William Tecumseh Sherman
William Tecumseh Sherman (
February 8,
1820 –
February 14,
1891) was an
American soldier, businessman, educator, and author. He served as a
general in the
United States Army during the
American Civil War (1861–65), receiving both recognition for his outstanding command of
military strategy, and criticism for the harshness of the "
scorched earth" policies he implemented in conducting
total war against the enemy.
Military historian Basil Liddell Hart famously declared that Sherman was "the first modern general."
[Liddell Hart, p. 430]Sherman served under General
Ulysses S. Grant in 1862 and 1863 during the campaigns that led to the fall of the
Confederate stronghold of
Vicksburg on the
Mississippi River and culminated with the routing of the Confederate armies in the state of
Tennessee. In 1864, Sherman succeeded Grant as the
Union commander in the
western theater of the war. He proceeded to lead his troops to the capture of the city of
Atlanta, a military success that contributed decisively to the
re-election of
President Abraham Lincoln. Sherman's subsequent march through
Georgia and the
Carolinas further undermined the Confederacy's ability to continue fighting. He accepted the surrender of all the Confederate armies in the Carolinas, Georgia, and
Florida in April 1865.
After the Civil War, Sherman became
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
Memoirs, one of the best-known firsthand accounts of the Civil War.
Sherman was born in
Lancaster,
Ohio, near the shores of the Hockhocking River (now the
Hocking). He was named
Tecumseh after the famous
Shawnee leader. His father,
Charles Robert Sherman, was a successful lawyer who sat on the
Ohio Supreme Court. Judge Sherman died unexpectedly in 1829, leaving his widow, Mary Hoyt Sherman, with eleven children and no inheritance. Following this tragedy the nine-year-old Tecumseh was taken in and raised by a Lancaster neighbor and family friend, attorney
Thomas Ewing, a prominent member of the
Whig Party who served as
Senator for Ohio and as the first
Secretary of the Interior.
Ewing's wife, Maria, insisted that Sherman be baptized
Roman Catholic. On that occasion a
Dominican priest bestowed upon him the name of William (chosen because the baptism occurred on
June 25, the feast day of
Saint William of Vercelli). Sherman's own family was
Episcopalian, and he never became a devout Catholic.
[See, for instance, Hirshson pp. 387-388] He also never completely accepted the name "William" and friends and family always called him "Cump."
[See, for instance, Walsh, p. 32] One of his younger brothers,
John Sherman, would become a
U.S. Senator and the sponsor of the
Sherman Antitrust Act.
Military training and service
|
Portrait of a young William T. Sherman in military uniform. |
Senator Ewing secured the appointment of the 16-year-old Sherman as a cadet in the
United States Military Academy at
West Point.
[Sherman, Memoirs, p. 14] There Sherman excelled academically but 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."
[Quoted in Hirshson, p. 13] About his time at West Point, Sherman says only the following in his
Memoirs:
At the Academy I was not considered a good soldier, for at no time was I selected for any office, but remained a private throughout the whole four years. Then, as now, neatness in dress and form, with a strict conformity to the rules, were the qualifications required for office, and I suppose I was found not to excel in any of these. In studies I always held a respectable reputation with the professors, and generally ranked among the best, especially in drawing, chemistry, mathematics, and natural philosophy. My average demerits, per annum, were about one hundred and fifty, which reduced my final class standing from number four to six.[Sherman, Memoirs, p. 16]
Upon graduation in 1840, Sherman entered the Army as a
second lieutenant in the 3rd U.S. Artillery and saw action in
Florida in the
Second Seminole War against the
Seminole tribe. He was later stationed in
Georgia and
South Carolina. As the foster son of a prominent Whig politician, in
Charleston the popular Lt. Sherman moved within the upper circles of the
Old South society.
[See, for instance, Hirshson, p. 21]While many of his colleagues saw action in the
Mexican War, Sherman performed administrative duties in the captured territory of
California. He and fellow officer Lt.
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
gold had been discovered in the region, thus inaugurating the
California Gold Rush.
