The commonest topics in his letters, however, related to the practical details of life. "The last encampment," he once wrote, "taken all in all, I think was the most pleasant one I have ever spent, even to me, who did not participate in the dances and balls given every week by the different classes; besides the duties were of altogether a different nature from any previous ones, such as acting as officers upon guard and at artillery drills, practicing at target-firing with long twenty-fours and thirty-twos, mortars, howitzers, etc., as also cavalry exercise, which has been introduced this year." He was not slow in taking to the knack of command. "As to lording it over the plebs, to which you referred, I had only one, whom I made, of course, 'tend to a pleb's duty, such as bringing water, policing the tent, cleaning my gun and accoutrements, and the like, and repaid in the usual and cheap coin--advice; and since we have commenced studying, I make him 'bone,' and explain to him the difficult parts of algebra and the French grammar, since he is a good one and a fine fellow; but should he not carry himself straight, I should have him 'found' in January and sent off, that being the usual way in such cases, and then take his bed, table and chair, to pay for the Christmas spree." Sherman had already learned to do his own thinking, in politics and other matters, and he was not at all backward in revealing that fact to his fair correspondent. He gravely discussed the most important National topics, and hesitated not to express radical and positive opinions. His foster-father, Mr. Ewing, was a Whig, but the bumptious cadet did not approve of that party. In the Presidential campaign of 1840, when Mr. Ewing was laboring hard for the election of William Henry Harrison, Sherman wrote to Miss Ewing: "You, no doubt, are not only firmly impressed, but absolutely certain, that General Harrison will be our next President. For my part, though, of course, but a 'superficial observer,' I do not think there is the least hope of such a change, since his friends have thought proper to envelope his name with log-cabins, ginger-bread, hard-cider and such humbugging, the sole object of which plainly is to deceive and mislead his ignorant and prejudiced, though honest, fellow citizens; whilst his qualifications, his honesty, his merits and services are merely alluded to!"