A National Outburst of Grief—The President's Message to Congress—The Senate's Memorial Resolutions—Senator Hawley's Eulogy—A Touching Tribute from a Southern Senator—Speeches by Senators who were also Soldiers—Eloquent Words from Lawrence Barrett—Judge Gresham Recalls Sherman's Prophetic Words—A Comparison Between Sherman and Lee—General Slocum's Reminiscences—Chauncey Depew on Sherman in Social Life.

During General Sherman's last illness the entire nation listened with anxious suspense to every word of news that came from his home, and millions of hearts hourly offered fervent prayers for his recovery. The announcement of his death was not unexpected, for it had been known for several days that recovery was impossible; but it was none the less a shock to the public. Everywhere expressions of grief were heard and emblems of mourning were seen. Flags were placed at half-mast and buildings draped in black; bells were tolled and memorial meetings held. Messages of sympathy and condolence came to his family by mail and telegraph from every part of the world. Only a few irreconcilable spirits here and there in the South spoke against him, and made his death an occasion for venting their spleen against the patriot who had subdued the rebellion. When the news of Sherman's death reached Washington, the President, who had himself been an officer in Sherman's army in Georgia, sent a message announcing the fact to Congress, in which he said:

"The death of William Tecumseh Sherman is an event that will bring sorrow to the heart of every patriotic citizen. No living American was so loved and venerated as he. To look upon his face, to hear his name, was to have one's love of country intensified. He served his country, not for fame, not out of a sense of professional duty, but for love of the flag and of the beneficent civil institutions of which it was the emblem. He was an ideal soldier, and shared to the fullest the esprit de corps of the army; but he cherished the civil institutions organized under the Constitution, and was a soldier only that these might be perpetuated in undiminished usefulness and honor. He was in nothing an imitator.

"A profound student of military science and precedent, he drew from them principles and suggestions, and so adapted them to novel conditions that his campaigns will continue to be the profitable study of the military profession throughout the world. His general nature made him comrade to every soldier of the great Union Army. No presence was so welcome and inspiring at the camp-fire or commandery as his. His career was complete; his honors were full. He had received from the Government the highest rank known to our military establishment, and from the people unstinted gratitude and love. No word of mine can add to his fame. His death has followed in startling quickness that of the Admiral of the Navy; and it is a sad and notable incident that when the Department under which he served shall have put on the usual emblems of mourning, four of the eight Executive Departments will be simultaneously draped in black, and one other has but to-day removed the crape from its walls."

Senator Hawley, of Connecticut, at once offered the following resolutions, which were unanimously adopted by the Senate:

"Resolved, That the Senate receive with profound sorrow the announcement of the death of William Tecumseh Sherman, late General of the armies of the United States.

"Resolved, That the Senate renews its acknowledgment of the inestimable services which he rendered to his country in the day of its extreme peril, laments the great loss which the country has sustained, and deeply sympathizes with his family in its bereavement.

"Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be forwarded to the family of the deceased."

Mr. Hawley said: "Mr. President, at this hour, the Senate, the Congress and the people of the United States are one family. What we have been daily expecting has happened; General Sherman has received and obeyed his last order. He was a great soldier by the judgment of the great soldiers of the world. In time of peace he had been a great citizen, glowing and abounding with love of country and of all humanity. His glorious soul appeared in every look, gesture and word. The history of our country is rich in soldiers who have set examples of simple soldierly obedience to the civil law and of self-abnegation. Washington, Grant, Sheridan and Sherman lead the list. Sherman was the last of the illustrious trio who were by universal consent the foremost figures in the armies of the Union in the late war. Among the precious traditions to pass into our history for the admiration of the old and the instruction of the young was their friendship, their most harmonious co-operation, without a shadow of ambition or pride. When General Grant was called to Washington to take command of the armies of the Union, his great heart did not forget the men who stood by him."

Here Mr. Hawley read the letter from Grant to Sherman, written at that time, expressing thanks to him and McPherson as the men, above all others, to whom he owed success, and Sherman's letter, in reply, saying that General Grant did himself injustice and them too much honor.

