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William Tecumseh Sherman
(February 8, 1820 – February 14, 1891) was an
He served as a
in the
Union Army
during the
American Civil War
(1861–65), for which he received recognition for his outstanding command of
military strategy
as well as criticism for the harshness of the "
scorched earth
" policies that he implemented in conducting
total war
against the
Confederate States
Military historian
Basil Liddell Hart
famously declared that Sherman was "the first modern general".
Sherman served under General
Ulysses S.
in 1862 and 1863 during the campaigns that led to the fall of the Confederate stronghold of
on the
Mississippi River
and culminated with the routing of the Confederate armies in the state of
In 1864, Sherman succeeded Grant as the
commander in the
western theater
of the war.
He proceeded to lead his troops to the capture of the city of
, a military success that contributed to the
Abraham Lincoln
Sherman's subsequent
march through Georgia
and the
further undermined the Confederacy's ability to continue fighting.
He accepted the surrender of all the Confederate armies in the Carolinas, Georgia, and
in April 1865.
When Grant became president, Sherman succeeded him as
Commanding General of the Army
(1869–83). As such, he was responsible for the conduct of the
Indian Wars
in the
western United States
. He steadfastly refused to be drawn into politics and in 1875 published his
, one of the best-known firsthand accounts of the Civil War.
Early life
Sherman was born in 1820 in
, near the shores of the
Hocking River
His father
Charles Robert Sherman
, a successful lawyer who sat on the
Ohio Supreme Court
, died unexpectedly in 1829.
He left his widow, Mary Hoyt Sherman, with eleven children and no inheritance. Following this tragedy, the nine-year-old Sherman was raised by a Lancaster neighbor and family friend, attorney
Thomas Ewing
, a prominent member of the
Whig Party
who served as
from Ohio and as the first
Secretary of the Interior
. Sherman was distantly related to the politically influential
Baldwin, Hoar & Sherman family
and grew to admire American founding father
Roger Sherman
Sherman's older brother
Charles Taylor Sherman
became a federal judge. One of his younger brothers,
John Sherman
, served as a U.S. senator and
secretary. Another younger brother,
Hoyt Sherman
, was a successful
Two of his foster brothers served as
major generals
in the
Union Army
during the Civil War:
Hugh Boyle Ewing
, later an ambassador and author, and
Thomas Ewing, Jr.
, who would serve as
defense attorney
in the military trials against the
Lincoln conspirators
Sherman's given names
Sherman's unusual given name has always attracted considerable attention. Sherman himself reports that his middle name grew from the fact that his father "caught a fancy for the great chief of the
, '
.'" Since the publication of a 1932 biography, it has often been reported that, as an infant, Sherman was named simply Tecumseh. According to these accounts, Sherman only acquired the name "William" at age nine or ten, after being taken into the Ewing household. His foster mother, Maria Ewing, who was of Irish ancestry, was a devout
. In the Ewing home, Sherman was baptized by a
priest who supposedly used the name William because the event took place on a Saint William's Day – possibly June 25, the feast day of Saint
William of Montevergine
. However, this colorful account is dubious. Sherman himself states in his
that his father named him William Tecumseh, and there is corroborating evidence that Sherman was baptized by a
minister as an infant and given the name William at that time. As an adult, Sherman signed all his correspondence – even to his wife – "W.T. Sherman," but his friends and family always called him "Cump". Despite having been baptized twice in his youth, Sherman did not adhere to any organized religion for the latter part of his adult life, although his wife,
Ellen Ewing Sherman
, was a devout Catholic and his son
became a Catholic priest; according to Thomas, Sherman attended the Catholic Church till the outbreak of the Civil War but not thereafter.
Military training and service
Young Sherman in military uniform
Senator Ewing secured an appointment for the 16-year-old Sherman as a
in the
United States Military Academy
West Point
, where he roomed and became good friends with another important future Civil War General,
George H.
. There Sherman excelled academically, but he treated the demerit system with indifference. Fellow cadet
William Rosecrans
would later remember Sherman at West Point as "one of the brightest and most popular fellows" and "a bright-eyed, red-headed fellow, who was always prepared for a lark of any kind". About his time at West Point, Sherman says only the following in his
Upon graduation in 1840, Sherman entered the Army as a
second lieutenant
in the 3rd U.S.
Artillery and saw action in
in the
Second Seminole War
against the
He was later stationed in
South Carolina
As the foster son of a prominent Whig politician, in
, the popular Lt.
Sherman moved within the upper circles of
Old South
While many of his colleagues saw action in the
Mexican-American War
, Sherman performed administrative duties in the captured territory of
He and fellow officer Lieutenant
Edward Ord
reached the town of Yerba Buena two days before its name was changed to
San Francisco
In 1848, Sherman accompanied the military governor of California, Col.
Richard Barnes Mason
, in the inspection that officially confirmed the claim that
had been discovered in the region, thus inaugurating the
California Gold Rush
. Sherman, along with the above-mentioned Edward Ord, assisted in surveys for the sub-divisions of the town that would become Sacramento.
Sherman earned a
promotion to
for his "meritorious service", but his lack of a combat assignment discouraged him and may have contributed to his decision to resign his commission. Sherman would become one of the relatively few high-ranking officers in the Civil War who had not fought in Mexico.
Marriage and business career
Painted portrait by G.P.A.
Healy (1866)
In 1850, Sherman was promoted to the substantive rank of Captain and married Thomas Ewing's daughter, Eleanor Boyle ("Ellen") Ewing, in a Washington ceremony attended by President
Zachary Taylor
and other political luminaries. (Thomas Ewing was serving as the first Secretary of the Interior at the time.) Like her mother,
Ellen Ewing Sherman
was a devout Roman Catholic, and the Shermans' eight children were reared in that faith.
In 1864, Ellen took up temporary residence in South Bend, Indiana, to have her young family educated at the
University of Notre Dame
St. Mary's College
In 1874, with Sherman having become world famous, their eldest child, Marie Ewing ("Minnie") Sherman, also had a politically prominent wedding, attended by President Ulysses S. Grant and commemorated by a generous gift from the
Khedive of Egypt
(Eventually, one of Minnie's daughters married a grandson of Confederate general
Lewis Addison Armistead
.) Another of the Sherman daughters,
, was married to
Alexander Montgomery Thackara
at General Sherman's home in
Washington, D.C.
, on May 5, 1880.
To Sherman's great displeasure and sorrow, one of his sons,
Thomas Ewing Sherman
, was ordained a
priest in 1879.
In 1853, Sherman resigned his captaincy and became manager of the San Francisco branch of a St. Louis based bank. He returned to San Francisco at a time of great turmoil in the West.
He survived two shipwrecks and floated through the
Golden Gate
on the overturned hull of a foundering lumber schooner.
Sherman suffered from stress-related
because of the city's brutal financial climate. Late in life, regarding his time in real-estate-speculation-mad San Francisco, Sherman recalled: "I can handle a hundred thousand men in battle, and take the City of the Sun, but am afraid to manage a lot in the swamp of San Francisco." In 1856, during the
vigilante period
, he served briefly as a
major general
of the California
Sherman's San Francisco branch closed in May 1857, and he relocated to New York on behalf of the same bank.
When the bank failed during the financial
Panic of 1857
, he turned to the practice of law in
, at which he was also unsuccessful.
Military college superintendent
In 1859, Sherman accepted a job as the first superintendent of the
Louisiana State Seminary of Learning & Military Academy
Pineville, Louisiana
, a position he sought at the suggestion of Major
and secured because of General G. Mason Graham.
He proved an effective and popular leader of that institution, which would later become
Louisiana State University
Joseph P.
, the brother of the late President
Zachary Taylor
, declared that "if you had hunted the whole army, from one end of it to the other, you could not have found a man in it more admirably suited for the position in every respect than Sherman."
On hearing of
South Carolina
from the United States, Sherman observed to a close friend, Professor
David F.