[See, for instance, page on Sherman at the Virtual Museum of San Francisco and excerpts from Sherman's Memoirs] Sherman earned a
brevet promotion to
captain 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
In 1850 Sherman married Thomas Ewing's daughter Eleanor Boyle ("Ellen") Ewing. Ellen was a devout Catholic and the Shermans' eight children were raised in that faith. To Sherman's great displeasure and sorrow, one of his sons,
Thomas Ewing Sherman, was ordained as a
Jesuit priest in 1879. Thomas would preside over his father's funeral mass in 1891.
[See, for instance, Hirshson, pp. 362-368, 387]In 1853, Sherman resigned his military commission and became president of a bank in
San Francisco. 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 scraps of a foundering lumber schooner.
[Sherman, Memoirs, pp. 125-129] Sherman eventually found himself suffering from stress-related
asthma due to the city's brutal financial climate.
[Sherman, Memoirs, pp. 131-134, 166] 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."
[Quoted in Royster, pp. 133-134] In 1856 he served as a
major general of the California
militia.
Sherman's bank failed during the financial
panic of 1857 and he turned to the practice of law in
Leavenworth, Kansas, at which he was also unsuccessful.
[Sherman, Memoirs, p. 158-160]University superintendent
In 1859 Sherman accepted a job as the first superintendent of the
Louisiana State Seminary of Learning and Military Academy in
Pineville, a position offered to him by two of his Army friends from the
South:
P.G.T. Beauregard and
Braxton Bragg.
[See About Louisiana State University] He proved an effective and popular leader of that institution, which would later become
Louisiana State University. Col. Joseph P. Taylor, 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."
[ Quoted in Hirshson, p. 68]On hearing of
South Carolina's
secession from the United States, Sherman observed to a close friend, Prof. David F. Boyd of
Virginia:
You people of the South don't know what you are doing. This country will be drenched in blood, and God only knows how it will end. It is all folly, madness, a crime against civilization! You people speak so lightly of war; you don't know what you're talking about. War is a terrible thing!
You mistake, too, the people of the North. They are a peaceable people but an earnest people, and they will fight, too. They are not going to let this country be destroyed without a mighty effort to save it ...
Besides, where are your men and appliances of war to contend against them? The North can make a steam engine, locomotive, or railway car; hardly a yard of cloth or pair of shoes can you make. You are rushing into war with one of the most powerful, ingeniously mechanical, and determined people on Earth—right at your doors.
You are bound to fail. Only in your spirit and determination are you prepared for war. In all else you are totally unprepared, with a bad cause to start with. At first you will make headway, but as your limited resources begin to fail, shut out from the markets of Europe as you will be, your cause will begin to wane. If your people will but stop and think, they must see in the end that you will surely fail.
[Exchange between W.T Sherman and Prof. David F. Boyd, Dec. 24, 1860. Quoted in Lewis, p. 138]In January 1861 just before the outbreak of the
American Civil War, Sherman was required to accept receipt of arms surrendered to the State Militia by the U.S. Arsenal at
Baton Rouge. 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."
[Letter by W.T. Sherman to Gov. Thomas O. Moore, Jan. 18, 1861. Quoted in Sherman, Memoirs, p. 156] He became president of the St. Louis Railroad, a
streetcar company, a position he held for only a few months before being called to
Washington, D.C. |
Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman. Portrait by Mathew Brady, ca. 1864. |
Army commission
Sherman accepted a commission as a
colonel in the 13th U.S. Infantry regiment on
May 14,
1861. He was one of the few Union officers to distinguish himself at the
First Battle of Bull Run on
July 21, 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 troops, but President
Abraham Lincoln promoted him to
brigadier general of volunteers (effective
May 17, which gave him more senior rank than that of
Ulysses S. Grant, his future commander).
[See, for instance, Hirshson, pp. 90-94] He was assigned to command the Department of the Cumberland in
Louisville, Kentucky.
Breakdown and Shiloh
During his time in Louisville, Sherman became increasingly pessimistic about the outlook of the war and repeatedly made estimates of the strength of the rebel forces that proved exaggerated, causing the local press to describe him as "crazy." In the fall of 1861, Sherman experienced what would probably be described today as a
nervous breakdown. He was put on leave and returned to Ohio to recuperate, being replaced in his command by
Don Carlos Buell. 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."
