hen he had
the entire control of expenditures, he took the utmost care to see
that every dollar was accounted for. He resigned on the 18th of
January, and waited until the 23rd of February for that purpose.
The same exact accountability was practiced by him in all accounts
with the United States. In my personal business relations with
him, I found him to be exact and particular to the last degree,
insisting always upon paying fully every debt, and his share of
every expense. I doubt if any man living can truly say that General
Sherman owes him a dollar, while thousands know he was generous in
giving in proportion to his means. He had an extreme horror of
debt and taxes. He looked upon the heavy taxes now in vogue as in
the nature of confiscation, and in some cases sold his land, rapidly
rising in value, because the taxes assessed seemed to him
unreasonable.

"While the war lasted, General Sherman was a soldier intent upon
putting down what he conceived to be a causeless rebellion. He
said that war was barbarism that could not be refined, and the
speediest way to end it was to prosecute it with vigor to complete
success. When this was done, and the Union was saved, he was for
the most liberal terms of conciliation and kindness to the southern
people. All enmities were forgotten; his old friendships were
revived. Never since the close of the war have I heard him utter
words of bitterness against the enemies he fought, nor of the men
in the north who had reviled him.

"To him it was a territorial war; one that could not have been
avoided. Its seeds had been planted in the history of the colonies,
in the constitution itself, and in the irrepressible conflict
between free and slave institutions. It was a war by which the
south gained, by defeat, enormous benefits, and the north, by
success, secured the strength and development of the republic. No
patriotic man of either section would willingly restore the old
conditions. Its benefits are not confined to the United States,
but extend to all the countries of America. Its good influence
will be felt by all the nations of the world, by opening to them
the hope of free institutions. It is one of the great epochs in
the march of time, which, as the years go by, will be, by succeeding
generations of freemen, classed in importance with the discovery
of America and our Revolutionary War. It was the good fortune of
General Sherman to have been a chief actor in this