792 



SHERMAN, WILLIAM TECUMSEH. 



Janeiro and Valparaiso, and anchored in the Bay 

 of Monterey, California, Jan. 26, 1847. In Cali- 

 fornia Sherman was adjutant-general to Gen. 

 Stephen W. Kearny, Col. R. B. Mason, and Gen. 

 Persifer F. Smith, successively. He had many 

 adventures of the kind incident to a new and 

 unsettled country. In July, 1847, Yerba Buena 

 (now San Francisco) had been laid out in lots, 

 which were offered for sale at $16 apiece. Sher- 

 man says: ''Many naval officers had invested, 

 and Capt. Folsom advised me to buy some; but 

 I felt actually insulted that he should think me 

 such a fool as to pay money for property in such 

 a horrid place as Yerba Buena. especially ridicul- 

 ing his quarter of the city, then called Happy 

 Valley." Another incident was much more sig- 

 nificant. Sherman tells it in his " Memoirs " : 



I remember one day, in the spring of 1848, that two 

 men, Americans, came into the office and inquired for 

 the Governor. I asked their business, and one an- 

 swered that they had just comedown from Capt. Sut- 

 ter on special business-, and they wanted to see Gov. 

 Mason ^n person. I took them in to the colonel, and 

 left them together. After some time the colonel came 

 to his door and called to me. I went in, and my at- 

 tention was directed to a series of papers unfolded on 

 his table, in which lay about half an ounce ofplacer- 

 gold. Mason said to me, " What is that ? " I touched 

 it and examined one or two of the larger pieces, and 

 asked, " Is it gold ? " Mason asked me if I had ever 

 seen native gold. I answered that in 1844 I was in 

 upper Georgia, and there saw some native gold, but it 

 was much finer than this, and that it was in vials, or 

 in transparent quills; but I said that, if this were 

 gold, it could easily be tested, first by its malleability, 

 and next by acids. I took a piece' in my teeth, ami 

 the metallic luster was perfect. I then called to the 

 clerk, Baden, to bring an axe and hatchet from the 

 hack yard. When these were brought, I took the 

 largest piece and beat it out flat, and beyond doubt it 

 was metal, and a pure metal. Still, we attached little 

 importance, to the fact, for gold was known to exist at 

 San Fernando, at the south, and yet was not consid- 

 ered of much value. 



Sherman twice visited the newly discovered 

 gold mines on the Sacramento and became part- 

 ner in a store, from which he made a profit of 

 $1,500, without which he says he could not have 

 lived, as his official salary remained fixed, while 

 the gold excitement enormously increased the 

 price of everything. He also surveyed one of 

 the many new cities that were laid out on the 

 shores of San Francisco Bay, engaged in other 

 surveys, and made some profitable investments 

 in land. 



In January, 1850, Sherman returned from 

 California as a bearer of dispatches to the War 

 Department, and on May-1 he married, in Wash- 

 ington, Ellen Evving, daughter of Hon. Thomas 

 Ewing, then Secretary of the Interior. In Sep- 

 tember he was commissioned captain and or- 

 dered to St. Louis. Two years later he was or- 

 dered to New Orleans. But he had hardly 

 assumed his duties there when he was offered a 

 partnership in a branch banking house which a 

 St. Louis firm proposed to establish in San Fran- 

 cisco. In February, 1853, having obtained six 

 months' leave of "absence, he took passage for 

 California by the Nicaragua route. The pas- 

 sage from the Isthmus was made in the steamer 

 " S. S. Lewis," which got out of her course in a 

 fog and was wrecked near shore 18 miles north 

 ofSan Francisco, April 9. Capt. Sherman made 



his way to the city and had a relief vessel sent to 

 the shipwrecked crew and passengers. When he 

 had examined into the proposed business, he re- 

 turned home in the summer, resigned his com- 

 mission in the army, and on Sept. 20 sailed from 

 New York with his family, reaching San Fran- 

 cisco on Oct. 15. In the spring of 1856 Sherman 

 was commissioned major-general of militia, and 

 a little later occurred the Vigilance Committee 

 troubles. Gen. Sherman enrolled men in the 

 .militia and proposed to suppress the Vigilantes : 

 but when Gen. Wool, commanding United States 

 forces in that department, refused to furnish 

 arms, Sherman at once resigned his commission. 

 With the decline of prosperity in San Francisco 

 his firm closed up their business, and on May 1, 

 1857, he sailed for New York, where, on July 21, 

 with the same partners, he began a banking 

 business. But in the financial crisis of the fol- 

 lowing autumn they again closed up their busi- 

 ness, paying all liabilities, and dissolved the part- 

 nership. After another trip to California to 

 make final settlements and dispose of the firm s 

 real estate, Gen. Sherman, in the autumn of 1858, 

 entered into a law partnership with Hugh Ewing 

 and Thomas Ewing, Jr., in Leaven worth, Kansas. 

 In January, 1859, Daniel McCook (afterward 

 General, killed in theAtlanta campaign) was tak- 

 en in as a partner. They did a fair business, but 

 it was hardly enough to support them as they 

 wished, and Sherman spent a part of his time in 

 opening a large farm for his father-in-law, and 

 meanwhile wrote to Major (afterward General) 

 Don Carlos Buell, in the War Department, in- 

 quiring if there was not a vacant pay mastership. 

 Buell informed him that a military college was 

 about to be organized in Louisiana, and advised 

 him to apply for the superintendency. Sherman 

 took the advice, and in .Inly, 1859, was appointed. 

 The institution was established at Alexandria, 

 and on Jan. 1, 1860, Gen. Sherman opened it 

 with a faculty of five professors (lie being Super- 

 intendent and Professor of Engineering) and 

 60 cadets. Of the condition of political af- 

 fairs, as affecting him, in the autumn of that 

 year, Sherman says: 



Political excitement was at its very height, and it 

 was constantly assorted that Mr. Lincoln's election 

 would imperil the Union. I purposely kept aloof from 

 politics, would take no part, and remember that on 

 the day of the election in November 1 was notified 

 that it would be advisable for me to vote for Bell and 

 Everett; but I openly said 1 would not, and I did not. 

 The election of Mr. Lincoln fell upon us all like a 

 clap of thunder. People saw and felt that the Smith 

 had threatened so long that, if she quietly submitted, 

 the question of slavery in the Territories was at an 

 end forever. I mingled freely with the members of 

 the Board of Supervisors, and with the people of 

 Rapid.es Parish generally, keeping aloof from all 

 cliques and parties, and 1 certainly hoped that the 

 threatened storm would blow over, as nad so often 

 occurred before after similar threats. At our semi- 

 nary the order of exercises went along with the regu- 

 larity of the seasons. Once a week 1 had the older 

 cadets to practice reading, reciting, and elocution, and 

 noticed that their selections were from Calhoun,Yan- 

 cey-, and other Southern speakers, all treating of the 

 defense of their slaves and their home institutions us 

 the very highest duty of the patriot. Among boys^ 

 this was to be expected ; and among the members of 

 our board, though most of them declaimed against 

 politicians generally, and especially abolitionists, as 

 pests, yet there was a growing feeling that danger was 