Mr. Hawley closed his remarks, his voice frequently giving way from grief and emotion, by reading the following passages from Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress": "After this it was noised about that Mr. Valiant-for-Truth was taken with a summons. When he understood it he called for his friends and told them of it. Then said he, 'I am going to my fathers; and though with great difficulty I got hither, yet now I do not repent me of all the trouble I have been at to arrive where I am. My sword I give to him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage, and my courage and skill to him that can get them. My marks and scars I carry with me, to be a witness for me that I have fought His battles who will now be a rewarder.' When the day that he must go hence was come many accompanied him to the river side, into which as he went he said: 'Death, where is thy sting?' And as he went down deeper he said: 'Grave, where is thy victory?' So he passed over and all the trumpets sounded for him on the other side."

Senator Morgan, of Alabama, said: "On this occasion of National solemnity I would lead the thoughts and sympathies of the American Senate back to those days in our history when General Sherman was, by a choice greatly honorable to his nature, a citizen of the State of Louisiana, and presided over a college for the instructions of Southern youth in the arts of war and the arts of peace. Those were not worse days than some we have seen during the last half of this century. In those days, notwithstanding the conditions of the South, in view of its institutions inherited from the older States of the East, every American was as welcome in Louisiana and the South as he was elsewhere in the Union. We are gradually and surely returning to that cordial state of feeling which was unhappily interrupted by the Civil War.

"Our fathers taught us that it was the highest patriotism to defend the Constitution of the country. But they had left within its body guarantees of an institution that the will of the majority finally determined should no longer exist and which put the conscience of the people to the severest test. Looking back now to the beginning of this century and to the conflict of opinion and of material interests engendered by those guarantees, we can see that they never could have been stricken out of the organic law except by a conflict of arms. The conflict came, as it was bound to come, and Americans became enemies, as they were bound to be, in the settlement of issues that involved so much of money, such radical political results and the pride of a great and illustrious race of people. The power rested with the victors at the close of the conflict, but not all the honors of the desperate warfare. Indeed, the survivors are now winning honors, enriched with justice and magnanimity, not less worthy than those who won the battles in their labors to restore the country to its former feeling of fraternal regard and to unity of sentiment and action and to promote its welfare. The fidelity of the great General who has just departed in the ripeness of age, and with a history marked by devotion to his flag, was the true and simple faith of an American to his convictions of duty.

"We differed with him and contested campaigns and battlefields with him; but we welcome the history of the great soldier as the proud inheritance of our country. We do this as cordially and as sincerely as we gave him welcome in the South, as one of our people, when our sons were confided to his care, in a relation that (next to paternity) had its influence upon the young men of the country. The great military leaders on both sides of our Civil War are rapidly marching across the border to a land where history and truth and justice must decide upon every man's career. When they meet there, they will be happy to find that the honor of human actions is not always measured by their wisdom but by the motives in which they had their origin. I cherish the proud belief that the heroes of the Civil War will find that, measured by this standard, none of them on either side were delinquent, and they will be happy in an association that will never end—and will never be disturbed by an evil thought, jealousy or distrust. When a line so narrow divides us from those high courts in which our actions are to be judged by their motives, and when so many millions now living, and increasing millions to follow, are to be affected by the wisdom of our enactments, we will do well to give up this day to reflection upon our duties and (in sympathy with this great country) to dedicate the day to his memory. In such a retrospect we shall find an admonition that an American Senate should meet, on this side of the fatal line of death, as the American Generals meet on the other side, to render justice to each other and to make our beloved country as happy, comparatively, as we should wish the great beyond to be to those great spirits."

Senator Manderson said that as the hours of the last two or three days passed away he had not had the heart to make such preparation for the event which he had feared and dreaded, as might seem to be meet and appropriate. The death of General Sherman came (although one might have been prepared for it) as the unexpected. It was a day of mourning and grief. Here, at the Capital of the Nation, lay the body of the great Admiral, the chief of the Navy; and in New York was being prepared for the last sad rites the corpse of the greatest military genius which the Nation had produced. General Sherman had been great not only as a military leader, but he had been great as a civilian. Who was there that had heard him tell of the events of his wonderful career who had not been filled with admiration and respect for his abilities? It seemed to him that General Sherman was perhaps the only man in the North who, in the early days of the war, seemed to appreciate what the terrible conflict meant It was recollected how it was said in 1861 that he must be insane to make the suggestions which he made. These suggestions were so startling to the country that he (Mr. Manderson) did not wonder that men doubted General Sherman's sanity. Like men of great genius, he seemed to have lived in that debatable ground existing between the line of perfect sanity and insanity'.

