that but for Sherman our army would have been destroyed. He rode from place to place, directing his men; he selected from time to time the positions for his artillery; he dismounted and managed the guns; he sent suggestions to commanders of divisions; he inspired everybody with confidence; and yet it never occurred to him that he had accomplished any thing worthy of remark.” General Nelson, a few days before his death, in conversation with Larz Anderson and two or three other gentlemen, said: “During eight hours, the fate of the army on the field of Shiloh depended on the life of one man: if General Sherman had fallen, the army would have been captured or destroyed.” General Halleck, in his despatch to the Secretary of War, recommending General Sherman for promotion, said of him: “It is the unanimous opinion here that Brigadier-General W. T. Sherman saved the fortunes of the day on the 6th of April, and contributed largely to the glorious victory of the 7th. He was in the thickest of the fight on both days, having three horses killed under him, and being wounded twice. I respectfully request that he be made a major-general of volunteers, to date from the 6th instant.” Acting upon this recommendation, General Sherman was promoted to the rank designated, to date from May 1st, 1862. I shall give you now a letter of considerable length, written by General Sherman himself about the battle. Some of my readers may not care to read it all; but it should have a place in the annals of his life, because it is one of many illustrations of his power with the pen, and is also his honest and truthful record of the great contest at Pittsburg Landing: “HEADQUARTERS MILITARY DIVISION MISSISSIPPI. “_Professor Henry Coppee, Philadelphia_: “DEAR SIR: In the June number of the _United States Service Magazine_ I find a brief sketch of Lieutenant-General U. S. Grant, in which I see you are likely to perpetuate an error, which General Grant may not deem of sufficient importance to correct. To General Buell’s noble, able, and gallant conduct you attribute the fact that the disaster of April 6th, at Pittsburg Landing, was retrieved, and made the victory of the following day. As General Taylor is said in his later days to have doubted whether he was at the battle of Buena Vista at all, on account of the many things having transpired there, according to the historians, which he did not see, so I begin to doubt whether I was at the battle of Pittsburg Landing of modern description. But I was at the battles of April 6th and 7th, 1862. General Grant visited my division in person about ten A. M., when the battle raged fiercest. I was then on the right.