細節
SHERMAN, WILLIAM TECUMSEH, Major General. Autograph letter signed ("W.T. Sherman Maj. Genl.") TO GENERAL STEPHEN AUGUSTUS HURLBUT, "Hd. Qrs. 15 Army Corps, Camp before Vicksburg," [Mississippi], 16 March 1863. 3 pages, 4to, trifling ink smudge on page 3.
GRANT AND SHERMAN PLAN A NEW MOVE ON VICKSBURG
A fine, friendly letter between commanders. Sherman (commanding the XV Corps in Grant's Army of the Tennessee), commiserates with Hurlbut (commanding the XVI Corps) over a stalled promotion, as secret plans are made by Grant for another attempt to take the Confederate stronghold of Vicksburg. "I...regard you as one of...the men on whom all parties in the end must lean for Stability and Security of Government. You cannot imagine my surprise to read that in the Senate yours and Stewarts appointments are opposed. What are the reasons? They cannot be military or national. Must be local. Who is at the bottom of this?...Say what others may of alternate victory and defeat, we have made more real progress in the war than any other column. And yet our most steadfast officers are questioned in the Senate.....Of course, I have been very foolish to excite the animosity of the Newspaper fraternity as a class. I don't think I am very proud, but this class of men are so supercilious that whenever I come in contact with them I feel a natural repugnance which they are smart enough to see....
"Since I commenced this letter I have been summoned up to Young's Point 4 miles above my camp to Genl. Grant's boat. He has been up a Bayou [Steele's Bayou] through which he expects he can make a channel into the Yazoo [River] above the [Vicksburg] Fortifications. He wants me to go up tomorrow to reconnoiter, and I shall go up in a brig tomorrow morning. I cannot mention the exact route. I have always believed the plan we started out with was the best & only. We form the main army to march down as though threatening Jackson & Vicksburg, to reach the Yazoo at Yazoo City -- & then down to Black River Ridge to the Rear of Vicksburg. A smaller force all afloat to act in front the moment the guns of the main attack are heard. Still the country has no reason to be clamourous. We are far ahead of [W.S.] Rosecrans and [J.] Hooker [commanding, respectively the Union Armies of the Cumberland and Potomac]....I...hope you will have patience to hear he trumpet of justice. Like many other wise men, I can give excellent advice though [am too] impatient to follow it myself....The war is far from being over and in its many phases for the future surely some will form the class of men who have a pure emotion, Love of Country as opposed to others I might who simply have a personal ambition or vanity to serve...."
Grant's all-out campaign against the citadel of Vicksburg had met repeated failure. His first, direct assault in December was strongly repulsed by the Confederates. An ambitious poject to dig a canal through the swamps and and float troops to a point south of Vicksburg was abandoned, and an even more arduous attempt to cut a 400-mile channel from Lake Providence to the Mississippi south of Vicksburg was abandoned in favor of another scheme. This involved blasting a hole in the levee at Yazoo Pass and floating troop transports onto the Tallahatchie River in order to move south, but the Confederates quickly blocked the route by constructing Fort Pemberton on the Yazoo, and the Federal gunboats withdrew only five days before Sherman's letter. Grant's new initiative, in the planning stages at this date, involved sending the naval vessels up Steele's Bayou. Porter with 11 ships pushed his way through the overgrown bayous while Sherman and his men followed on foot. Again, the Confederates reacted quickly, sealing off the waterway and nearly trapping Porter's force. On March 19, hearing of Porter's plight, Sherman and his men made a dramatic night march through the swamps, carrying candles, to save Porter and his ships. Ten days later, Grant activated his successful envelopment plan, which culminated in the surrender of Vicksburg on 4 July 1863. For Sherman's own detailed but matter-of-fact account of the Steele's Bayou adventure, Grant's letter to him of 16 March and a fine map see his Sherman's Memoirs, Library of America edn. (1990), p.326-337.
Provenance:
Elsie O. and Philip D. Sang Foundation (sale, Sotheby Parke Bernet, 3 June l980, lot 1012).
GRANT AND SHERMAN PLAN A NEW MOVE ON VICKSBURG
A fine, friendly letter between commanders. Sherman (commanding the XV Corps in Grant's Army of the Tennessee), commiserates with Hurlbut (commanding the XVI Corps) over a stalled promotion, as secret plans are made by Grant for another attempt to take the Confederate stronghold of Vicksburg. "I...regard you as one of...the men on whom all parties in the end must lean for Stability and Security of Government. You cannot imagine my surprise to read that in the Senate yours and Stewarts appointments are opposed. What are the reasons? They cannot be military or national. Must be local. Who is at the bottom of this?...Say what others may of alternate victory and defeat, we have made more real progress in the war than any other column. And yet our most steadfast officers are questioned in the Senate.....Of course, I have been very foolish to excite the animosity of the Newspaper fraternity as a class. I don't think I am very proud, but this class of men are so supercilious that whenever I come in contact with them I feel a natural repugnance which they are smart enough to see....
"Since I commenced this letter I have been summoned up to Young's Point 4 miles above my camp to Genl. Grant's boat. He has been up a Bayou [Steele's Bayou] through which he expects he can make a channel into the Yazoo [River] above the [Vicksburg] Fortifications. He wants me to go up tomorrow to reconnoiter, and I shall go up in a brig tomorrow morning. I cannot mention the exact route. I have always believed the plan we started out with was the best & only. We form the main army to march down as though threatening Jackson & Vicksburg, to reach the Yazoo at Yazoo City -- & then down to Black River Ridge to the Rear of Vicksburg. A smaller force all afloat to act in front the moment the guns of the main attack are heard. Still the country has no reason to be clamourous. We are far ahead of [W.S.] Rosecrans and [J.] Hooker [commanding, respectively the Union Armies of the Cumberland and Potomac]....I...hope you will have patience to hear he trumpet of justice. Like many other wise men, I can give excellent advice though [am too] impatient to follow it myself....The war is far from being over and in its many phases for the future surely some will form the class of men who have a pure emotion, Love of Country as opposed to others I might who simply have a personal ambition or vanity to serve...."
Grant's all-out campaign against the citadel of Vicksburg had met repeated failure. His first, direct assault in December was strongly repulsed by the Confederates. An ambitious poject to dig a canal through the swamps and and float troops to a point south of Vicksburg was abandoned, and an even more arduous attempt to cut a 400-mile channel from Lake Providence to the Mississippi south of Vicksburg was abandoned in favor of another scheme. This involved blasting a hole in the levee at Yazoo Pass and floating troop transports onto the Tallahatchie River in order to move south, but the Confederates quickly blocked the route by constructing Fort Pemberton on the Yazoo, and the Federal gunboats withdrew only five days before Sherman's letter. Grant's new initiative, in the planning stages at this date, involved sending the naval vessels up Steele's Bayou. Porter with 11 ships pushed his way through the overgrown bayous while Sherman and his men followed on foot. Again, the Confederates reacted quickly, sealing off the waterway and nearly trapping Porter's force. On March 19, hearing of Porter's plight, Sherman and his men made a dramatic night march through the swamps, carrying candles, to save Porter and his ships. Ten days later, Grant activated his successful envelopment plan, which culminated in the surrender of Vicksburg on 4 July 1863. For Sherman's own detailed but matter-of-fact account of the Steele's Bayou adventure, Grant's letter to him of 16 March and a fine map see his Sherman's Memoirs, Library of America edn. (1990), p.326-337.
Provenance:
Elsie O. and Philip D. Sang Foundation (sale, Sotheby Parke Bernet, 3 June l980, lot 1012).