After a review of General Sherman's military career, opening at Shiloh and closing at Atlanta, Mr. Manderson read General Sherman's letter to the Mayor and Common Council of Atlanta, beginning: "We must have peace, not only at Atlanta, but in all America."

In conclusion. Mr. Manderson said: "General Sherman was estimable as a citizen, and as fully appreciated the duties of a civilian, as he was admirable as a soldier. But this strife, which we have watched for the last few days, has ceased. The conflict has ended. The Nation has witnessed it. Sixty millions of people have stood in silence, watching for the supreme result. Death, ever victorious, is again a victor. A great conqueror is himself conquered. Our Captain lies dead. The pale lip sayeth to the sunken eye: 'Where is thy kindly glance? And where thy winning smile?'"

Senator Davis said he could hardly trust himself to speak. He had been a soldier under General Sherman, and had received acts of kindness from him when he was a subaltern. As the years had gone by, and the widening avenues of life had opened up ways of promotion, that acquaintance had ripened into friendship, and, he might say, into intimacy. He had first seen General Sherman at the siege of Vicksburg, twenty-eight years ago, when he was the very incarnation of war; but to-day that spirit had taken up its rest in the everlasting tabernacle of death. It was fit that the clanging of the great city should be hushed in silence, and that the functions of government should be suspended while the soul of the great commander was passing to Him who gives and Him who takes away. No more were heard the thunders of the captains, and the shouting. The soul of the great warrior had passed and was standing in judgment before Him who was the God of Battles, and was also the God of Love.

Senator Pierce, as one of the soldiers who had served under General Sherman in the Army of the Tennessee, gave some reminiscences of the war and paid a glowing eulogy to his old commander.

Senator Evarts said that the afflicting intelligence of the death of General Sherman had touched the Senate with the deepest sensibilities; that that grief was not a private grief; nor was it limited by any narrower bounds than those of the whole country. The affections of the people toward its honorable and honored men did not always find a warm effusion, because circumstances might not have brought the personal career, the personal traits, the personal affectionate disposition of great men, to the close and general observation of the people at large. But of General Sherman no such observation could be truly made. Whatever of affection and of grief Senators might feel was felt, perhaps, more intensely in the hearts of the whole people. To observers of his death, as they had been of his life, General Sherman had been yesterday the most celebrated living American. He was now added to that longer and more illustrious list of celebrated men of the country for the hundred years of National life. One star differed from another star in glory, but yet all of those stars had a glory to which nothing could be added by eulogy, and from which nothing could be taken away by detraction. They shone in their own effulgence, and borrowed no light from honor or respect. It had been said already that General Sherman was the last of the commanders. If those who had passed out of life still watched over and took interest in what transpired in this world (and no one doubted it), what great shades must have surrounded the death-bed of General Sherman! And who could imagine a greater death-bed for a great life than that which had been watched over in a neighboring city during the week? It had been reserved for him (Mr. Evarts) at the declining hour of the day, as a Senator from the State which General Sherman had honored by his late home, and in which he had died, to move, out of respect to his memory, that the Senate do now adjourn.

Lawrence Barrett, the eminent actor, paid this eloquent tribute to his friend in the columns of The New York Tribune:

"The funeral cortege has passed. The emblems of war, which had for many years been laid aside, have once again been seen sadly embellishing the soldierly equipage whereupon the lifeless body rests. Old comrades, lifelong friends, statesmen and great civilians have followed the mournful pageant with fruitless regrets. The instruments which in battle days sounded to the charge or the retreat, which sang reveille to the waking morn or gave the sternest good-night, when all was well; which through a quarter of a century of peace have greeted the retired warrior at feast and civic parade with harmonies upon his achievements—these now beat the last mournful cadences leading to an earthly camping-ground beneath whose sod the mortal remains of our great soldier shall rest beside his loved ones, forever dead to triumph or threnody.

