General William T. Sherman is Privileged to Have His Name Associated With The Heroes of the American Revolution, and With the Principle Union Military Leaders of the Civil War

This letter was at one time in the papers of George Washington Warren, president of the association and its chief historian and has never before been offered for sale.

On June 17, 1775, the British army under General William Howe, supported by Royal Navy warships, attacked the defenses the colonists had erected on Bunker and Breeds Hills. The British troops moved up Breeds Hill in perfect battle formations. Patriot leader William Prescott allegedly encouraged his men “not fire until you see the whites of their eyes.” Two assaults on the colonial positions were repulsed with significant British casualties; the third and final attack carried the position after the defenders ran out of ammunition. The colonists retreated to Cambridge over Bunker Hill, leaving the British in control of Charlestown but still besieged in Boston. The battle was a tactical victory for the British because they held the ground, but it proved to be a sobering experience, involving more than twice the casualties than the Americans had incurred, including many officers. The battle had demonstrated that inexperienced Continental militia could stand up to regular British army troops in battle, at a time when the British were considered to have the finest army in the world. It encouraged revolutionaries throughout America, and made the success of such a revolution actually seem possible.

In 1823, Edward Everett, Daniel Webster, famed physician John C. Warren, and others co-founded the Bunker Hill Monument Association, which sought to memorialize that battle with a grand monument. They petitioned the Massachusetts House and Senate for recognition and support and a subsequent Act was passed giving both. Then began the work to draw interest, raise money, design the monument, and build it, a years-long effort that created the first major monument to the American Revolution, and the first public obelisk in the United States. In 1824 and 1825 they began notifying the public of their work, elected their officers, and then wrote a circular eliciting donations, and elected prominent men honorary members. They informed these men, and the responses the committee received back were from many great men of the era, including Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Marshall, Henry Clay, John Quincy Adams, Oliver Wolcott, Joseph Story, and the Marquis de Lafayette. Soon Simon Bolivar was added to the list.

In 1869 Gen. William T. Sherman, Union hero of the just-concluded Civil War, was named an honorary member of the association and presented with a certificate of membership. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, Adm. David Farragut, and Gen. Philip H. Sheridan were named honorary members at the same time. Thus, with this recognition, were the greats of the Civil War conflated with those of the Revolution. George Washington Warren was then the President of the Bunker Hill Monument Association and the man who communicated with Sherman on the subject. Warren was also a judge and historian who was writing a history of the association.

Autograph letter signed, Headquarters Armies of the United States, Washington, March 7, 1870, to Warren, making clear he saw the joining of his name with those of the Founding Fathers, and now Grant, Farragut and Sheridan, was an honor indeed. “I have the honor to acknowledge receipt of your kind letter of the 4th instant accompanying the handsome diploma of the Bunker Hill Monument Association for which I feel indebted to you. To have my name associated with those who now grace your roll is a great honor indeed. And I shall treasure this diploma as one of the most agreeable honors that I have received since the close of the Great Civil War.”

On June 16 and 17, 1875, the centennial of the Battle of Bunker Hill was celebrated with a military parade and a reception featuring notable speakers, chief among them being Sherman himself.

This letter was at one time in the papers of George Washington Warren, president of the association and its chief historian and has never before been offered for sale.