, an enthusiastic secessionist, almost perfectly describing the four years of war to come:
In January 1861 just before the outbreak of the Civil War, Sherman was required to accept receipt of arms surrendered to the State Militia by the U.S.
Arsenal at
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Instead of complying, he resigned his position as superintendent and returned to the North, declaring to the governor of Louisiana, "On no earthly account will I do any act or think any thought hostile ... to the ... United States."
After the war, General Sherman donated two cannons to the institution.
These cannons had been captured from Confederate forces and had been used to start the war when fired at
Fort Sumter
, South Carolina.
They are still currently on display in front of LSU's
Military Science
St. Louis interlude
Immediately following his departure from Louisiana, Sherman traveled to
Washington, D.C.
, possibly in the hope of securing a position in the army, and met with Abraham Lincoln in the White House during inauguration week.
Sherman expressed concern about the North's poor state of preparedness but found Lincoln unresponsive.
Thereafter, Sherman became president of the St. Louis Railroad, a
company, a position he would hold for only a few months. Thus, he was living in border-state Missouri as the secession crisis came to a climax. While trying to hold himself aloof from controversy, he observed firsthand the efforts of Congressman
Frank Blair
, who later served under Sherman, to hold Missouri in the Union. In early April, he declined an offer from the Lincoln administration to take a position in the War Department that might have resulting in his becoming Assistant Secretary of War. After the bombardment of Fort Sumter, Sherman hesitated about committing to military service and ridiculed Lincoln's call for 75,000 three-month volunteers to quell secession, reportedly saying: "Why, you might as well attempt to put out the flames of a burning house with a squirt-gun." However, in May, he offered himself for service in the regular army, and his brother (Senator John Sherman) and other connections maneuvered to get him a commission in the regular army. On June 3, he wrote that "I still think it is to be a long war – very long – much longer than any Politician thinks." He received a telegram summoning him to Washington on June 7.
Civil War service
Portrait by Mathew Brady, c.1864
First commissions and Bull Run
Sherman was first commissioned as a
in the
13th U.S.
Infantry regiment
, effective May 14, 1861. This was a new regiment yet to be raised, and Sherman's first command was actually of a brigade of three-month volunteers.
With that command, he was one of the few Union officers to distinguish himself at the
First Battle of Bull Run
on July 21, 1861, where he was grazed by bullets in the knee and shoulder.
The disastrous Union defeat led Sherman to question his own judgment as an officer and the capacities of his volunteer troops. President Lincoln, however, was impressed by Sherman while visiting the troops on July 23 and promoted him to
brigadier general
of volunteers (effective May 17, 1861, with seniority in rank to
Ulysses S.
, his future commander).
He was assigned to serve under
Robert Anderson
in the Department of the Cumberland in
, and in October succeeded Anderson in command of the department.
Sherman considered his new assignment to violate a promise from Lincoln that he would not be given such a prominent position.
Breakdown and Shiloh
Having succeeded Anderson at Louisville, Sherman now had principal military responsibility for a border state (Kentucky) in which Confederate troops held Columbus and Bowling Green and were present near the Cumberland Gap. He became exceedingly pessimistic about the outlook for his command, and he complained frequently to Washington, D.C., about shortages and provided exaggerated estimates of the strength of the rebel forces. Very critical press reports appeared about him after an October visit to Louisville by the then Secretary of War,
Simon Cameron
, and in early November Sherman insisted that he be relieved.
He was promptly replaced by
Don Carlos Buell
and transferred to
St. Louis
In December, however, he was put on leave by Maj. Gen.
Henry W.
, commander of the
Department of the Missouri
, who considered him unfit for duty. Sherman went to Lancaster, Ohio, to recuperate. Some consider that, in Kentucky and Missouri, Sherman was in the midst of what today would be described as a
nervous breakdown
. While he was at home, his wife, Ellen, wrote to his brother Senator John Sherman seeking advice and complaining of "that melancholy insanity to which your family is subject." Sherman himself later wrote that the concerns of command "broke me down," and he admitted contemplating "suicide". His problems were further compounded when the
Cincinnati Commercial
described him as "insane".
By mid-December, however, Sherman was sufficiently recovered to return to service under Halleck in the Department of the Missouri (in March, Halleck's command was redesignated the Department of the Mississippi and enlarged to unify command in the West). Sherman's initial assignments were rear-echelon commands, first of an instructional barracks near St. Louis and then command of the District of Cairo.
Operating from
Paducah, Kentucky
, he provided logistical support for the operations of Brig.
Gen. Ulysses S.
Grant to capture
Fort Donelson
Grant, the previous commander of the District of Cairo, had recently won a major victory at
Fort Henry
and been given command of the ill-defined District of West Tennessee.
Although Sherman was technically the senior officer at this time, he wrote to Grant, "I feel anxious about you as I know the great facilities [the Confederates] have of concentration by means of the River and R Road, but [I] have faith in you — Command me in any way."
Detail from Sherman Memorial, Washington
After Grant captured Fort Donelson, Sherman got his wish of serving under Grant when he was assigned on March 1, 1862, to the
Army of West Tennessee
as commander of the 5th
His first major test under Grant was at the
Battle of Shiloh
The massive Confederate attack on the morning of April 6, 1862, took most of the senior Union commanders by surprise.
Sherman in particular had dismissed the intelligence reports that he had received from militia officers, refusing to believe that Confederate General
Albert Sidney Johnston
would leave his base at
He took no precautions beyond strengthening his picket lines, refusing to entrench, build
, or push out reconnaissance patrols. At Shiloh, he may have wished to avoid appearing overly alarmed in order to escape the kind of criticism he had received in Kentucky. He had written to his wife that, if he took more precautions, "they'd call me crazy again".
Despite being caught unprepared by the attack, Sherman rallied his division and conducted an orderly, fighting retreat that helped avert a disastrous Union rout. Finding Grant at the end of the day sitting under an oak tree in the darkness smoking a cigar, he experienced, in his own words "some wise and sudden instinct not to mention retreat". Instead, in what would become one of the most famous conversations of the war, Sherman said simply: "Well, Grant, we've had the devil's own day, haven't we?" After a puff of his cigar, Grant replied calmly: "Yes. Lick 'em tomorrow, though." Sherman would prove instrumental to the successful Union counterattack of April 7, 1862. At Shiloh, Sherman was wounded twice—in the hand and shoulder—and had three horses shot out from under him. His performance was praised by Grant and Halleck and after the battle, he was promoted to
major general
of volunteers, effective May 1, 1862.
Beginning in late April, a Union force of 100,000 moved slowly against
, under Halleck's command with Grant relegated to a role he found unsatisfactory as second-in-command to Halleck; Sherman commanded the division on the extreme right of the Union's right wing (under George H.
Thomas). Shortly after the Union forces occupied Corinth on May 30, Sherman persuaded Grant not to leave his command, despite the serious difficulties he was having with his commander, General Halleck. Sherman offered Grant an example from his own life, "Before the battle of Shiloh, I was cast down by a mere newspaper assertion of 'crazy', but that single battle gave me new life, and I'm now in high feather." He told Grant that, if he remained in the army, "some happy accident might restore you to favor and your true place." In July, Grant's situation improved when Halleck left for the East to become general-in-chief, and Sherman became the military governor of occupied Memphis.
Vicksburg and Chattanooga
Map of the Battles for Chattanooga, 1863
The careers of both officers ascended considerably after that time. In Sherman's case, this was in part because he developed close personal ties to Grant during the two years they served together in the West. However, at one point during the long and complicated Vicksburg campaign, one newspaper complained that the "army was being ruined in mud-turtle expeditions, under the leadership of a drunkard [Grant], whose confidential adviser [Sherman] was a lunatic."
Sherman's own military record in 1862–63 was mixed.
In December 1862, forces under his command suffered a severe repulse at the
Battle of Chickasaw Bayou
, just north of
Soon after, his
XV Corps
was ordered to join Maj. Gen.
John A.
in his successful assault on
Arkansas Post
, generally regarded as a politically motivated distraction from the effort to capture Vicksburg.
Before the
Vicksburg Campaign
in the spring of 1863, Sherman expressed serious reservations about the wisdom of Grant's unorthodox strategy, but he went on to perform well in that campaign under Grant's supervision.
After the surrender of Vicksburg to the Union forces under General Grant on July 4, 1863, Sherman was given the rank of brigadier general in the
regular army
in addition to his rank as a major general of volunteers. Sherman's family came from Ohio to visit his camp near Vicksburg; their visit resulted in the death of his nine-year-old son, Willie, the Little Sergeant, from typhoid fever.
While traveling to Chattanooga, General Sherman departed Memphis on a train that arrived at the
Battle of Collierville
, Tenn., while the Union garrison there was under attack on October 11, 1863. General Sherman took command of the 550 men and successfully defended against an attack of 3,500 Confederate cavalry.
Thereafter, command in the West was unified under Grant (
Military Division of the Mississippi
), and Sherman succeeded Grant in command of the
Army of the Tennessee
During the
Battle of Chattanooga
in November, under Grant's overall command, Sherman quickly took his assigned target of Billy Goat Hill at the north end of Missionary Ridge, only to discover that it was not part of the ridge at all, but rather a detached spur separated from the main spine by a rock-strewn ravine.
When he attempted to attack the main spine at Tunnel Hill, his troops were repeatedly repulsed by
Patrick Cleburne
's heavy division, the best unit in Braxton Bragg's army. Sherman's effort was overshadowed by
George Henry Thomas
's army's successful assault on the center of the Confederate line, a movement originally intended as a diversion.
Subsequently, Sherman led a column to relieve Union forces under
Ambrose Burnside
thought to be in peril at
and, in February 1864, led an expedition to
Meridian, Mississippi
, to disrupt Confederate infrastructure.
Map of Sherman's campaigns in Georgia and the Carolinas, 1864–1865
Despite this mixed record, Sherman enjoyed Grant's confidence and friendship. When Lincoln called Grant east in the spring of 1864 to take command of all the Union armies, Grant appointed Sherman (by then known to his soldiers as "Uncle Billy") to succeed him as head of the
Military Division of the Mississippi
, which entailed command of Union troops in the
Western Theater
of the war. As Grant took overall command of the armies of the United States, Sherman wrote to him outlining his strategy to bring the war to an end concluding that "if you can whip
and I can march to the Atlantic I think ol'
Uncle Abe
will give us twenty days leave to see the young folks."
Sherman proceeded to invade the state of
with three armies: the 60,000-strong
Army of the Cumberland
George Henry Thomas
, the 25,000-strong
Army of the Tennessee
James B.
, and the 13,000-strong
Army of the Ohio
John M.
. He fought a lengthy campaign of
through mountainous terrain against Confederate General
Joseph E.
Army of Tennessee
, attempting a direct assault only at the disastrous
Battle of Kennesaw Mountain
In July, the cautious Johnston was replaced by the more aggressive
John Bell Hood
, who played to Sherman's strength by challenging him to direct battles on open ground. Meanwhile, in August, Sherman "learned that I had been commissioned a major-general in the regular army, which was unexpected, and not desired until successful in the capture of Atlanta."
Atlanta Campaign
concluded successfully on September 2, 1864, with the capture of the city, abandoned by Hood.
After ordering all civilians to leave the city, Sherman ordered that all military and government buildings be burned, although many private homes and shops were burned as well. This was to set a precedent for future behavior by his armies. Capturing Atlanta was an accomplishment that made Sherman a household name in the North and helped ensure Lincoln's
presidential re-election
in November. In the summer of that year, it had appeared likely that Lincoln would be defeated; in August, the
Democratic Party
nominated as its candidate
George B.
, the former Union army commander. Lincoln's defeat might well have meant the victory of the Confederacy, as the Democratic Party platform called for peace negotiations based on the acknowledgment of the Confederacy's independence. Thus the capture of Atlanta, coming when it did, may have been Sherman's greatest contribution to the Union cause.
Green-Meldrim house, where Sherman stayed after taking Savannah in 1864
During September and October, Sherman and Hood played cat-and-mouse in north Georgia (and Alabama) as Hood threatened Sherman's communications to the north. Eventually, Sherman won approval from his superiors for a plan to cut loose from his communications and march south, having advised Grant that he could "make Georgia howl". This created the threat that Hood would move north into Tennessee. Trivializing that threat, Sherman reportedly said that he would "give [Hood] his rations" to go in that direction as "my business is down south." However, Sherman left forces under Maj. Gens. George H. Thomas and John M.
Schofield to deal with Hood; their forces eventually smashed Hood's army in the battles of
(November 30) and
(December 15–16).
Meanwhile, after the November elections, Sherman began a march with 62,000 men to the port of
, living off the land and causing, by his own estimate, more than $100 million in property damage.
Sherman called this harsh tactic of material war "hard war", often seen as a species of
total war
. At the end of this campaign, known as
Sherman's March to the Sea
, his troops captured Savannah on December 21, 1864. Sherman then dispatched a famous message to Lincoln, offering him the city as a
Sherman's success in Georgia received ample coverage in the Northern press at a time when Grant seemed to be making little progress in his fight against Confederate General
Robert E.
Army of Northern Virginia
. A bill was introduced in Congress to promote Sherman to Grant's rank of
lieutenant general
, probably with a view towards having him replace Grant as commander of the Union Army. Sherman wrote both to his brother, Senator John Sherman, and to General Grant vehemently repudiating any such promotion. According to a war-time account, it was around this time that Sherman made his memorable declaration of loyalty to Grant:
While in Savannah, Sherman also suffered the blow of learning from a newspaper that his infant son Charles Celestine had died during the march to the sea; the general had never even seen the child.
Final campaigns in the Carolinas
For the next step, Grant initially ordered Sherman to embark his army on steamers to join the Union forces confronting Lee in Virginia. Instead, Sherman persuaded Grant to allow him to march north through
the Carolinas
, destroying everything of military value along the way, as he had done in Georgia.
He was particularly interested in targeting
South Carolina
, the first state to
from the Union, for the effect it would have on Southern morale.
His army proceeded north through South Carolina against light resistance from the troops of Confederate General
Joseph E.
Upon hearing that Sherman's men were advancing on
corduroy roads
through the
at a rate of a dozen miles per day, Johnston "made up his mind that there had been no such army in existence since the days of
Julius Caesar
Sherman captured the state capital of
Columbia, South Carolina
, on February 17, 1865.
Fires began that night and by next morning, most of the central city was destroyed. The burning of Columbia has engendered controversy ever since, with some claiming the fires were accidental, others a deliberate act of vengeance, and still others that the retreating Confederates burned bales of cotton on their way out of town. Local Native American
guides helped Sherman's army cross the
Lumber River
through torrential rains and into North Carolina. According to Sherman, the trek across the Lumber River, and through the swamps,
, and creeks of
Robeson County
"was the damnedest marching I ever saw." Thereafter, his troops did little damage to the civilian infrastructure, as North Carolina, unlike its southern neighbor, which was seen as a hotbed of secession, was regarded by his men to be only a reluctant Confederate state, because of its position as one of the last to join the Confederacy.
In late March, Sherman briefly left his forces and traveled to City Point, Virginia, to consult with Grant. Lincoln happened to be at City Point at the same time, allowing the only three-way meeting of Lincoln, Grant, and Sherman during the war.
Following Sherman's victory over Johnston's troops at the
Battle of Bentonville
, Lee's surrender to Grant at
Appomattox Court House
, and Lincoln's assassination, Sherman met with Johnston at
Bennett Place
North Carolina
, to negotiate a Confederate surrender.
At the insistence of Johnston and Confederate President
Jefferson Davis
, Sherman offered generous terms that dealt with both political and military issues. Sherman thought his terms were consistent with the views Lincoln had expressed at City Point, but the general had no authority to offer such terms from General Grant, newly installed President
Andrew Johnson
, or the
. The government in Washington, D.C., refused to honor the terms, precipitating a long-lasting feud between Sherman and the
Secretary of War
Edwin M.
. Confusion over this issue lasted until April 26, 1865, when Johnston, ignoring instructions from President Davis, agreed to purely military terms and formally surrendered his army and all the Confederate forces in the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida, becoming the largest surrender of the American Civil War. Sherman proceeded with his troops to Washington, D.C., where they marched in the
Grand Review of the Armies
on May 24, 1865 and were then disbanded. Having become the second most important general in the Union army, he thus had come full circle to the city where he started his war-time service as colonel of a non-existent infantry regiment.
Slavery and emancipation
Though he came to disapprove of
, Sherman was not an
before the war, and like many of his time and background, he did not believe in "Negro equality". His military campaigns of 1864 and 1865 freed many slaves, who greeted him "as a second
" and joined his marches through Georgia and the Carolinas by the tens of thousands.
The fate of these refugees became a pressing military and political issue. Some abolitionists accused Sherman of doing little to alleviate the precarious living conditions of the freed slaves. To address this issue, on January 12, 1865, Sherman met in Savannah with Secretary of War Stanton and with twenty local black leaders. After Sherman's departure, Garrison Frazier, a
minister, declared in response to an inquiry about the feelings of the black community:
Four days later, Sherman issued his
Special Field Orders, No.
. The orders provided for the settlement of 40,000 freed slaves and black refugees on land expropriated from white landowners in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. Sherman appointed Brig. Gen.
Rufus Saxton
, an abolitionist from
who had previously directed the recruitment of black soldiers, to implement that plan.
Those orders, which became the basis of the claim that the Union government had promised freed slaves "
40 acres and a mule
", were revoked later that year by President
Andrew Johnson
Although the context is often overlooked, and the quotation usually chopped off, one of Sherman's most famous statements about his hard-war views arose in part from the racial attitudes summarized above. In his
, Sherman noted political pressures in 1864–1865 to encourage the escape of slaves, in part to avoid the possibility that "'able-bodied slaves will be called into the military service of the rebels.'" Sherman thought concentration on such policies would have delayed the "successful end" of the war and the "liberat[ion of]
slaves." He went on to summarize vividly his hard-war philosophy and to add, in effect, that he really did not want the help of liberated slaves in subduing the South:
General Sherman's record as a
was mixed, and his military legacy rests primarily on his command of
and on his brilliance as a
. The influential 20th century British military historian and theorist
Basil Liddell Hart
ranked Sherman as one of the most important strategists in the annals of war, along with
Scipio Africanus
Napoleon Bonaparte
, and
Erwin Rommel
. Liddell Hart credited Sherman with mastery of
maneuver warfare
(also known as the "indirect approach"), as demonstrated by his series of turning movements against Johnston during the Atlanta Campaign. Liddell Hart also stated that study of Sherman's campaigns had contributed significantly to his own "theory of strategy and tactics in
mechanized warfare
", which had in turn influenced
Heinz Guderian
's doctrine of
and Rommel's use of
during the
Second World War
. Another WWII-era student of Liddell Hart's writings about Sherman was
George S.
, who "'spent a long vacation studying Sherman's campaigns on the ground in Georgia and the Carolinas, with the aid of [LH's] book'" and later "'carried out his [bold] plans, in super-Sherman style'".
Sherman's greatest contribution to the war, the strategy of
total warfare
—endorsed by General Grant and President Lincoln—has been the subject of much controversy. Sherman himself downplayed his role in conducting total war, often saying that he was simply carrying out orders as best he could in order to fulfill his part of Grant's master plan for ending the war.
Total warfare
Like Grant, Sherman was convinced that the
's strategic, economic, and psychological ability to wage further war needed to be definitively crushed if the fighting were to end. Therefore, he believed that the North had to conduct its campaign as a war of conquest and employ
scorched earth
tactics to break the backbone of the rebellion, which he called "hard war".
Sherman's advance through Georgia and South Carolina was characterized by widespread destruction of civilian supplies and infrastructure. Although
was officially forbidden, historians disagree on how well this regulation was enforced. The speed and efficiency of the destruction by Sherman's army was remarkable. The practice of bending rails around trees, leaving behind what came to be known as
Sherman's neckties
, made repairs difficult. Accusations that civilians were targeted and
war crimes
were committed on the march have made Sherman a controversial figure to this day, particularly in the
The damage done by Sherman was almost entirely limited to the destruction of
. Though exact figures are not available, the loss of civilian life appears to have been very small. Consuming supplies, wrecking infrastructure, and undermining morale were Sherman's stated goals, and several of his Southern contemporaries noted this and commented on it.
For instance,
-born Major Henry Hitchcock, who served in Sherman's staff, declared that "it is a terrible thing to consume and destroy the sustenance of thousands of people", but if the scorched earth strategy served "to paralyze their husbands and fathers who are fighting ... it is mercy in the end."
The severity of the destructive acts by Union troops was significantly greater in South Carolina than in Georgia or North Carolina. This appears to have been a consequence of the animosity among both Union soldiers and officers to the state that they regarded as the "cockpit of secession". One of the most serious accusations against Sherman was that he allowed his troops to burn the city of Columbia. Sherman himself stated that "[i]f I had made up my mind to burn Columbia I would have burnt it with no more feeling than I would a common prairie dog village; but I did not do it ..." Historian
James M.
has concluded that:
Sherman's official report on the burning placed the blame on Confederate Lt. Gen.
Wade Hampton III
, who Sherman said had ordered the burning of cotton in the streets. In his memoirs, Sherman said, "In my official report of this conflagration I distinctly charged it to General Wade Hampton, and confess I did so pointedly to shake the faith of his people in him, for he was in my opinion a braggart and professed to be the special champion of South Carolina." In this general connection, it is also noteworthy that Sherman and his subordinates (particularly John A. Logan) took steps to protect Raleigh, North Carolina, from acts of revenge after the assassination of President Lincoln.
In 1867 a chance meeting of former combatants occurred in Federal Governor Orr's office in Columbia. Gen. Howard, commander of the US 15th Corps of Sherman's army during the burning, was to be introduced to Gen. Hampton in the presence of many dignitaries. Gen. Hampton said, "Before I take your hand General Howard, tell me who burnt Columbia?" Gen. Howard replied, "It is useless to deny that our troops burnt Columbia, for I saw them in the act." (See Edwin J. Scott, Random Recollections of a Long Life. page 185; The Burning of Columbia, Charleston, SC, 1888, page 11.)
Modern assessment
After the fall of Atlanta in 1864, Sherman ordered the city's evacuation. When the city council appealed to him to rescind that order, on the grounds that it would cause great hardship to women, children, the elderly, and others who bore no responsibility for the conduct of the war, Sherman sent a response in which he sought to articulate his conviction that a lasting peace would be possible only if the Union were restored, and that he was therefore prepared to do all he could do to quash the rebellion:
Literary critic
Edmund Wilson
found in Sherman's
a fascinating and disturbing account of an "appetite for warfare" that "grows as it feeds on the South". Former
Defense Secretary
Robert McNamara
refers equivocally to the statement that "war is cruelty and you cannot refine it" in both the book
Wilson's Ghost
and in his interview for the film
The Fog of War
But when comparing Sherman's scorched-earth campaigns to the actions of the
British Army
during the
Second Boer War
(1899–1902)—another war in which civilians were targeted because of their central role in sustaining an armed resistance—South African historian Hermann Giliomee declares that it "looks as if Sherman struck a better balance than the British commanders between severity and restraint in taking actions proportional to legitimate needs". The admiration of scholars such as
Victor Davis Hanson
Basil Liddell Hart
, Lloyd Lewis, and
John F. Marszalek
for General Sherman owes much to what they see as an approach to the exigencies of modern armed conflict that was both effective and principled.
Postbellum service
Illustration from the second edition of Sherman's
, 1889
In May 1865, after the major Confederate armies had surrendered, Sherman wrote in a personal letter:
In July 1865, only three months after Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox, General W. T. Sherman was put in charge of the Military Division of the Missouri, which included every territory west of the Mississippi.Sherman's main concern as commanding general was to protect the construction and operation of the
from attack by hostile Indians. In his campaigns against the Indian tribes, Sherman repeated his Civil War strategy by seeking not only to defeat the enemy's soldiers, but also to destroy the resources that allowed the enemy to sustain its warfare. The policies he implemented included the extensive killing of large numbers of
, which were the primary source of food for the
Plains Indians
Sherman's views on Indian matters were often strongly expressed. He regarded the railroads "as the most important element now in progress to facilitate the military interests of our Frontier." Hence, in 1867, he wrote to Grant that "[w]e are not going to let a few thieving, ragged Indians check and stop the progress of [the railroads]." After the 1866
Fetterman Massacre
, Sherman wrote Grant that "[w]e must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux, even to their extermination, men, women and children."
George Armstrong Custer
's defeat at the
Battle of Little Bighorn
, Sherman wrote that "hostile savages like
Sitting Bull
and his band of outlaw Sioux ... must feel the superior power of the Government."
He further wrote that "[d]uring an assault, the soldiers can not pause to distinguish between male and female, or even discriminate as to age." Despite his harsh treatment of the warring tribes, Sherman spoke out against the unfair way speculators and government agents treated the natives within the
On July 25, 1866, Congress created the rank of
General of the Army
for Grant and then promoted Sherman to
lieutenant general
. When Grant became
in 1869, Sherman was appointed
Commanding General of the United States Army
. After the death of
John A.
, Sherman also served for one month as interim
Secretary of War
His tenure as commanding general was marred by political difficulties, and from 1874 to 1876, he moved his headquarters to
St. Louis, Missouri
in an attempt to escape from them.
One of his significant contributions as head of the Army was the establishment of the Command School (now the
Command and General Staff College
) at
Fort Leavenworth
In 1875 Sherman published his memoirs in two volumes. According to critic
Edmund Wilson
, Sherman
Shoulder strap insignia, introduced by Sherman in 1872 for his use as General of the Army
On June 19, 1879, Sherman delivered an address to the graduating class of the
Michigan Military Academy
, in which he may have uttered the famous phrase "War Is Hell". On April 11, 1880, he addressed a crowd of more than 10,000 at Columbus, Ohio: "There is many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory, but, boys, it is all hell." In 1945, President Harry S. Truman would say: "Sherman was wrong. I'm telling you I find peace is hell."
Sherman stepped down as commanding general on November 1, 1883, and retired from the army on February 8, 1884.
He lived most of the rest of his life in
New York City
He was devoted to the theater and to amateur painting and was much in demand as a colorful speaker at dinners and banquets, in which he indulged a fondness for quoting
. Sherman was proposed as a
candidate for the
presidential election of 1884
, but declined as emphatically as possible, saying, "If drafted, I will not run; if nominated, I will not accept; if elected, I will not serve." Such a categorical rejection of a candidacy is now referred to as a "
Shermanesque statement
Autobiography and memoirs
Around 1868, Sherman wrote (or at least began) a "private" recollection for his children about his life before the Civil War—identified now as his unpublished "Autobiography, 1828-1861." This manuscript is held by the
Ohio Historical Society
Much of the material in it would eventually be incorporated in revised form in his memoirs.
Sheet music for "Sherman's March to the Sea"
In 1875, ten years after the end of the Civil War, Sherman became one of the first Civil War generals to publish a memoir. His
Memoirs of General William T.
By Himself
, published by
Appleton & Co.
, in two volumes, began with the year 1846 (when the Mexican War began) and ended with a chapter about the "military lessons of the [civil] war" (1875 edition:
Volume I
Volume II
).The memoirs were controversial, and sparked complaints from many quarters. Grant (serving as President when Sherman's memoirs first appeared) later remarked that others had told him that Sherman treated Grant unfairly but "when I finished the book, I found I approved every word; that ... it was a true book, an honorable book, creditable to Sherman, just to his companions — to myself particularly so — just such a book as I expected Sherman would write."
In 1886, after the publication of Grant's memoirs, Sherman produced a "second edition, revised and corrected" of his memoirs with Appleton. The new edition added a second preface, a chapter about his life up to 1846, a chapter concerning the post-war period (ending with his 1884 retirement from the army), several appendices, portraits, improved maps, and an index (1886 edition:
Volume I
Volume II
). For the most part, Sherman refused to revise his original text on the ground that "I disclaim the character of historian, but assume to be a witness on the stand before the great tribunal of history" and "any witness who may disagree with me should publish his own version of [the] facts in the truthful narration of which he is interested." However, Sherman did add the appendices, in which he published the views of some others.
Sherman in his later years, in civilian evening clothes
Subsequently, Sherman shifted to the publishing house of Charles L. Webster & Co., the publisher of Grant's memoirs. The new publishing house brought out a "third edition, revised and corrected" in 1890. This difficult-to-find edition was substantively identical to the second (except for the probable omission of Sherman's short 1875 and 1886 prefaces).
After Sherman died in 1891, there were dueling new editions of his memoirs. His first publisher, Appleton, reissued the original (1875) edition with two new chapters about Sherman's later years added by the journalist W. Fletcher Johnson (1891 Johnson edition:
Volume I
Volume II
). Meanwhile, Charles L. Webster & Co. issued a "fourth edition, revised, corrected, and complete" with the text of Sherman's second edition, a new chapter prepared under the auspices of the Sherman family bringing the general's life from his retirement to his death and funeral, and an appreciation by politician
James G.
(who was related to Sherman's wife). Unfortunately, this edition omits Sherman's prefaces to the 1875 and 1886 editions (1891 Blaine edition:
Volume I
Volume II
In 1904 and 1913, Sherman's youngest son (Philemon Tecumseh Sherman) republished the memoirs, ironically with Appleton (not Charles L. Webster & Co.). This was designated as a "second edition, revised and corrected." This edition contains Sherman's two prefaces, his 1886 text, and the materials added in the 1891 Blaine edition. Thus, this virtually invisible edition of Sherman's memoirs is actually the most comprehensive version.
There are many modern editions of Sherman's memoirs. The edition most useful for research purposes is the 1990 Library of America version, edited by Charles Royster. It contains the entire text of Sherman's 1886 edition, together with annotations, a note on the text, and a detailed chronology of Sherman's life. Missing from this edition, however, is the useful biographical material contained in the 1891 Johnson and Blaine editions.
Published correspondence
Many of Sherman's official war-time letters (and other items) appear in the
Official Records of the War of the Rebellion
. Some of these letters are rather personal in nature, rather than relating directly to operational activities of the army. There also are at least five published collections of Sherman correspondence:
Sherman's Civil War: Selected Correspondence of William T.
Sherman, 1860-1865,
edited by Brooks D. Simpson and Jean V. Berlin (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1999) – a large collection of war-time letters (November 1860 to May 1865).
Sherman at War,
edited by Joseph H. Ewing (Dayton, OH: Morningside, 1992) – approximately thirty war time letters to Sherman's father-in-law, Thomas Ewing, and one of his brothers-in-law, Philemon B. Ewing.
Home Letters of General Sherman,
edited by M.A. DeWolfe Howe (New York: Charles Scribner's Son, 1909) – edited letters to his wife, Ellen Ewing Sherman, from 1837 to 1888.
The Sherman Letters: Correspondence Between General Sherman and Senator Sherman from 1837 to 1891,
edited by Rachel Sherman Thorndike (New York: Charles Scribner's Son, 1894) – edited letters to his brother, Senator John Sherman, from 1837 to 1891.
General W.T.
Sherman as College President,
edited by Walter L. Fleming (Cleveland: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1912) – edited letters and other documents from Sherman's 1859–1861 service as superintendent of the Louisiana Seminary of Learning and Military Academy.
Death and posterity
Sherman died in New York City on February 14, 1891. On February 19, there was a funeral service held at his home there, followed by a military procession. Sherman's body was then transported to St. Louis, where another service was conducted on February 21, 1891 at a local Catholic church. His son,
Thomas Ewing Sherman
, a Jesuit priest, presided over his father's funeral mass. General
Joseph E.
, the Confederate officer who had commanded the resistance to Sherman's troops in Georgia and the Carolinas, served as a
in New York City. It was a bitterly cold day and a friend of Johnston, fearing that the general might become ill, asked him to put on his hat. Johnston famously replied: "If I were in [Sherman's] place, and he were standing in mine, he would not put on his hat." Johnston did catch a serious cold and died one month later of pneumonia.
Sherman is buried in
Calvary Cemetery
in St. Louis.
Major memorials to Sherman include the gilded bronze
equestrian statue
Augustus Saint-Gaudens
at the main entrance to
Central Park
in New York City and
the major monument
by Carl Rohl-Smith near
President's Park
Washington, D.C.
Other posthumous tributes include the naming of the
World War II
M4 Sherman
and the
"General Sherman" Giant Sequoia tree
, the most massive documented single-trunk tree in the world.
Some of the artistic treatments of Sherman's march are the Civil War era song "
Marching Through Georgia
" by
Henry Clay Work
Herman Melville
's poem
"The March to the Sea"
Ross McElwee
's film
Sherman's March
; and
's novel
The March
. At the beginning of
Margaret Mitchell
's novel
Gone with the Wind
, first published in 1936, the fictional character
Rhett Butler
warns a group of upper-class secessionists of the folly of war with the North in terms very reminiscent of those Sherman directed to David F. Boyd before leaving Louisiana. Sherman's invasion of Georgia later plays a central role in the plot of the novel.
Charles Beaumont
in the
Twilight Zone
episode "
Long Live Walter Jameson
" has the lead character (a history professor) comment on the burning of Atlanta that the union soldiers did it unwillingly at the behest of a Sherman described as sullen and brutish. The presentation of Sherman in popular culture is now discussed at book-length in
Sherman's March in Myth and Memory
(Rowman and Littlefield, 2008), by Edward Caudill and Paul Ashdown.
See also
List of American Civil War generals
Sherman's March to the Sea
Sherman's March
(2007 documentary)
General Sherman's Official Account of His Great March to Georgia and the Carolinas, from His Departure from Chattanooga to the Surrender of General Joseph E.
Johnston and Confederate Forces under His Command
"Autobiography, 1828-1861" (circa 1868), Mss. 57, WTS Papers, Ohio Historical Society. Private recollections for Sherman's children.
Memoirs of General William T.
Sherman, Written by Himself
(1875), 2d ed. with additional chapters (1886)
Reports of Inspection Made in the Summer of 1877 by Generals P.
Sheridan and W.
Sherman of Country North of the Union Pacific Railroad
(co-author, 1878)
The Sherman Letters: Correspondence between General and Senator Sherman from 1837 to 1891
(posthumous, 1894)
Home Letters of General Sherman
(posthumous, 1909)
General W.
Sherman as College President: A Collection of Letters, Documents, and Other Material, Chiefly from Private Sources, Relating to the Life and Activities of General William Tecumseh Sherman, to the Early Years of Louisiana State University, and the Stirring Conditions Existing in the South on the Eve of the Civil War
(posthumous, 1912)
The William Tecumseh Sherman Family Letters
(posthumous, 1967). Microfilm collection prepared by the Archives of the University of Notre Dame contains letters, etc. from Sherman, his wife, and others.
Sherman at War
(posthumous, 1992)
Sherman's Civil War: Selected Correspondence of William T.
Sherman, 1860 – 1865
(posthumous, 1999)
One historian has written that Sherman's "genius" for "strategy and logistics ... made him one of the foremost architects of Union victory." Steven E. Woodworth,
Nothing but Victory: The Army of the Tennessee, 1861-1865
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), 631. For a very critical study of Sherman, see John B. Walters,
Merchant of Terror: General Sherman and Total War
(Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1973).
Liddell Hart, p. 430.
See, William T. Sherman papers, Notre Dame University CSHR 19/67 Folder:Roger Sherman's Watch 1932–1942
One nineteenth century source, for example, states that "General Sherman, we believe, is the only eminent American named from an Indian chief."
Howe's Historical Collections of Ohio
(Columbus, 1890), I:595.
, p. 11.
Lewis, p. 34.
, p. 11; Lewis, p. 23; Schenker, "'My Father . . . Named Me William Tecumseh': Rebutting the Charge That General Sherman Lied About His Name",
Ohio History
(2008), vol. 115, p. 55; Sherman biographer John Marszalek considers the cited article to "present a convincing case regarding Sherman's name". Marszalek, "Preface" to 2007 edition of
Sherman: A Soldier's Passion for Order
, pp. xiv-xv n.1.
See, e.g., the many Civil War letters reproduced in Brooks D. Simpson and Jean V. Berlin,
Sherman's Civil War: Selected Correspondence of William T. Sherman
(Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1999).
See, for instance, Walsh, p. 32.
For discussion of Sherman's religious views, see Hirshson, pp. 387–388. At the time of Sherman's death, his son Thomas, a Jesuit, reportedly said: "My father was baptized in the Catholic Church, married in the Catholic Church, and attended the Catholic Church until the outbreak of the civil war. Since that time he has not been a communicant of any church ..." Thomas C. Fletcher,
Life and Reminiscences of General Wm. T. Sherman by Distinguished Men of His Time
(Baltimore: R.H. Woodward Co., 1891), 139.
, p. 14
Quoted in Hirshson, p. 13
See, for instance, Hirshson, p. 21
Sherman at the Virtual Museum of San Francisco
excerpts from Sherman's
Katherine Burton,
Three Generations: Maria Boyle Ewing - Ellen Ewing Sherman - Minnie Sherman Fitch
(Longmans, Green & Co., 1947), pp. 72–78.
Edward Sorin
The Chronicles of Notre Dame Du Lac
ed. James T. Connelly, CSC (Notre Dame: Notre Dame Press, 1992), 289.
Burton, pp. 217–21, 226–27, 291.
See, for instance, Hirshson, pp. 362–368, 387
, pp. 125–129.
, pp. 131–134, 166.
Quoted in Royster, pp. 133–134
Memoirs, chronology, p. 1093.
, pp. 150–61.
, pp. 160–62.
History of LSU
Quoted in Hirshson, p. 68.
Letter by W.T. Sherman to Gov. Thomas O. Moore, January 18, 1861. Quoted in Sherman,
, p. 156
Department of Military Science: Unit History
, pp. 184–86; see Marszalek, pp. 140–41.
, pp. 186–89.
Samuel M. Bowman and Richard B. Irwin,
Sherman and His Campaigns
(New York, 1865), 25.
, pp. 189–90; Hirshson, pp. 83–86.
WTS to Thomas Ewing Jr., June 3, 1861, in Sherman and Berlin 97–98.
WTS 1861 Diary, University of Notre Dame Archives, microfilm roll 12, 0333, 0355.
, p. 200.
See, e.g., Hirshson, pp. 90–94, 109.
, p. 216; see also p. 210: In Washington, after Bull Run, Sherman explained to Lincoln "my extreme desire to serve in a subordinate capacity, and in no event to be left in a superior command. He promised me this with promptness, making the jocular remark that his chief trouble was to find places for the too many generals who wanted to be at the head of affairs, to command armies, etc."
For more detailed discussion of this overall period, see Marszalek,
, pp. 154–67; Hirshson,
White Tecumseh
, pp. 95–105; Kennett,
, pp. 127–49.
Sherman to George B. McClellan, November 4, 1861, in Stephen W. Sears, ed.,
The Civil War Papers of George B. McClellan: Selected Correspondence, 1861-1865
(New York, 1989), p. 127, note 1; Marszalek,
, pp. 161–64.
Quoted in Lewis, p. 203.
Sherman to John Sherman, January 4, 8, 1862, in Simpson and Berlin,
Sherman's Civil War
, 174, 176.
Cincinnati Commercial
, December 11, 1861; Marszalek,
, pp. 162, 164.
At one point, Halleck suggested to General-in-Chief McClellan that Sherman be given command of an expedition on the Cumberland River (on which Fort Donelson was located), but Secretary of War
Edwin M. Stanton
objected, telling Lincoln that any "expedition ... will prove disastrous under the charge of General Sherman." Kennett, pp. 155–56, quoting EMS to AL, February 14, 1862.
WTS to USG, February 15, 1862, Papers of Ulysses S. Grant 4:216n; see Smith, pp. 151–52.
Eicher, p. 485
Daniel, p. 138
Quoted in Walsh, pp. 77–78
, p. 212.
, pp. 188–201.
Daniel, pp. 309–10.
Whitelaw Reid,
Ohio in the War: Her Statesmen, Her Generals, and Soldiers
(New York, 1868), 1:387.
See Marszalek,
, pp. 202-08. Sherman's operations were supposed to be coordinated with an advance on Vicksburg by Grant from another direction. Unbeknownst to Sherman, Grant abandoned his advance. "As a result, [Sherman's] river expedition ran into more than they bargained for." Smith,
, pp. 224.
Smith, p. 227. It should be noted, however, that Sherman had targeted Arkansas Post independently and considered the operation there worthwhile. See Marszalek, pp. 208–10; Sherman,
, pp. 318–25.
To wit: an invading army may separate from its supply train and subsist by foraging. Smith, pp. 235–36
, pp. 370–75.
McPherson, pp. 677–80.
, pp. 406–34; Buck T. Foster,
Sherman's Meridian Campaign
(University of Alabama Press, 2006).
, p. 589
McPherson, p. 653
, p. 576. The nomination was not submitted to the Senate until December. Eicher, p. 702.
For extended discussion of Lincoln's reelection prospects and the effect of Sherman's capture of Atlanta, see James M. McPherson,
Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief
(New York: Penguin, 2008), 231–50.
Telegram W.T. Sherman to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, October 9, 1864, reproduced in
Sherman's Civil War
, p. 731.
Faunt Le Roy Senour,
Major General William T. Sherman, and His Campaigns
(Chicago, 1865), 293; see also Hirshson,
White Tecumseh
, pp. 246–47, 431 n.23.
W.T. Sherman to Gen. U.S. Grant, November 1, 1864, reproduced in
Sherman's Civil War
, pp. 746–47.
Report by Maj. Gen. W.T. Sherman, January 1, 1865, quoted in Grimsley, p. 200
History Channel.
, p. 693.
This message was put on a vessel on December 22, passed on by telegram from Fort Monroe, Virginia, and apparently received by Lincoln on Christmas Day itself. Sherman,
, p. 711;
Official Records
, Series I, vol. 44, 783;
New York Times
, December 26, 1864.
See, for instance, Liddell Hart, p. 354
Brockett, p. 175 (p. 162 in 1865 edition).
, p. 311.
John F. Marszalek, "'Take the Seat of Honor': William T. Sherman," in Steven E. Woodworth, ed.,
Grant's Lieutenants: From Chattanooga to Appomattox
(Larwence: Univ. of Kansas Press, 2008), pp. 5, 17–18; Marszalek,
, pp. 320–21.
Jacob D. Cox,
Military Reminiscences of the Civil War
(1900), vol. 2, 531–2
Jacob D. Cox,
The March to the Sea
(1882), p. 168
; Johnston is also quoted in McPherson, p. 828.
Marszalek, pp. 322–25.
Lewis, p. 513.
, pp. 806–17; Donald C. Pfanz,
The Petersburg Campaign: Abraham Lincoln at City Point
(Lynchburg, VA, 1989), 1–2, 24–29, 94–95. This meeting was memorialized in G.P.A. Healy's famous painting
"The Peacemakers".
See, for instance,
Johnston's Surrender at Bennett Place on Hillsboro Road
See, for instance, letter by W.T. Sherman to
Salmon P. Chase
, January 11, 1865, reproduced in
Sherman's Civil War
, pp. 794–795, and letter by W.T. Sherman to John Sherman, August 1865, quoted in Liddell Hart, p. 406
Letter to Chase, cited above
See, for instance, Sherman,
, vol. II, p. 247.
Special Field Orders, No. 15
, January 16, 1865. See also McPherson, pp. 737–739
, pp. 728–29, quoting a December 30, 1864 letter from Henry W. Halleck.
, p. 729.
Liddell Hart, foreword to the Indiana University Press's edition of Sherman's
(1957). Quoted in Wilson, p. 179
Hirshson, p. 393, quoting B.H. Liddell Hart, "Notes on Two Discussions with Patton, 1944", February 20, 1948, GSP Papers, box 6, USMA Library.
See, for instance, Grimsley, pp. 190–204; McPherson, pp. 712–714, 727–729.
See, for instance, Grimsley, p. 199
Hitchcock, p. 125
See, for instance, Grimsley, pp. 200–202.
December 11, 1872 deposition, Mixed Commission, XIV, 91, quoted in Marion B. Lucas,
Sherman and the Burning of Columbia
(Univ. of S. Car. Press, 2000), p. 154. However, on April 5, 1865, Sherman wrote to his father-in-law that "I think you will be satisfied with the manner in which I dispose of Charleston, as also of the burning of Columbia." Simpson and Berlin,
Sherman's Civil War
, p. 842.
, p. 767.
, pp. 838–39; Woodworth,
Nothing but Victory
, p. 636.
Wilson, p. 184
McNamara and Blight, p. 130
Giliomee, p. 253
See Isenberg, pp. 128, 156
Sherman to Rawlins, October 23, 1865, quoted in Ahearn,
Sherman and the Settlement of the West
, 24; Sherman to Grant, May 28, 1867, quoted in Fellman,
Citizen Sherman
, 264 & 453 n.5 (see also Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Vol. 17, p. 262).
Sherman to Grant, December 28, 1866, reproduced in
Wild Life on the Plains and Horrors of Indian Warfare
(1891), 120.
Seemingly Sherman to Tappan, July 21, 1876, quoted in Marszalek,
Sherman: A Soldier's Passion
, 398.
Seemingly Sherman to Herbert A. Preston, April 17, 1873, quoted in Marszalek,
Sherman: A Soldier's Passion
, 379.
See, for instance, Lewis, pp. 597–600.
Fred R. Shapiro and Joseph Epstein, eds.,
The Yale Book of Quotations
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006), 708.
From transcript published in the
Ohio State Journal
, August 12, 1880, reproduced in Lewis, p. 637.
Richard S. Kirkendall, ed.,
Harry's Farewell: Interpreting and Teaching the Truman Presidency
(Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1880), 63.
See, for instance, Woodward
Marszalek in
Encyclopedia of the American Civil War
, p. 1769.
Marszalek, p. 461.
Marszalek, p. 463. In 1875, Henry V. Boynton published a critical
book-length review
of Sherman's memoirs "based upon compilations from the records of the war office." This led to the publication of
a defense of Sherman
by C.W. Moulton.
Extract from John Russell Young,
Around the World with General Grant
, vol. II, 290–91, quoted in Sherman,
(Library of America ed., 1990), p. 1054.
