I regard your article headed “City Council—­General Sherman and Colonel Slack,” as highly indiscreet.  Of course, no person who can jeopardize the safety of Memphis can remain here, much less exercise public authority; but I must take time, and be satisfied that injustice be not done.

If the parties named be the men you describe, the fact should not be published, to put them on their guard and thus to encourage their escape.  The evidence should be carefully collected, authenticated, and then placed in my hands.  But your statement of facts is entirely qualified; in my mind, and loses its force by your negligence of the very simple facts within your reach as to myself:  I had been in the army six years in 1846; am not related by blood to any member of Lucas, Turner & Co.; was associated with them in business six years (instead of two); am not colonel of the Fifteenth Infantry, but of the Thirteenth.  Your correction, this morning, of the acknowledged error as to General Denver and others, is still erroneous.  General Morgan L. Smith did not belong to my command at the battle of Shiloh at all, but he was transferred to my division just before reaching Corinth.  I mention these facts in kindness, to show you how wrong it is to speak of persons.

I will attend to the judge, mayor, Boards of Aldermen, and policemen, all in good time.

Use your influence to reestablish system, order, government.  You may rest easy that no military commander is going to neglect internal safety, or to guard against external danger; but to do right requires time, and more patience than I usually possess.  If I find the press of Memphis actuated by high principle and a sole devotion to their country, I will be their best friend; but, if I find them personal, abusive, dealing in innuendoes and hints at a blind venture, and looking to their own selfish aggrandizement and fame, then they had better look out; for I regard such persons as greater enemies to their country and to mankind than the men who, from a mistaken sense of State pride, have taken up muskets, and fight us about as hard as we care about.  In haste, but in kindness, yours, etc.,

W. T. Sherman, Major-General.

Headquarters fifth division,
Memphis, Tennessee, July 27, 1882.

John Park, Mayor of Memphis, present.

Sir:  Yours of July 24th is before me, and has received, as all similar papers ever will, my careful and most respectful consideration.  I have the most unbounded respect for the civil law, courts, and authorities, and shall do all in my power to restore them to their proper use, viz., the protection of life, liberty, and property.