[Quoted in Lewis, p. 204] However, Sherman quickly recovered and returned to service under Maj. Gen.
Henry W. Halleck, commander of the Department of the Missouri. Halleck's department had just won a major victory at
Fort Henry, but he harbored doubts about the commander in the field, Brig. Gen.
Ulysses S. Grant, and his plans to capture
Fort Donelson. Unbeknownst to Grant, Halleck offered several officers, including Sherman, command of Grant's army. Sherman refused, saying he preferred serving
under Grant, even though he outranked him. Sherman wrote to Grant from
Paducah, "Command me in any way. I feel anxious about you as I know the great facilities [the Confederates] have of concentration by means of the river and railroad, but [I] have faith in you."
[Smith, pp, 151-52]After Grant was promoted to major general in command of the District of West Tennessee, Sherman served briefly as his replacement in command of the District of Cairo. He 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
Division.
[Eicher, p. 485] His first major test under Grant was at the
Battle of Shiloh. The massive Confederate attack on the morning of
April 6 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
Corinth. He took no precautions beyond strengthening his picket lines, refusing to entrench, build
abatis, 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."
[Daniel, p. 138]Despite being caught unprepared by the attack, Sherman rallied his division and conducted an orderly, fighting retreat that helped prevent 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."
[Quoted in Walsh, pp. 77-78] Sherman would prove instrumental to the successful Union counterattack of
April 7. 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.
[Eicher, p. 485]Vicksburg and Chattanooga
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Map of the Battle of Chattanooga, 1863 |
Sherman developed close personal ties to Grant during the two years they served together. Shortly after Shiloh, Sherman persuaded Grant not to resign from the Army, 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."
[Smith, p. 212] The careers of both officers ascended considerably after that time.
Sherman's military record in 1862–63 was mixed. In December 1862 forces under his command suffered a severe repulse at the
Battle of Chickasaw Bluffs, just north of
Vicksburg. Soon after, his
XV Corps was ordered to join Maj. Gen.
John A. McClernand in his successful assault on
Arkansas Post, generally regarded as a politically motivated distraction from the effort to capture Vicksburg.
[Smith, p. 227] Before the
Vicksburg Campaign in the spring of 1863, Sherman expressed serious reservations about the wisdom of Grant's unorthodox strategy
[Smith, pp. 235-36], but he went on to perform well in that campaign under Grant's supervision.
During the
Battle of Chattanooga in November, Sherman, now in command of the
Army of the Tennessee, 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.
[McPherson, p. 678] 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.
Despite this mixed record, Sherman enjoyed Grant's confidence and friendship. In later years Sherman said simply, "Grant stood by me when I was crazy, and I stood by him when he was drunk. Now we stand by each other always."
[Brockett, p. 175]Georgia
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Map of Sherman's campaigns in Georgia and the Carolinas, 1864-1865 |
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. Sherman proceeded to invade the state of
Georgia with three armies: the 60,000-strong
Army of the Cumberland under
George Henry Thomas, the 25,000-strong
Army of the Tennessee under
James B. McPherson, and the 13,000-strong
Army of the Ohio under
John M. Schofield.
[McPherson, p. 653] He fought a lengthy campaign of maneuver through mountainous terrain against Confederate General
Joseph E. Johnston's
Army of Tennessee, attempting a direct assault against Johnston only at the disastrous
Battle of Kennesaw Mountain. 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.
Sherman's
Atlanta Campaign concluded successfully on
September 2,
1864, with the capture of the city of
Atlanta, an accomplishment that made Sherman a household name in the North and helped ensure Lincoln's
presidential re-election in November. Lincoln's electoral defeat by
Democratic Party candidate
George B. McClellan, the former Union army commander, had appeared likely in the summer of that year. Such an outcome would probably have meant the victory of the Confederacy, as the Democratic Party platform called for peace negotiations based on the acknowledgement 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.
