“Congress ought to make the rank of Lieutenant General permanent. It is simply dishonest for the country to compel a Major General to do the work of a Lieutenant General, just as in the war hundreds of Colonels had to command brigades and divisions. “Mrs. Sherman is not so well, but went yesterday to make a month’s visit to our daughter Elly near Philadelphia. Rachel and Lizzie are with me at the Fifth Avenue Hotel. “Give my best love to Mrs. Byers and the family. “Always your friend, W. T. SHERMAN.” By September the Shermans were in their new home in New York, at Seventy-first Street. After all, they were keeping house again. The General had had enough of expensive and fashionable hotels. He had been homeless longer than he cared to be. He describes this house in his letter of the 16th. I was also glad to have his approval of my “Iowa in War Times.” “No. 75 West 71st St. “NEW YORK, Sept. 16, 1888. “DEAR BYERS:--When at Columbus, your letter of Sept. 1st was handed me by Maj. Loring, at a time when I was chased from corner to corner as though I had just escaped the penitentiary. I fear the Major thought me neglectful of him and his letter. Let him put himself in my place. Forty thousand ex-soldiers and sixty thousand strangers were added to the resident population, all bent on seeing the sights, of which I was one. Instead of dying out, the interest in the war and its actors seems to grow with time. I was not allowed time to eat or sleep, much less read and write letters, but I escaped alive and should be grateful. “I am now in our new house, not as large as that in St. Louis, but better located, near Central Park and near the Sixth Avenue Elevated R.R. Four full stories and basement, in which I have my office with all my books and papers. Not divided as they were when I was at the Fifth Avenue Hotel. “The interior arrangements are not yet complete, so the family is away, but by the middle of next week it will be all ready and the family will come. I hope this is my last change on earth. “I have at intervals found time to read your volume, ‘Iowa in War Times,’ and congratulate you in having succeeded in giving to each regiment and organization a fair measure of space, and yet preserved the general authenticity of events. I hope the book pays you proportionately to your labor and expense. As now established with Mr. Barrett I can always supply you dates, facts and figures, should you still pursue your literary labors. “With love to the family, I am, etc., W. T. SHERMAN.” Mrs. Sherman’s health had been failing somewhat for months, but nothing absolutely serious was anticipated till, unexpectedly, she was worse in the mid-winter. Then the end came so suddenly that some of her children could not reach New York in time to see her passing away. I was in California, and shortly received this reply to my letter of sympathy: