General William T. Sherman to Senator John Sherman, August 29, 1881

HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE UNITED STATES,        

WASHINGTON, Aug. 29, 1881.

Dear Brother: The President is sensibly better to-day, and all the friends and family feel encouraged. If to-morrow he be on the upward mend I shall go to New York, New London, Worcester, and Boston, to be gone ten days, but if you have occasion to write, the letter will be forwarded. But you may be sure that I shall be here in case of necessity. The Cabinet desire that the prisoner, Guiteau, be regularly tried by the courts. We can defend the jail against the world, unless there be treachery. But when the time comes to take him from the jail to the court-house we cannot use soldiers, for the law prohibits their use as a posse comitatus. I apprehend no violence here even if the President dies, but sooner or later Guiteau will die. The feeling is too universal for him ever to escape.

Affectionately,

W. T. SHERMAN.

SOURCE: Rachel Sherman Thorndike, Editor, The Sherman Letters: Correspondence Between General and Senator Sherman from 1837 to 1891, p. 352-3