I mention these facts in kindness, to show you how wrong it is to speak of persons.
I will attend to the judge, mayor, Boards of Aldermen, and policemen, all in good time.
Use your influence to reestablish system, order, government.

You may rest easy that no military commander is going to neglect internal safety, or to guard against external danger; but to do right requires time, and more patience than I usually possess.

If I find the press of Memphis actuated by high principle and a sole devotion to their country, I will be their best friend; but, if I find them personal, abusive, dealing in innuendoes and hints at a blind venture, and looking to their own selfish aggrandizement and fame, then they had better look out; for I regard such persons as greater enemies to their country and to mankind than the men who, from a mistaken sense of State pride, have taken up muskets, and fight us about as hard as we care about.

In haste, but in kindness, yours, etc., W.T.SHERMAN, Major-General.
HEADQUARTERS FIFTH DIVISION, MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE, July 27, 1882.
JOHN PARK, Mayor of Memphis, present.
Sir: Yours of July 24th is before me, and has received, as all similar papers ever will, my careful and most respectful consideration.

I have the most unbounded respect for the civil law, courts, and authorities, and shall do all in my power to restore them to their proper use, viz., the protection of life, liberty, and property.
Unfortunately, at this time, civil war prevails in the land, and necessarily the military, for the time being, must be superior to the civil authority, but it does not therefore destroy it.