Sherman: “The Civil War will soon be as much in the past as the Revolutionary War”

Col. Absalom Markland was a special agent in the Post Office Department during the Civil War, and was assigned to assist U.S. Grant, who used him not merely to manage mail delivery to his armies, but as a trusted courier carrying letters and messages for and between Grant, Sherman, headquarters, President Lincoln, and other generals. Sherman met Markland while both were in Grant’s command at Vicksburg. On December 20, 1864, Grant anticipated the arrival of Sherman’s army on the Georgia coast at the end of its March to the Sea, and dispatched Markland to the waters off Savannah to await that event. Sherman entered Savannah on December 21, and by then his men had been without the joy and encouragement of mail from home, bearing its messages of love, for some time. Then very soon after Sherman saw Markland, with sacks of mail, and men and officers whooping and hollering with glee. The sight made a deep impression on Sherman, an impression further fostered by Markland’s continued success in insuring mail delivery, often under impossible circumstances (like traversing the South Carolina swamps).

Autograph Letter Signed, three pages, New York, December 27, 1886, to Markland,  “Yours of Christmas is received and I assure you that I reciprocate most completely the kind wishes therein contained from Mrs. Markland & yourself, and wish that you may continue many years to receive the assurance of the love of the many thousands to whom you carried comfort & solace in the days of the war. What you say of the early events at Paducah & Arkansas Post are known to but few of the living and now that John Logan is gone we are all reminded that the Civil War will soon be as much in the past as the Revolutionary War. Most of the letters and notes of that day were written in pencil on scraps of paper, not copied and consequently lost. But they produced fruits, and that is all any of us at that day thought of – we could not dream of the scramble for fame after the war. We now are dealing with what might have been had such and such things been done or had so and so commanded. But this world is too matter of fact to deal in such speculations, and is content to accept facts as they actually transpired. You were a witness of many most interesting events, and your testimony should be carefully worded for present or future publication…”