"The last of the immortal trio has joined his waiting comrades. Already in the fields of the blessed one may believe that their spirits sadly regard our simple tributes to the earthly casket which holds the dust of Sherman. The mourning thousands who have lined the highway of the sad procession have gone to their homes with a tenderer reflection upon the meanings of existence and death. And even as his valor in the written story had awakened a stronger patriotism than had before existed, so in his death and in the last tributes paid to the hero a fresher and purer sense of patriotic duty springs up in our hearts to link us to the inheritance he helped to gain.

"History will gather up and weave into enduring form the achievements of the soldier and the statesman. In that final summary sectional prejudice and personal bias may bear their natural parts. Only in a remote future, when all the sorrowful effects of the great Civil War have lost their nearness—only when its beneficence in knitting closer the bonds of friendship and National brotherhood shall be recognized, when no newly-made grave sends up reproachful reminders to bereaved hearts, only then can the hero's place be immutably fixed on the heroic calendar. To the scholar and the sage may be left that office. The records of his military life, his general orders, his plans, his deeds, will guide the historian into a proper estimate of the dead soldier's station in the military Valhalla.

"But how shall the innumerable civic deeds of this dead man be recorded or find place for reference? In the musty archives of no war office are they registered. Upon no enduring parchment are they written. They would escape definition in the attempt to define them. They are engraved upon hearts still living—they sweeten the lives still unsummoned—they are too sacred for utterance. Yet they are the crown of Sherman's achievement. Wherever this man's hand was extended it brought glad strength; wherever his voice was heard it aroused emotions of grateful tenderness; wherever his form was seen it gladdened loving eyes. He survived a civil war for a quarter of a century—to show to us that the soldier's armor is less becoming than the garb of civil life, that the pomp and circumstance of war are loud preludes of beneficent peace.

"No intrusion of personal relation shall sully this poor testament to the dead. No one can claim the inheritance of such a large-hearted bounty. But in the name of the drama which he loved, in the names of the actors whom he respected, it is proper that no tardy recognition should follow his death. He had a scholar's love for what was highest in the art—whether in the walk of tragedy or comedy. He had a warm affection for those who labored in this atmosphere. He had also a large sympathy for those performances which afford recreation and amusement to the largest class of the community. His voice was never hushed when called to aid in the needs of the player. He was no ordinary first-nighter. He had a simple and affecting belief that his presence might be useful to those who were seeking public suffrage across the foot-lights, and he could not but know that his indorsement was valuable and trustworthy. He was one of the incorporators of 'The Players,' upon whose muster-roll no nobler name appears. His imposing character gave dignity to those deliberative meetings out of which that organization grew into its present useful life.

"And should contemporary history fail to do him justice—should the bitterness of the Civil War make a just estimate of his worth impossible in biographical annals—should envy or malice deface the white shaft which should symbolize his deeds—then the dramatist will lovingly bear up the garments of his glory—keep them from soil within that Valhalla where CÆsar and Alexander, Frederick and Gustavus, live imperishably enshrined. Therein shall be cherished the insignia and the characteristics of the most notable figure of modern or ancient soldiery.

"Again in future nights shall we see the pomp and glory of Union making war—once again its gallant leader shall pass before the eyes of a curious posterity in the drama's immortal keeping, and the gallant spirit whose influence in life so often attended the presentment of CÆsar and Antony and Cassius and the Roman group shall, in death, mingle with their essence, tenderly restored by the dramatists whom he inspired, by the actors whom he loved."

Said Walter Q. Gresham, United States Judge: "I belonged to General Sherman's command when he entered Kentucky, at Louisville, in the summer of '61, since which time we have maintained an unbroken friendship.

"Besides being a man of great genius he was generous, frank and confiding. No officer of high rank whom I met during the war was more patient than General Sherman with subordinates, so long as he believed that they were trying to do their duty; and no officer was more merciless in dealing with shirks, cowards and pretenders.

"In brilliancy of conception and boldness of execution, perhaps he had no equal on either side during the civil war. Like other great and successful men he encountered the envy and jealousy of those less gifted and magnanimous than himself.

