“MY DEAR FRIEND:--I have received your welcome favor of July 31st. Mrs. Sherman has since got one of later date, in which you acknowledge the receipt of the Memoirs. I am glad, of course, that they pleased you in form and substance. Such is the general judgment of those who embraced the whole book, whilst others, picking out a paragraph here and there, find great fault. When I had made up my mind to publish, I prepared myself for the inevitable consequences of offending some. I tried to make a truthful picture of the case, as it was left in my mind, without fear, favor or affection, and though it may cause bad feelings now, will in the end be vindicated. I want no friend to eulogize or apologize, but leave the volumes to fight out their own battle. “We are all now at home except Minnie, who has her own home not far from us. Her baby is growing and beginning to assume the form of humanity, recognizing objects and manifesting a will and purpose of his own. “Early in September all the children will resume their schools--Tom at Yale, Elly at Manhattanville, N. Y., the rest here in St. Louis. With the exception of some minor excursions I will remain close at home. Our annual meeting of the Army of the Tennessee will be at Des Moines this year--Sept. 29-30. We don’t expect much, only to keep it alive. We look for a stormy political Winter, and next year another of the hurricanes that test our strength every four years. “My best love to Mrs. B. and the children. “Yours, W. T. SHERMAN.” _January, 1875._--I went to London to see about my play. Stopped at 10 Duchess Street. General Schenck was our Minister then, and he and Colonel John W. Forney gave me letters to theatrical people. Mr. Geo. W. Smalley was also polite to me. It was a nice American dinner-party I participated in at Mr. Smalley’s home, and while there was a little air of stiffness in the white-gloved, side-whiskered waiters, it was a hospitable, jolly occasion. Among the guests were Kate Field, Col. Forney, Secretary McCullough, and some English literary people. Kate Field was wide awake, and she, and Col. Forney, one of the best talkers and best informed men I ever knew, kept things lively till midnight. Col. Forney was one of the handsomest men I ever met, and was loyally faithful to friends. One of my letters was to Dion Boucicault, the actor, probably the biggest dramatic plagiarist since Shakespeare. His name was to about two hundred plays, of which he certainly never wrote a dozen complete. He was of immense talent in the way of absorbing, or transposing, or cribbing outright other people’s work, without their even knowing it. In a sense, he did make things his own. If what he afterward said to me about there not being an absolutely new idea in the world is true, then he was not a stage plagiarist, as much as a first class boiler-over.