PUBLISHED FEUD OVER GRANT QUOTE BETWEEN GENERAL SHERMAN AND JAMES B. FRY, PRESENTED BY PUBLISHER AND INSCRIBED BY SHERMAN.

Collection of five North American Review articles bound together. Articles include: James B. Fry. "An Acquaintance with Grant." Vol. 141, No. 349 (December 1885), pp. 540-552. -- [Allen Thorndike Rice]. "Sherman on Grant." Vol. 142, No. 350 (January 1886), pp. 111-113. -- Rice. "Sherman's Opinion of Grant." Vol. 142, No. 351 (February 1886), pp. 200-208. -- Fry, Sherman, and Rice. "An Open Letter." Vol. 142, No. 352 (March 1886), pp. 292-294. -- Sherman. "An Unspoken Address to the Loyal Legion." Vol. 142, No. 352 (March 1886), pp. 295-308. Custom bound together in full morocco with gilt cover title: "Grant in History | Gen. W.T. Sherman".

INSCRIBED BY GENERAL SHERMAN to front free endpaper: "W.T. Sherman General 1886 / From [James] Redpath - North American Record" ackd- Apr. 22. 86" alongside P. Tecumseh bookplate.

A poignant demonstration of Sherman's fierce loyalty to Ulysses S. Grant, especially in death, presented in a series of articles published by the North American Review between December 1885 and March 1886. In summation, a quote was attributed to General Sherman in the North American Review that stated he believed Ulysses S. Grant would have “disappeared from history” had it not been for the untimely death of General Charles F. Smith. The implication that he believed Grant’s rise was serendipitous and not due to capability infuriated Sherman. Through his allies and in other places, Sherman sought to contextualize the quote properly and reaffirm his sincere admiration of General Grant. In 1886, the publisher of the North American Review took all the relevant articles printed in his periodical related to the tumultuous affair and handsomely bound them for Sherman.

This lot includes the bound series of articles, inscribed by General Sherman, as well as two additional issues of the North American Review. The fervor in which Sherman sought to clarify his words is a poignant indication of just how much he cherished and protected the reputation of Grant, as well as the perception of their relationship.

The conflict began in an article entitled "An Acquaintance with Grant" written by Provost Marshal General James B. Fry (1827-1894), who in his narrative uses a quote attributed to Sherman: "General Sherman goes so far as to have said, since Grant's death, that had C.F. Smith lived, Grant would have disappeared to history after Donelson; but that is conjecture." The next article included is penned by the editor of the Review, Allen Thorndike Rice (1851-1889), who addresses "controversy as to the opinions entertained by General Sherman of the military capacity and true merit of General Grant [that] has been provoked in some quarters." He includes a letter written by Sherman prior to Grant's death as a means of demonstrating his enduring loyalty: "My relations to him were peculiar. I think I know some things that no others do, but I will not name them for millions of dollars, and I will not anticipate his death. Should I survive him, I will always bear testimony to his good qualities, and be charitable to those which were the result of outside influence."

The controversy, however, was not ended there. A third article, published in the next issue in February 1886, again by Rice, tries to sort through a complex web of telegrams and letters in regard to Sherman’s quote and its origin. It begins with Sherman requesting the source of the quote which is then forwarded to Fry, who declines to identify the source. When informed, Sherman writes to Rice on 16 December 1885: "I would like your January number to contain my denial of the literal truth of Fry's quotation in your own language, not mine. Notify Fry that I believe he purposely and maliciously misrepresented me, and that the end is not yet." While the early correspondence is brief and business-like, when Fry declines cooperation, Sherman clearly becomes incensed and contacts General R.C. Drum in order to seek further means of retribution: "I have never authorized General Fry to speak for me in matters requiring the use of precise language, and I surely take direct issue with him in the modern monstrous newspaper doctrine that a reporter may publish any falsehood or guess, leaving the victim to follow it up with a denial or qualification. I assert moreover that General Fry is an officer of the army, subject to discipline and bound in honor to answer such an inquiry as was addressed to him."

