those who were so happy as to come near to him, would sometimes struggle
to outrun their veneration and gratitude.

Death has at last conquered the hero of so many campaigns; our cities
and towns and villages are decked with flags at half-mast; the muffled
drum and the funeral cannon boom will resound over the land as his dead
body passes to the final resting-place; and the American people stand
mournfully gazing into the void left by the sudden disappearance of the
last of the greatest men brought forth by our war of regeneration--and
this last also finally become, save Abraham Lincoln alone, the most
widely beloved. He is gone; but as we of the present generation remember
it, history will tell all coming centuries the romantic story of the
famous "March to the Sea"--how, in the dark days of 1864, Sherman,
having worked his bloody way to Atlanta, then cast off all his lines of
supply and communication, and, like a bold diver into the dark unknown,
seemed to vanish with all his hosts from the eyes of the world, until
his triumphant reappearance on the shores of the ocean proclaimed to the
anxiously expecting millions, that now the final victory was no longer
doubtful, and that the Republic would surely be saved.

Nor will history fail to record that this great general was, as a
victorious soldier, a model of republican citizenship. When he had done
his illustrious deeds, he rose step by step to the highest rank in the
army, and then, grown old, he retired. The Republic made provision for
him in modest republican style. He was satisfied. He asked for no higher
reward. Altho the splendor of his achievements, and the personal
affection for him, which every one of his soldiers carried home, made
him the most popular American of his day, and altho the most glittering
prizes were not seldom held up before his eyes, he remained untroubled
by ulterior ambition. No thought that the Republic owed him more ever