"He was intensely patriotic and always willing to endure hardship and privation. His patriotism was of that intense kind that he would at any time have willingly sacrificed his life for the cause he served so brilliantly and well. His great courage, generosity, frankness, and patriotism endeared him to all the officers and men who served under him, and in every State of the Union they are now mourning his loss.

"I spent some time with him at his home in New York three weeks ago last Sunday. He was then well, cheerful, and bright. He indulged much during the afternoon in reminiscence, and related a number of incidents of the war which I had forgotten. He mentioned a large number of mutual army friends who had died, and remarked:

"'Gresham, we will join them soon.'"

Ex-President Hayes paid this tribute to his military genius:

"The only comparison of value that I choose to offer comes from abroad. We hear in regard to Sherman, from the French generals nothing but praise; from the German generals the same; from the English, General Wolseley speaks of him in terms that are altogether complimentary. Says Wolseley, however, 'Lee was a great general, and next to him was Sherman.' I would change the order. I admit for Lee a great character, accomplishments as a soldier and as a man, praise in every way except his unfortunate lack of wisdom. I do not now speak of motives, but of the military genius who was the military genius of the war. Place Lee where Sherman was. Place Sherman where Lee was. Place Lee at Chattanooga, even with Sherman's army. Would he have found his way to Atlanta, and at Atlanta cut loose from his base of supplies and entered upon the wild march for the sea three hundred miles away? I believe no man lacking the genius of Sherman would have entered on that march to the sea. But come nearer home. Lee had the same opportunity, only it was ten times better than that Sherman had at Atlanta. Suppose Sherman had been in command of the army of Lee. Washington at that time lay completely in the power of an enterprising and daring commander, and with Washington captured, intervention from abroad would have come. I do not predict final defeat, for throughout all the action the finger of God was present, guiding and directing. I cannot believe that under any circumstances the cause of liberty and union could have failed, but at Washington was the chance of victory, and Lee failed to take it. More than that, he went to the Potomac, crossed it, and our disorganized army, without a commander, being divided between Pope and McClellan, was ten days behind him, and he marched on into Pennsylvania; and what did he do, and what would Sherman have done? Lee did not dare to lose communication with his base of supplies, and was driven back from Antietam with a divided army. Had Sherman been at the head of that army, and that distance between him and the pursuing forces, he would have gone to Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Buffalo, Cleveland, Cincinnati, and then cut his road back into Virginia. A little band of 4000 men under Morgan went through Ohio and Indiana, and Lee, with his great army, with nothing before him but wealth and supplies and cities able to pay tribute for not being burned, is not to be compared with Sherman."

General Slocum said: "I have been acquainted with General Sherman since the beginning of the war. I first met him at Bull Run and afterward in the West, when my corps was sent there to reinforce Rosecrans. At that time he was tall and angular and his general appearance was much the same as it was in later life. My services with him began just before the capture of Atlanta. In that campaign the minutest details were attended to by General Sherman himself. Details as to the exact amount of ammunition to be taken by each corps, the exact amount of stores of each and every kind, were specified in his orders. During the campaign he alternated between General Howard and myself, riding with General Howard one day and with me the next. He was a great and most interesting talker, and the pleasantest days that I spent during the war were those when I was accompanied by General Sherman. He had been stationed at Charleston before the war and was familiar with the topography of South Carolina. He had information that no maps contained. He seldom forgot anything that could ever be of any use to him to remember. Once I thought I would test his knowledge by introducing the subject of the manufacture of salt, a subject with which I thought I was perfectly familiar, having lived at Syracuse. I found that he knew more about it than I did. He said that his wife had some relatives there, and that years before he had visited them and had been taken through the salt works. Not a fact connected with the manufacture of salt had escaped his memory. "Sherman was greatly beloved by his soldiers, partly for their success under him and partly for his kind treatment of them. He rarely consulted his subordinates, however, though he accepted suggestions when he thought them good. Still he was intolerant of negligence or carelessness, and punished it severely. He was not a bigoted man on the subject of religion. I am confident that while he felt deeply disappointed at his son's becoming a Roman Catholic priest, the disappointment was due more to his having abandoned a profession which General Sherman had set his heart upon his following. He wanted his oldest son to become a lawyer. The son studied for that profession and the opening of his career was exceedingly brilliant.

