Sherman, William Tecumseh

Group of four autograph letters signed ("Sherman" and "W.T. Sherman"), 13 pages various sizes, Washington, D.C., St. Louis and New York, 1 May 1850, 10 January 1886, 1 February 1888 and 7 December 1888, to Edward Ord, Admiral Daniel Ammen, his friend Murray and Mrs. Hall; one letter with autograph envelope

Marriage, friendship and loss. This varied group of letters touches on an array of events in Sherman's life. On 1 May 1850 he writes to his good friend Edward Ord of his marriage which will take place "just several hours from this time." He regrets Ord cannot be in attendance. Sherman's letter to Admiral Daniel Ammen includes New Year's wishes and his plans to give up his St. Louis home and move to New York to be near his youngest son at Yale. He never planned to retire to Washington: "as an ex-Commander-in-Chief I could not endure the place . . . better a Camp on the Missouri than a palace on the Potomac." To his friend Murray he sends a list of prominent New York men as requested in his letter of 1 February 1888. Acknowledging a condolence letter from Mrs. Hall on the death of his wife on 28 November 1888, Sherman poignantly writes of his life's companion on 7 December 1888: "Mrs. Sherman was a strong character devoted chiefly to her children and her Church . . . For ten years the insidious cause of her death has been slowly and steadily gathering--a dysfunction of the heart . . . We had all grown to expect ups and downs yet when last week the doctors notified her of the near approach of death we were taken by surprise--yet it came and though familiar with death in every form, hers was as painless as I ever saw. We took her back to our lot in St. Louis and buried her and now are all back here where I shall probably stay until my summons comes. I am about the 'Last of the Mohicans.'"