always a sorry place; but on the firing line, where I was, things
did not look so bad."--"Your adversaries, General, were often good
fellows, were they not, and you are good friends now?" "The best
fellows in the world," said Sherman, "and as to friendship, Hood wants
me to be his literary executor and take care of his memoirs."

He was ready to confess to mistakes, and with frank and proper
exultation pointed out the gradual improvement and the triumphant
result. Plenty of good stories and much hearty laughter came in among
the more tragic episodes. We saw John Fiske take it all in, swaying
in his chair ponderously back and forth, but the _War in the
Mississippi Valley_, which came out soon after, showed that his
memory retained every point. On another occasion, as Sherman on a
stormy night took me home in his carriage, we skirted the blocks which
had been the site of Camp Jackson, the first field of the Civil War
that Sherman had witnessed. That was the beginning of things in
the West, and he on that day only a by-stander. He was at the time
possibly irresolute as to what he should do, and he certainly had no
premonition of the large part he was destined to play. As he looked
out of the window that night into the driving storm on the spot where
once he had brooded so anxiously, I wondered if he had any memory of
the soul struggle of that crisis.

After his death, there took place in the streets of St. Louis an
imposing military funeral. As the cortège paused for a moment, I stood
at the side of the gun-carriage which bore the coffin wrapped in the
flag, and paid my tribute to this good man and great citizen who had
played his part well.

A controversy, which has now died away, used to be waged during