Sherman ended this warmhearted letter with a stark warning that Grant should beware the perils of Washington—a plea from one western man to another to avoid the insidious snares of the East. “Don’t stay in Washington. Halleck is better qualified than you are to stand the buffets of Intrigue and Policy. Come out West, take to yourself the whole Mississippi Valley . . . Here lies the seat of the coming Empire, and from the West when our task is done, we will make short work of Charleston, and Richmond, and the impoverished coast of the Atlantic.”
