
country, and when some occasion
arises when we may all meet on com
mon ground in North Carolina tC
celebrate some revolutionary event, oil
to encourage some modern enterprise
it will give me great pleasure TO come
to Salisbury, to Raleigh, to Guilford
Court House, or any other place in the
Old North State"
Some of our Southern exchanges
are commenting adversely on the
blunt old Generals letter, but we
think unjustly. If he spoke al
all, from his standpoint, he was
bound to say that the Confede-
rate and Federal soldiers did not
have an equally worthy place in the
history of the war. It was impossi-
BILE for both sides to be right, and
having fought for the Union, as a
matter of course, he believed the
. Union side was the right side. lie
says nothing in disparagement Of
the gallantry Or the honesty of the
men who wore the grey, but it does
not follow, because they were "brave
and true" that their cause could
be as sacred in the esti-
nation of the grim old warrior or
those who fought under him, as the
cause of the Union which finally
triumphed. We have always been
willingly to concede the heroism of
the Confederate soldiers, SO gallant
>ly attested on a hundred bloody
Ids all over the South, heroism
has never been excelled in the
of war, but it would be un>