DEAR GENERAL:  I inclose for your perusal, and for you to read to General Grant such parts as you deem interesting, letters received by me from Prof.  Mahan and General Halleck, with my answers.  After you have read my answer to General Halleck, I beg you to inclose it to its address, and return me the others.

I think Prof.  Mahan’s very marked encomium upon the campaign of Vicksburg is so flattering to General Grant, that you may offer to let him keep the letter, if he values such a testimonial.  I have never written a word to General Halleck since my report of last December, after the affair at Chickasaw, except a short letter a few days ago, thanking him for the kind manner of his transmitting to me the appointment of brigadier-general.  I know that in Washington I am incomprehensible, because at the outset of the war I would not go it blind and rush headlong into a war unprepared and with an utter ignorance of its extent and purpose.  I was then construed unsound; and now that I insist on war pure and simple, with no admixture of civil compromises, I am supposed vindictive.  You remember what Polonius said to his son Laertes:  “Beware of entrance to a quarrel; but, being in, bear it, that the opposed may beware of thee.”  What is true of the single man, is equally true of a nation.  Our leaders seemed at first to thirst for the quarrel, willing, even anxious, to array against us all possible elements of opposition; and now, being in, they would hasten to quit long before the “opposed” has received that lesson which he needs.  I would make this war as severe as possible, and show no symptoms of tiring till the South begs for mercy; indeed, I know, and you know, that the end would be reached quicker by such a course than by any seeming yielding on our part.  I don’t want our Government to be bothered by patching up local governments, or by trying to reconcile any class of men.  The South has done her worst, and now is the time for us to pile on our blows thick and fast.

Instead of postponing the draft till after the elections, we ought now to have our ranks full of drafted men; and, at best, if they come at all, they will reach us when we should be in motion.

I think General Halleck would like to have the honest, candid opinions of all of us, viz., Grant, McPherson, and Sherman.  I have given mine, and would prefer, of course, that it should coincide with the others.  Still, no matter what my opinion may be, I can easily adapt my conduct to the plane of others, and am only too happy when I find theirs better, than mine.

If no trouble, please show Halleck’s letter to McPherson, and ask him to write also.  I know his regiments are like mine (mere squads), and need filling up.  Yours truly,

W. T. SHERMAN, Major-General.

CHAPTER XIV.

CHATTANOOGA AND KNOXVILLE.

JULY TO DECEMBER, 1863.