“DEAR BYERS:--I received in due season your valued letter of September 30th, enclosing the editorial of the London _Times_, which I had seen, but am none the less obliged for the thought which suggested your action. The time is now near at hand when I shall return to St. Louis, where my family is already happily domiciled. I have never known Mrs. Sherman more content, for she never regarded Washington as a home, but she recognizes her present house as a real home. The girls seem equally satisfied. The actual date of my retirement is Feb. 8, 1884, but I thought it right to allow Sheridan to come in at an earlier date so as to make any recommendations he chose for the action of the next Congress, and I asked of the President an order to authorize me to turn over the command on the first day of November, which he did in a very complimentary way on that day. I will turn over my office to Sheridan with as little fuss or ceremony as a Colonel would do in transferring his Regt. to the Lt. Col. “I will then pay a visit to Elly at Philadelphia, afterward New York and then St. Louis. My address there will be Number 912 Garrison Avenue, a house you must remember. I have had it fitted up nicely. We are all very well, and I am especially so. “I do not feel the least slighted in this whole business, for Congress has acted most liberally with me. “I am constantly asked how I shall occupy my active mind and body. I postpone all thought of this till the time come, but I am resolved not to be tempted into politics, or to enter into any employment which could bring money liability. “I hope you also will get your promotion, and then come home and settle on your Iowa farm. We should then be neighbors. Love to Mrs. Byers and the family. “Your friend, W. T. SHERMAN.” CHAPTER XXV 1884 SOME INTERESTING LETTERS FROM GENERAL SHERMAN--REQUESTS FOR SOUVENIRS--HIS “FLAMING SWORD”--ONE ON THE PRESIDENCY--I AM APPOINTED CONSUL GENERAL FOR ITALY--AN AMERICAN FOURTH OF JULY PICNIC ON LAKE ZURICH--LORD BYRON’S HOME IN SWITZERLAND-- SOME OLD LETTERS ABOUT HIS LIFE THERE--THE LAKE DWELLINGS OF SWITZERLAND--KELLER, THE ANTIQUARIAN--POWER OF SWISS TORRENTS. In a recent volume of my poems, some little change had been made in the stanzas of “The March to the Sea.” General Sherman did not like these changes, and wrote me that in his opinion “no writer, having once given a thing to the public, had any right to change it.” He refers again to his preference in the following letter: “ST. LOUIS, MO., Feb. 24, 1884.