His nervousness is not less perceptible in his writings than in his conversation and manners. His writings lack in elegance, but not in force. Some of his letters, remarkable for absence of grace and presence of vigor, are already accepted as among the model documents of the war, not only as to style, but as to argument. His speeches, letters, and orders are seldom more than skeletons, framed of sharp, pointed, but disjointed sentences, from which the ideas to be conveyed protrude so prominently as to be comprehensible when the sentence is but half conveyed. His ideas are never elaborated in his letters, though given more fully than in his conversations, but you never have to finish the sentence to discover its meaning. There are several specimens which every reader will naturally think of in this connection. His letter to the rebel General Hood on the proposed depopulation of Atlanta is a curious document, an impromptu reply, thrown off-hand from his pen, and it reads as if it were Sherman talking. He begins this letter by acknowledging the receipt of a communication at the hands of "Messrs. Bull and _crew_." The bearers, who were designated by this undignified title, were members of the Common Council of Atlanta, for whom Sherman does not appear to have entertained the most profound respect. The letter ends by advising Hood to tell his tale of oppression "to the marines," as he (Sherman) is not to be imposed upon. In the same correspondence he indicates his action in depopulating Atlanta, and gives his peculiar "theory of suppression." Sherman's whole theory, in which, by the way, he has been consistent from the first, is embraced in the proposition to "fight the devil with fire." He was for vigorous war all the time--hard blows at the organized armies, frequent and oft repeated. He has none of the elements of Fabian in him. He writes in defense of the action at Atlanta alluded to: "We must have peace, not only in Atlanta, but in all America. To secure this, we must stop the war that now desolates our once happy and favored country. To stop war, we must _defeat the rebel armies_ that are arrayed against the laws and Constitution, which all must respect and obey. To defeat these armies, we must prepare the way to reach them in their recesses provided with the arms and instruments which enable us to accomplish our purpose." His expression in the same letter, "War is cruelty--you can not refine it," is a sharp, terse rendition of an undisputed truth, to the illustration of which whole chapters have been less successfully devoted by more distinguished writers.