No better material for soldiers, and no better soldiers in fact, ever enlisted in any cause or any service.
John Sherman
The Public Record
John Sherman was an American politician from Ohio who served in federal office throughout the Civil War and into the late nineteenth century. A member of the Republican Party, he served in both houses of the U.S. Congress. He also served as Secretary of the Treasury and Secretary of State. Sherman sought the Republican presidential nomination three times, coming closest in 1888, but was never chosen by the party. Between 1861 and 1897, John Sherman served in the U.S. Senate for nearly 32 years and holds the record for longest serving senator from the state of Ohio.
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It appeared to me, therefore, that the manifest policy of the government should be to allow the regular army to be gradually absorbed into the volunteer service, where the young officers educated at the expense of the government might…
While ready to respond to the call of their country in its actual peril, they had no purpose to become regular soldiers for life.
The materials for soldiers abound everywhere, but without discipline, order, obedience, and severe drilling men are not soldiers.
They now appeal to us for help against an invasion more unjustifiable and barbarous.
I am authorized by the governor of Ohio to raise at once two regiments of infantry and a battery of artillery, and a squadron of cavalry.
I pledge you my reputation and all I am worth to accomplish what I offer.
I ask no office, rank, pay, or expenses for myself, and will undertake to recruit this force in subordination to the state and general government, and within such limits as may be allowed.
I hope, my dear sir, this application will receive your sanction, and I will stake my reputation and property that what I offer shall be accomplished.
I care not who are the field officers, so I know they are men of honor, honesty and experience.
I wish no rank, pay, or expenses for myself, and will freely act without compensation.
It brought also, to every intelligent mind, the dangers that would inevitably result from disunion.
It demonstrated the folly of ninety days' enlistments.
It dispelled the illusion of the people of the north as to the duration and gravity of the war.
Still, the battle of Bull Run was an important event.
Still, the necessity existed for some form of paper money that would be available for circulation.
They did not prevent, but rather expedited, the disappearance of gold.
If that was the process why issue them at all?
The problem was not whether we could muster men, but whether we could raise money.
And having thus chosen our course, without guile and with pure purpose, let us renew our trust in God, and go forward without fear and with manly hearts.
The people themselves, and not their servants, can safely reverse their own deliberate decisions.
So viewing the issue, no choice was left but to call out the war power of the government; and so to resist force employed for its destruction, by force for its preservation.
It presents to the whole family of man the question, whether a constitutional republic, or democracy--a government of the people by the same people--can or cannot maintain its territorial integrity against its own domestic foes.
We could not, with safety, accept bank notes issued by state corporations, varying in terms and credit according to the laws of twenty-three separate states.
The only answer was to substitute for the time the notes of the United States, with all the sanction and credit which the republic could confer, in the place of coin.
Politicians like John Sherman
