By far the most interesting feature of his cadet life was the correspondence he maintained with Miss Ellen Ewing. More characteristic letters were never penned. Years afterward the stern War Secretary, Stanton, perusing his vigorous letters from the front, declared that Sherman wrote as well as he fought. These earlier epistles were a fitting prelude to the more serious writings of after years. They were sprightly and vivacious, touched with humor, often eccentric, sometimes inclining to egotism, but always intensely earnest and decidedly vigorous. He was not as much a lover of "society" then as in his later life, for on one occasion he wrote: "We have two or three dancing parties each week, at which the gray bobtail is a sufficient recommendation for an introduction to any one. You can well conceive how the cadets have always had the reputation, and have still, here in the East, of being great gallants and ladies' men. God only knows how I will sustain that reputation." As he got nearer and nearer to the actual army, he was more and more impressed with the responsibilities that would be placed upon him, and he almost shrank from them. One day in 1839 he wrote of himself: "Bill is very much elated at the idea of getting free of West Point next June. He does not intend remaining in the army more than a year, then to resign and study law, probably. No doubt you admire this choice; but to speak plainly and candidly, I would rather be a blacksmith. Indeed, the nearer we come to that dreadful epoch, graduation day, the higher opinion I conceive of the duties and life of an officer of the United States Army, and the more confirmed in the wish of spending my life in the service of my country. Think of that!"