on, on the ground that the two
higher grades in the army ought not to be complicated with brevets,
and I trust you will conceive my motives aright. If I could see
my way clear to maintain my family, I should not hesitate a moment
to resign my present commission and seek some business wherein I
would be free from those unhappy complications that seem to be
closing about me, in spite of my earnest efforts to avoid them;
but necessity ties my hands, and I submit with the best grace I
can, till I make other arrangements.

"In Washington are already the headquarters of a department, and
of the army itself, and it is hard for me to see wherein I can
render military service there. Any staff officer with the rank of
major could surely fill any gap left between those two military
offices; and by being placed at Washington I shall be universally
construed as a rival to the general in chief, a position damaging
to me in the highest degree. Our relations have always been most
confidential and friendly, and if, unhappily, any cloud of difficulty
should arise between us, my sense of personal dignity and duty
would leave me no alternative but resignation. For this I am not
yet prepared, but I shall proceed to arrange for it as rapidly as
possible, that when the time does come (as it surely will if this
plan is carried into effect), I may act promptly.

"Inasmuch as the order is now issued, I cannot expect a full
revocation of it, but I beg the privilege of taking post at New
York, or at any point you may name, within the new military division,
other than Washington.

"This privilege is generally granted to all military commanders,
and I can see no good reasons why I, too, may not ask for it; and
this simple concession, involving no public interest, will much
soften the blow which, right or wrong, I construe as one of the
hardest I have sustained in a life somewhat checkered with
adversity.

"With great respect, yours truly,
(Signed) "W. T. Sherman, Lieutenant General."

"Headquarters Military Division of Missouri,}
"St. Louis, February 14, 1868. }
"Dear Brother:-- . . . I am again in the midst of trouble, occasioned
by a telegram from Grant saying that the order is out for me to
come to the command of the military division of the Atlantic,
headquarters at Washington. The President repeatedly asked me to
accept of some such position, but I thought I had fought it off
successfully, though he again and