“Sherman’s reading was of a kind that both strengthened and disciplined the mind. The first President Dwight, in summing up his character, emphasized ‘his attachment to books of real use,’ adding that he ‘was, what very few men unacquainted with the learned languages are, accurately skilled in the grammar of his own language.’[20] “It is probable, however, that in paying this tribute to an old friend who had passed away, President Dwight had in mind Sherman’s style of written composition, rather than his ordinary manner of speech. It is seldom that one born to poverty and denied the common advantages of education, escapes a certain rusticity, to say the least, not only in his choice of words in conversation, but in their arrangement and pronunciation. “A franker, and I dare say juster, portrait of the man as he appeared in public discussions and debate is given in a series of rough notes of the doings of the Convention of 1787 which framed our national Constitution, made by one of the Southern delegates, William Pierce of Georgia. “‘Mr. Sherman,’ he writes, ‘exhibits the oddest shaped character I ever remember to have met with. He is awkward, un-meaning, and unaccountably strange in his manner. But in his train of thinking there is something regular, deep, and comprehensive; yet the oddity of his address, the vulgarisms that accompany his public speaking, and that strange New England cant which runs through his public as well as his private speaking make everything that is connected with him grotesque and laughable;--and yet he deserves infinite praise,--no Man has a better Heart or a clearer Head. If he cannot embellish he can furnish thoughts that are wise and useful. He is an able politician, and extremely artful in accomplishing any particular object; it is remarked that he seldom fails. I am told he sits on the Bench in Connecticut, and is very correct in the discharge of his Judicial functions. In the early part of his life he was a Shoe-maker; but, despising the lowness of his condition, he turned Almanack maker, and so progressed upwards to a Judge. He has been several years a Member of Congress, and discharged the duties of his Office with honor and credit to himself, and advantage to the State he represented. He is about 60.’ “Silas Deane, his colleague in the Continental Congress, in a frank letter to his wife, thus paints Sherman, as he appeared at a New York dinner party: