Colonel William T. Sherman was writing to his wife in Ohio from Alexandria, Louisiana, where he was the first director of the Louisiana State Seminary, later Louisiana State University. After a long week of selecting new cadets, Sherman was looking forward to the opening of the term on the following Monday. On the election he told her that "people here talk about how disunion was a fixed thing ... I say but little, try to mind my own business and await the issue of events." (By John Osborne)