"General Sherman told me frequently that he wished to have nothing to do with politics, and after General Grant had been elected President he told me that he thought Grant had made a mistake, as his reputation as a soldier was worth more than any office. The last time I saw him was at the New England dinner in this city. We sat side by side, and he referred to the subject, and spoke of the number of bright men he had seen ruined by politics."

Chauncey Depew also knew Sherman well, particularly in his later years, in New York. "He was," said Mr. Depew, "at once the most distinguished and delightful figure in our metropolitan society. He seemed to have a most elastic constitution, and endured an amount of social obligation which would have tired out and used up many a younger and stronger man. He loved to be in the company of men and women. I think he dined out every night of his life, and very often he would be found at late suppers, especially theatrical suppers.

"He was, easily, at any table, at the head wherever he sat, and had a wonderful faculty for entertaining conversation. No person ever heard him say a disagreeable thing. With the most positive, pronounced and aggressive opinions on all questions, and never concealing them, he so stated them as never to offend an adversary. His attention to ladies was a most delightful exhibition of knightly and soldierly courtesy. There was in his manner and speech something of deference, respect and admiration, which conveyed a more signal compliment than can be wrought in phrase or flattery. At a night supper where the guests were mostly theatrical people he was, in his joyous hilarity, like a boy. In the speech which he invariably made there was much of the fatherly feeling of an old man rejoicing in the artistic success of his auditors, and to those who deserved it, whether actors or actresses, a neatly turned compliment which expressed all that a trained dramatic critic could say, and became in the recollection of the happy recipient the best memory of his or her life.

"I have been with him at hundreds of public dinners, and in studying closely his mental methods and habits of speech, have come to regard him as the readiest and most original talker in the United States. I don't believe that he ever made the slightest preparation, but he absorbed apparently while thinking and while carrying on a miscellaneous conversation with those about him, the spirit of the occasion, and his speech, when he finished, seemed to be as much of a surprise to himself as it was to the audience, and the work of a superior and exceedingly active intelligence which included him as well as the rest among its auditors.

"Most men, and I have met several, who had this faculty, were cans of dynamite, whose explosion was almost certain to produce most disastrous results. But General Sherman rarely failed in striking out a line of thought different from and more original than any other speaker, and in sometimes giving utterance to the boldest thought, yet always in harmony with the occasion.

"I recall the last two times that I met him as especially significant of his conversational talent and power of public speech on a sudden call. I sat near him at the dinner given in his honor by ex-Chief Justice Daly about a month ago. General Sherman rarely talked about himself, but on this occasion he became reminiscent and entertained us for more than an hour with free-hand sketches of his adventures on the plains in early days, and of the original people whom he met among the early settlers. These recollections if taken down at the moment would have proved an invaluable contribution to the history of the period covering the growth of transportation on the plains, from the wagon to the railroad, and the story of the bold and adventurous spirits who were the pioneers of Western civilization, many of whom he knew personally.

"The last time I met him he promised, after a dinner to which he was engaged, to do me the favor, though he said it was asking a good deal at his time of life, to come into the Yale Alumni Association dinner and say a word to the guests. His appearance there, about half-past 11, was an event which the alumni of Yale who were present, most of whom were young men who had never seen him before, will remember as long as they live.

"I have felt for many years that, in the interests of the period during which he was one of the most conspicuous actors, and with one exception the most conspicuous, he ought always to have been accompanied by a stenographer.

"I have known most of the men who have been famous in the country, in every walk of life, in the last twenty-five years sufficiently well to hear them frequently talk in a free and confidential way. General Sherman is one of the few who never bore you, whose conversation is always interesting, and no matter how long he talks, he leaves you eager and hungry for more. I was with him at the time I delivered the oration before the Army of the Potomac at Saratoga. I was with him from 10 o'clock in the morning until 6 in the afternoon, and he talked without cessation for the whole period. It was a test that few men could have stood, and the three others who were with him in the carriage only regretted that day was limited by the light."