An even longer letter from Sherman to Rice, dated 2 January 1886, reveals Grant's position on Fry: "General Grant always regarded him [Fry] as one of the men most active in spreading the lies about us at Shiloh- [that we were] ‘surprise[d],’ 'bayoneted in our beds,' 'demoralized,' 'a cowering mass on the river bank,' etc. etc. - and his December article shows that Grant listened to him, as he could not help doing, replying little." After an account of the Union victory at Shiloh, he continues, "We did not know that we had been surprised and slaughtered in our beds. We believed we had heroically defended our position till reinforcements near and long expected, did arrive, until the newspapers came from the North full and complete." In his lengthy account of the battle, he provides references to published works (all of which were in Sherman's library and offered in this auction as Lots 96 & 101), The Army under Buell and Grant's Memoirs. He concludes his letter, "Fry loves notoriety, controversy; is wordy, but not profound. He wants to be considered as Buell's mouth-piece, and champion of the Army of the Cumberland. He quotes me; refuses to give me the source of his quotation, but admits his liability to you. I will be pleased if you call on him to substantiate his quotation." Sherman writes again to Rice on the 10th: "I approve of your comment wholly. I can have no controversy with General Fry, who, in my judgment, is a man of words, not of deeds; who, when cornered, will dodge the issue and run off into an entirely different matter." Again reiterating his request for citation on the General C.F. Smith quote, reminding the editor that "I write hundreds of letters of which I have no copy. I meet thousands of people with whom I am compelled to converse, and with these I have speculated as to what might have been had General C.F. Smith lived....You know that i asked through you of General Fry to give me the source of his quotation not only once but twice, and he wanted the matter to remain as it was when he knew that I felt aggrieved at what I believed a false quotation. yet up to this date he has withheld a compliance with the simple request. Of course, I believe he invented the quotation for the purpose of questioning it, and showing his friendship after death, for the man whom in life he attempted to malign."

The conflict continues and concludes in the March 1886 issue of the North American Review. The article "An Open Letter" features a response finally furnished by Fry, who responds that he took the quote he attributed to Sherman from a letter "in General Sherman's handwriting dated September 6, 1885" sent to Colonel R.N. Scott. A brief quote is given from the letter and Rice amends this with a brief statement: "General Sherman not only does not dispute its authenticity but has furnished for publication the entire letter Colonel Scott, insisting, as he had done throughout, that the extract should not go on record in the Review detached from the context." What follows in the same issue is a lengthy article, "An Unspoken Address to the Loyal Legion." featuring the publication of a speech made to the Loyal Legion in Cincinnati on February 10, where Sherman provides greater context for the quotation used by Fry. He emphasizes his close relationship with the recipient, Colonel Robert N. Scott, stating, "I wrote to him with the same confidence I would to my own brother about family matters. I keep no copies of such letters, and write mine hastily, carelessly, and it was only January 29, 1886, two months after, that I obtained from Colonel Scott a copy of the correspondence, from which Fry had made his detached quotation." He further recounts the turmoil and his sleuthing, decrying again that "Detached and used as a text for a sermon it was as clear a forgery as was ever perpetrated." He recapitulates the controversy and his distaste for Fry, who he estimates undermined the reputation of Grant during his life, and only in death does he seek to ennoble himself through association with the great General and president.

ALSO WITH: 2 issues of The North American Review. December, 1888. Vol. 147, No. 6. AND March, 1889. Vol. 148, No. 3. Both 8vo, original paper wrappers.

Both features articles written by Sherman: "Hon. James G. Blaine" (Vol. 147, No. 6). Where Sherman describes his subject as "a fellow of infinite wit and of unbounded generosity" in recounting an episode when Speaker Blaine rushed through "his little bill" that would provide Mrs. Wood (the widowed daughter of President Zachary Taylor) $50 a month, backdated to her husband's death. -- "Old Times in California" (Vol. 148, No. 3), a collection of recollections from when he was stationed in Monterey in "Alta, or Upper, California" during the Mexican-American War from 1846.

Condition: Boards and preliminaries detached.

PROVENANCE:

The Sherman-Fitch Library

Primarily assembled by General William Tecumseh Sherman (1820-1891), the collection of books was inherited and curated by his son, Philemon Tecumseh Sherman (1867-1941). Before his death, Philemon transferred the library to his niece, Eleanor Sherman Fitch (1876-1959). Eleanor was the granddaughter of General Sherman through his eldest daughter, Maria "Minnie" Ewing Sherman Fitch (1851-1913). Until now, the Sherman-Fitch library was held at the family estate in Washington County, Pennsylvania.

The library includes a range of diverse material owned by General Sherman that principally relates to the Civil War, American history, and the Sherman family. Many works in the Sherman-Fitch library are historically significant, including General Sherman's annotated copy of Ulysses S. Grant's memoirs, the Sherman family bible, and Barnard's "Photographic Views of Sherman's Campaign."

Most examples in the collection are affixed with bookplates that bear both General Sherman's and Philemon's names. In some cases, where General Sherman's ownership was clear, his bookplate was not always affixed. However, books with just Philemon's bookplate were generally acquired after his father's death in 1891. General Sherman’s bookplates were likely added by Philemon after his father’s death. Philemon’s bookplates were placed by Tecumseh Sherman Fitch (1908-1969) after he inherited the library in 1942.

[Civil War, Union, Confederate, Generals, Shiloh, Western Theater, Politics, Reconstruction, Books, Journals, Pamphlets, Ephemera, Presidents]