1886 Preface. In one amusing change to his text, Sherman dropped the assertion that
John Sutter
, of gold rush fame, had become "very 'tight'" at a Fourth of July celebration in 1848 and stated instead that Sutter "was enthusiastic." Sherman,
(Library of America ed., 1990), Note on the Text, p. 1123; H.W. Brands,
The Age of Gold
(Doubleday, 2002), p. 271.
(Library of America ed., 1990), Note on the Text, p. 1123.
See, for instance, Lewis, p. 652; Marszalek, pp. 495–98.
The U.S. M4 tank was first given the service name General Sherman by the British
Bowman, Samuel M. and Richard B.
Sherman and His Campaigns
(New York, 1865).
Brockett, L.P.,
Our Great Captains: Grant, Sherman, Thomas, Sheridan, and Farragut
Richardson, 1866.
Daniel, Larry J.,
Shiloh: The Battle That Changed the Civil War
, Simon & Schuster, 1997, ISBN 0-684-80375-5.
Eicher, John H., and Eicher, David J.,
Civil War High Commands
, Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3.
Giliomee, Hermann,
The Afrikaners: Biography of a People
, University Press of Virginia, 2003, ISBN 0-8139-2237-2.
Grimsley, Mark,
The Hard Hand of War: Union Military Policy toward Southern Civilians, 1861–1865
, Cambridge University Press, 1997, ISBN 0-521-59941-5.
Hanson, Victor D
The Soul of Battle
, Anchor Books, 1999, ISBN 0-385-72059-9.
Hirshson, Stanley P.,
The White Tecumseh: A Biography of General William T.
, John Wiley & Sons, 1997, ISBN 0-471-28329-0.
Hitchcock, Henry,
Marching with Sherman: Passages from the Letters and Campaign Diaries of Henry Hitchcock, Major and Assistant Adjutant General of Volunteers, November 1864 – May 1865
, ed. M.A. DeWolfe Howe, Yale University Press, 1927. Reprinted in 1995 by the University of Nebraska Press, ISBN 0-8032-7276-6.
Isenberg, Andrew C.,
The Destruction of the Bison
, Cambridge University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-521-00348-2.
Fletcher Johnson,
Life of Wm.
Tecumseh Sherman, Late General, U.S.A.
Useful 19th century biography.
Kennett, Lee,
Sherman: A Soldier's Life
, HarperCollins, 2001, ISBN 0-06-017495-1.
Lewis, Lloyd,
Sherman: Fighting Prophet
, Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1932. Reprinted in 1993 by the University of Nebraska Press, ISBN 0-8032-7945-0.
Liddell Hart, Basil Henry
Sherman: Soldier, Realist, American
, Dodd, Mead & Co., 1929. Reprinted in 1993 by Da Capo Press, ISBN 0-306-80507-3.
Marszalek, John F.
Sherman: A Soldier's Passion for Order
, Free Press, 1992, ISBN 0-02-920135-7; "reissued with new preface", Southern Illinois University Press, 2007.
Marszalek, John F., "William Tecumseh Sherman",
Encyclopedia of the American Civil War: A Political, Social, and Military History
, Heidler, David S., and Heidler, Jeanne T., eds., W. W. Norton & Company, 2000, ISBN 0-393-04758-X.
McNamara, Robert S.
and Blight, James G.,
Wilson's Ghost: Reducing the Risk of Conflict, Killing, and Catastrophe in the 21st Century
, Public Affairs, 2001, ISBN 1-891620-89-4.
McPherson, James M.
Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era
, illustrated ed., Oxford University Press, 2003, ISBN 0-19-515901-2.
Royster, Charles,
The Destructive War: William Tecumseh Sherman, Stonewall Jackson, and the Americans
, Alfred A. Knopf, 1991, ISBN 0-679-73878-9.
Schenker, Carl R., Jr., "'My Father . . . Named Me William
: Rebutting the Charge That General Sherman Lied About His Name",
Ohio History
(2008), vol. 115, p. 55.
Sherman's Civil War: Selected Correspondence of William T.
, eds. Brooks D. Simpson and J.V. Berlin, University of North Carolina Press, 1999, ISBN 0-8078-2440-2.
Sherman, William T.,
Memoirs of General W.T.
, 2nd ed., D. Appleton & Co., 1913 (1889). Reprinted by the
Library of America
"William Tecumseh Sherman",
A Dictionary of Louisiana Biography
, Vol. II (1988), p. 741.
Smith, Jean Edward
, Simon and Schuster, 2001, ISBN 0-684-84927-5.
Walsh, George,
Whip the Rebellion
, Forge Books, 2005, ISBN 0-7653-0526-7.
Warner, Ezra J.,
Generals in Blue: Lives of the Union Commanders
, LSU Press, 1964, ISBN 0-8071-0822-7.
Wilson, Edmund
Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War
, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1962. Reprinted by W. W. Norton & Co., 1994, ISBN 0-393-31256-9.
Woodward, C.
, "Civil Warriors",
New York Review of Books
, vol. 37, no. 17, November 8, 1990.
Woodworth, Steven E.,
Nothing but Victory: The Army of the Tennessee, 1861-1865
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005).
External links
Military Orders of General William T.
Sherman, 1861-'65
Substantial collection of Sherman's war-time orders
Sherman Genealogy Including Families of Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk, England
By Thomas Townsend Sherman
Thanks of Congress to Major-General W.
Sherman and command for Chattanooga
Lincoln's Order of Thanks to Major-General W.
Sherman and command for capture of Atlanta
Thanks of Congress to Major-General William T.
Sherman and command for Georgia Campaign
Army Center of Military History
General William Tecumseh Sherman
, from
About North Georgia
, concentrates on Sherman's time in Georgia
William T.
Sherman Family papers from the University of Notre Dame
William Tecumseh Sherman
, from the
Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco
, concentrates on Sherman's time in California
California military history
Sherman's time in California, more info
Sherman House Museum
, at Sherman's birthplace in Lancaster, Ohio
St. Louis Walk of Fame
Memoirs of General W.
Digitized collection of letters between William Sherman and his brother Senator John Sherman
Sherman Thackara Collection at the Digital Library @ Villanova University
William T.
Sherman's First Campaign of Destruction
Article by Buck T. Foster
New York Times obituary
New York Times report on NY funeral proceedings
New York Times report on St. Louis funeral proceedings
Eulogy by brother, Senator John Sherman
Retrieved on 2007-12-13
William Tecumseh Sherman Collection
at Missouri History Museum Archives
Official depostions concerning the burning of Columbia, South Carolina
Sherman testimony begins at p. 71.
Sister projects
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(^Meetings aijd ^emiqats Seminar for Professors Held in Chicago The National Accounting and Auditing Staff, under the direction of Robert E. Trueblood, conducted a three day seminar on current accounting problems for twenty-five professors from universities throughout the country. Case studies were discussed by national staff members Clayton Ostlund, Hans Shield, Raymond Perry, Morton Poloway and Ernest Pavlock. Talks were also given by Donald Bevis (APB member) and Mr. Trueblood. In addition to this current seminar, which is part of a continuing program, Touche, Ross has conducted other seminars for professors including two on the problems of auditing computer installation and one covering management services engagements. A third Audit-EDP seminar was also held for the Professional Development Committee of the American Accounting Association. Salmonson, Michigan State University. More than 600 bank executives attended a two-day conference on marketing sponsored by the American Bankers Association this month. Serving on a panel which discussed the use of international data for marketing intelligence were Robert G. Stevens, director of banking services at Touche, Ross; panel moderator, Pierce M. Davis, vice president, Irving Trust Co.; John Thornton, marketing research, Pittsburgh National Bank, Pittsburgh; and Sanford Simon, senior consultant in our New York office. Carl R. Nelson, Columbia University; Donald Bevis, New York Office; Roland Salmonson, Michigan State University. Rufus Wixon, Uni- John H. Myers, Robert T. Sprouse, Hector R. Anton, versity of Penn- Northwestern Stanford Uni- University of Cali-sylvania. University. versity. fornia (Berkeley). 52

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