Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1891-02-15
SUNDAY. FEBRUARY Is. 1891.
nea.h nf lianeral Sherman.

General WILLIAM TEcUMsEH SHERMAN has
soined that largo company OF the Federai
dead of the head OF whom stand LINCOLN
and GnANr. BY millions Of his countrymen
he was regarded as a great hero, and the
triumphal song, marching Through
Georgia" sung at oil Federal veterans re-
unions, kept his popularity alive and often
recalled that achievement upon which his
military fame chiefly rests.
His illness was brief; but the strides OF
his disease were rapid and the footprints
tneifAcesbls, and in few days he was
brought face TO face with the Great Con-
queror, when all that was left him was IN
conditional surrender. His memory will
be embalmed in the hearts OF the northern
people, and the Government will bestow
upon him all the honors due his war career
and position as retired general OF the army
but the exact historian Of the future,
though he must accord him military genius,
will not fail to point out many traits of
character that were far from being esti-
mable.
When GRANT died, mindful OF the con-
siderstion be showed our army OF Apo
mattox Courthouse; Of the rcsolute stand
he took against the threatened arrest and
prosecution of General LIE, and of the
handsome things he often said OF southern
officers and southern troops-remember-
eng the generous and kindly part of his
nature and forgetful of all else, hundreds
of distinguished Confederates by personal
attendance at his funeral or by letters OF
sympathy 10 his family expressed the SIN
cere sorrow Of the South.
SHERMAN never came near our hearts as
Grant did He was living amongst rs
when the war broke out. We thought he
had some reason TO lean towards us. or at
least to respect us. but he became one OF
the most implacable of our foes. His
march through Georgia and the Carolinas
left swath of destruction and desolation.
lie acted upon the maxim that war is
cruelty" II was his torch that fred At
lanta and he wantonly burned Columbia,
s. O., and then deliberately sought to afix
the responsibility upon WADE HAMPTON.
At the surrender of General JOHNSTON he
consented TO terms that promised happily
for the South. but LINCOLN having been in
the mean time assassinated they were re-
jected by the Government, and he yielded.
Under like circumstances. we imagine,
GRANT would have been firm. Possibly
BHKRMLs had already begun to repent his
seeming magnRnimity. At any rate the
terms he made with JOHNSTON were re-
pudiated by the authorities at Washington
and there, after some squabbling between
SHEKMAS and STANTON, the matter ended.
Few and far between were the kind
words General SHERMAN spoke of US du-
ring the quarter of a century past. Once
he bitterly denounced Mr.. DAVIS, and that
without rhyme or reason greater than to
hear the huzzas of people who hated our
Confederate President and had no love for
the South. His admiration and affection
for General JOHNSTON was redeeming fea-
ture OF his conduct towards our section,
and we put it to his credit.
The North believed in him, and will
never harbor the idea that he treated us
with undeserved severity. We can no
more change their convictions than they
can change ours. Nor is this the time to
try TO do 30.
We know that he will be sincerely
mourned. Great eulosies will be pro-
bounced over him. His funeral will be
splendid, and grand monuments will be
raised 30 his memory, and the Federal
veterans at theirreunions will still cheer the
mention of his name and grow wildly en-
thusiastis as they sing Marching Through
Georgia"