It is believed, by persons capable of judging, that other
high officers were designed to share the same fate. Thus it seems
that our enemy, despairing of meeting us in open, manly warfare,
begins to resort to the assassin's tools.
Your general does not wish you to infer that this is universal, for
he knows that the great mass of the Confederate army world scorn to
sanction each acts, but he believes it the legitimate consequence
of rebellion against rightful authority.
We have met every phase which this war has assumed, and must now be
prepared for it in its last and worst shape, that of assassins and
guerrillas; but woe onto the people who seek to expend their wild
passions in such a manner, for there is but one dread result!
By order of Major-General W. T. Sherman,
L. M. DAYTON, Assistant Adjutant-General.
During the evening of the 17th and morning of the 18th I saw nearly
all the general officers of the army (Schofield, Slocum, Howard,
Logan, Blair), and we talked over the matter of the conference at
Bennett's house of the day before, and, without exception, all
advised me to agree to some terms, for they all dreaded the long
and harassing march in pursuit of a dissolving and fleeing army--
a march that might carry us back again over the thousand miles that
we had just accomplished.
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