The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1891-02-18
The Death of General Sherman.


One by one the lights of the nations
great historic period go out. The
statesmen who yielded to no mortal
task, the great captains who surren-
dered to no mortal enemy, one by one
confront Death and are vanquished.
From Lincoln to Sherman the roll of
the Republics dead is lighted by
names-inscribed thereon all too early
whose luster shall never grow dim,
how long so ever recorded time shall
endure. AS familiar as household
words, these rise spontaneously to the
lips or dwell deep in the memory of
grateful millions, but at these too fire.
quently recurring intervals, when half
masted flags or booming minute guns
proclaim some new name added to the
lengthening list, memory is quickened
and expressions of love and gratitude
become more fervid as the deeds, the
sufferings, the death, the martyrdom
of the nations heroes are recounted.
Admiral Porter has passed away and the
event revives the glory of the navy,
impershably frightened by the hero
ism of Farragut and the deeds of the
long line of gallant sailors, along the
Atlantic coast and on inland waters.
Around Sherman's bier we remember
the triple brotherhood of great cap
tains, so diverse in characteristics but
one in loyalty to each other and always
inflexibly and intensely one in supreme
devotion to country. Providence had
mercifully heightened out the days of
Sherman beyond the life span of his
great compeers, and longer than they
he had lived to enjoy the honors
greatful republic lavished upon him.
Sherman was endowed by nature
with rugged qualities of soul and body.
He reached his conclusions without de-
bate, without those nice calculations
of personal duty and honor which
made rebels of Lee, Jackson and
host of others. When in 1861 he was
superintendent of a military academy
in Louisiana and that state was about
to secede from the Union, true as
the needle to the pole his sense of
duty impelled him to write the gov
ernor elf Louisiana withdraws from
the federal Union [ propose to main
tain my allegiance to the old constitu
ton as long as a fragment of it sur
wives. beg you to take i'm
mediate steps to release me as super
intendent the moment the state deter
mines to secede, for on no earthly ac-
count will l do any act or think any
thought hostile to or in defamation of
the old government of the United
States" Here is the key note to his
whole subsequent career. Similar de-
cisiveness and energy characterized his
every movement from that moment, till
grand drama of war and rebellion. So
clear was his vision, so impetuous his
purpose in the early days of the war,
his less inspired official superiors called
him crazy; but when his sort of lunacy
became supreme in cabinet and camp
the Union cause began to triumph. The
stern stuff of which he was made was
first conspicuously shown at Shiloh
His line was the rock which stayed the
rebel onslaught on that first disastrous
day of battle; he was Grants strong
right arm at Vicksburg, and took the
brunt of the rebel resistance at Chat
tanooga; with logged persistence when
Grant had been transferred to the East,
he fought his way over the mountain
ridges to Atlanta and entered the
heart of the confederacy. His dra-
matte march to the sea is famous in
song and story. In his own rude
phrase, " War is hell" and in the de-
struction of Atlanta and the havoc of
his famous march, his purpose was as eff
fectively as possible to destroy the mill
tary power of the South and restore the