a better footing.  Thomas O. Moors was then Governor, Bragg was a member of the Board of Public Works, and Richard Taylor was a Senator.  I got well acquainted with all of these, and with some of the leading men of the State, and was always treated with the greatest courtesy and kindness.  In conjunction with the proper committee of the Legislature, we prepared a new bill, which was passed and approved on the 7th of March, 1860, by which we were to have a beneficiary cadet for each parish, in all fifty-six, and fifteen thousand dollars annually for their maintenance; also twenty thousand dollars for the general use of the college.  During that session we got an appropriation of fifteen thousand dollars for building two professors’ houses, for the purchase of philosophical and chemical apparatus, and for the beginning of a college library.  The seminary was made a State Arsenal, under the title of State Central Arsenal, and I was allowed five hundred dollars a year as its superintendent.  These matters took me several times to Baton Rouge that winter, and I recall an event of some interest, which most have happened in February.  At that time my brother, John Sherman, was a candidate, in the national House of Representatives, for Speaker, against Bocock, of Virginia.  In the South he was regarded as an “abolitionist,” the most horrible of all monsters; and many people of Louisiana looked at me with suspicion, as the brother of the abolitionist, John Sherman, and doubted the propriety of having me at the head of an important State institution.  By this time I was pretty well acquainted with many of their prominent men, was generally esteemed by all in authority, and by the people of Rapides Parish especially, who saw that I was devoted to my particular business, and that I gave no heed to the political excitement of the day.  But the members of the State Senate and House did not know me so well, and it was natural that they should be suspicions of a Northern man, and the brother of him who was the “abolition” candidate for Speaker of the House.

One evening, at a large dinner-party at Governor Moore’s, at which were present several members of the Louisiana Legislature, Taylor, Bragg, and the Attorney-General Hyams, after the ladies had left the table, I noticed at Governor Moore’s end quite a lively discussion going on, in which my name was frequently used; at length the Governor called to me, saying:  “Colonel Sherman, you can readily understand that, with your brother the abolitionist candidate for Speaker, some of our people wonder that you should be here at the head of an important State institution.  Now, you are at my table, and I assure you of my confidence.  Won’t you speak your mind freely on this question of slavery, that so agitates the land?  You are under my roof, and, whatever you say, you have my protection.”