All therefore I can now venture to advise is to raise the draft to its maximum, fill the present regiments to as large a standard as possible, and push the war, pure and simple.  Great attention should be paid to the discipline of our armies, for on them may be founded the future stability of the Government.

The cost of the war is, of course, to be considered, but finances will adjust themselves to the actual state of affairs; and, even if we would, we could not change the cost.  Indeed, the larger the cost now, the less will it be in the end; for the end must be attained somehow, regardless of loss of life and treasure, and is merely a question of time.

Excuse so long a letter.  With great respect, etc.,

W. T. Sherman, Major-General.

General Halleck, on receipt of this letter, telegraphed me that Mr. Lincoln had read it carefully, and had instructed him to obtain my consent to have it published.  At the time, I preferred not to be drawn into any newspaper controversy, and so wrote to General Halleck; and the above letter has never been, to my knowledge, published; though Mr. Lincoln more than once referred to it with marks of approval.

HEADQUARTERS FIFTEENTH ARMY CORPS CAMP ON BIG BLACK, September 17, 1863

Brigadier-General J. A. Rawlins,
Acting Assistant Adjutant-General, Vicksburg.

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”