The Press., 1891-02-26
General Horace Porter, in Harpers Weekly) GENERAL SHERMAN As A WRITER AND
 SPEAKER.

d0n0fM sherman was m&ny.8l06u man. He had run the entire gamut of human experience. He had been merchant, bank CT, lawyer, professor, street railroad presi- dent, traveller, author, orator and soldier. Wherever he was placed, his own indlvid- uality was conspicuous and pronounced. He never failed to be intensely entertain and even when unsuccessful they were in- teresting. He could not have been com- monplace if he had tried.
 His writings were as graphic as Cesar's Commentaries. There was in his compo- sitions an elegance of diction seldom found except in the works of professional authors. lie has contributed some of the finest spec linens of rhetoric to be found in modern books. In his description of the departure of the troops from Atlanta, given in his memoirs, his style rises to the sublime.
 His letters are all models in their way. Nothing could exceed in grace and touch ing pathos the reply he wrote to the off cers of his old regiment upon the death of his son:
 ssThe child that bore my name, and in whose future reposed with more conf- dence than in my own plans of life, now
 floats mere corpse, seeking grave in a distant land, with g weeping mother,
 brother and sisters clustered about him
 :. But my poor Willy was, or thought he
 was, 8 sergeant of the thirteenth. I have seen his eye brighten and his heart beat az he beheld the battalion under arms, and asked me if they were not real soldiers. Child as he was, he had the enthusiasm,
 the pure love of truth, honor, and love of country, which should animate all soldiers. God only knows why he should die so young."
 As speaker the same qualities of style may be observed in his more serious of. forts. For instance, his reference to the flag in an address made at 8 banquet to the veterans:
 s'The prayer that every soldier ought to
 breathe is that yonder flag should fly above him in life, around him in death. What is that flag ? A bit of bunting, bauble, 8 toy. You can buy it for few shillings in
 the nearest store. But once raise it as your standard, and millions will follow it and die under it. Insult it, and whole
 nation of patriots will rise up in it's de- fence, and you will find behind it all the
 power that can be yielded by the repub- lic."
 After having listened to nearly all of General Sherman's speeches during the
 last six years, have no hesitation in rank. ing him second to no one as an after-dinner speaker. While the prestige of his illus trious name intensified the interest felt in
 what he said, yet believe that if he had appeared at any banquet unheralded and unknown, and delivered one of hts charac. teristic addresses, it would have been con- ceded that his speech was the hit of the evening. He had the art of beginning with some epigrammatic sentence or humorous allusion to some current topic, spoken in 8 way which at once secured the attention oi the audience. He mingled wit and pathos in happy blending which appealed to all
 minds and touched all hearts. As elo- quence is only another name for earnestness, his serious utterances had all power of the finest oratory. He leaned forward, gestic- ulateds sforcibly with his long right arm, looked his hearers full in the eyes, and seemed to be speaking into the particular ears of each individual before him. As a talker he deserved to be ranked among the great conversers of history, and, unlike
 many gifted conversationalists, he possess ed the rare faculty of being good listen or. Even in the midst of one of his most
 animated recitals, if some one interrupted
 him to add remark, he would stop, look
 at him good naturedly, and nod approval. His lips, too, would often move in unison
 with the speakers, as if "marking time'' to the music of his words.