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Green-Meldrim house where Sherman stayed, upon taking Savannah in 1864. |
After Atlanta, Sherman coolly dismissed the impact of Gen. Hood's attacks against his supply lines and sent George Thomas to defeat him in the
Franklin-Nashville Campaign. Meanwhile, declaring that he could "make Georgia howl"
[Telegram by W.T. Sherman to Gen. U.S. Grant, Oct. 9, 1864, reproduced in Sherman's Civil War, pp. 731-732], Sherman marched with 62,000 men to the port of
Savannah, living off the land and causing, by his own estimate, more than $100 million in property damage.
[Report by Maj. Gen. W.T. Sherman, Jan. 1, 1865, quoted in Grimsley, p. 200] At the end of this campaign, known as
Sherman's March to the Sea, his troops captured Savannah on
December 22. Sherman then telegraphed Lincoln, offering him the city as a
Christmas present.
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. Lee's
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.
[See, for instance, See Liddell Hart, p. 354]The Carolinas
In the spring of 1865, Grant ordered Sherman to embark his army on steamers to join him against 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
secede 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. Johnston. Upon hearing that Sherman's men were advancing on
corduroy roads through the
Salkehatchie swamps at a rate of a dozen miles per day, Johnston declared that "there had been no such army in existence since the days of
Julius Caesar."
[Quoted in McPherson, p. 727] |
Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman, USA, in May 1865. The black ribbon around his left arm is a sign of mourning over President Lincoln's death. Portrait by Mathew Brady. |
Sherman captured the state capital of
Columbia 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 others that the fires started when retreating Confederates burned bales of cotton on their way out of town. Sherman proceeded to march through
North Carolina, where his troops did little damage to the civilian infrastructure.
Shortly after his victory over Johnston's troops at the
Battle of Bentonville, Sherman met with Johnston at
Bennett Place in
Durham, North Carolina, to negotiate a Confederate surrender. At the insistence of Johnston and Confederate President
Jefferson Davis, Sherman offered terms that dealt with both political and military issues, despite having no authorization to do so from General Grant or the United States government. The government in Washington, D.C., refused to honor the terms agreed to by Sherman and Johnston, a circumstance that precipitated a long-lasting feud between Sherman and
Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. Confusion over this issue lasted until April 26, 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.
[See, for instance, Johnston's Surrender at Bennett Place on Hillsboro Road]Slavery and emancipation
Though he came to disapprove of chattel
slavery, Sherman was not an
abolitionist before the war, and like many of his time and background, he did not believe in "Negro equality."
[See, for instance, letter by W.T. Sherman to Salmon P. Chase, Jan. 11, 1865, reproduced in Sherman's Civil War, pp. 794-795, and letter by W.T. Sherman to John Sherman, Aug. 1865, quoted in Liddell Hart, p. 406] His military campaigns of 1864 and 1865 freed many slaves, who greeted him "as a second
Moses or
Aaron"
[Letter to Chase, cited above] and joined his marches through Georgia and the Carolinas by the tens of thousands. The precarious living conditions and uncertain future of the freed slaves quickly became a pressing 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
Baptist minister, declared in response to an inquiry about the feelings of the black community that
We looked upon General Sherman, prior to his arrival, as a man, in the providence of God, specially set apart to accomplish this work, and we unanimously felt inexpressible gratitude to him, looking upon him as a man that should be honored for the faithful performance of his duty. Some of us called upon him immediately upon his arrival, and it is probable he did not meet [Secretary Stanton] with more courtesy than he met us. His conduct and deportment toward us characterized him as a friend and a gentleman.["Sherman meets the colored ministers in Savannah"]
Four days later, Sherman issued his
Special Field Orders, No. 15. 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
Massachusetts who had previously directed the recruitment of black soldiers, to implement that plan.
[Special Field Orders, No. 15, Jan. 16, 1865. See also McPherson, pp. 737-739] 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.
General Sherman's record as a
tactician was mixed, and his military legacy rests primarily on his command of
logistics and on his brilliance as a
strategist. 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,
Belisarius,
Napoleon Bonaparte,
T.E. Lawrence, 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
Blitzkrieg and Rommel's use of
tanks during
World War II.
[Liddell Hart, foreword to the Indiana University Press's edition of Sherman's Memoirs (1957). Quoted in Wilson, p. 179]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
Confederacy's strategic, economic, and psychological ability to wage further war had 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.
Sherman's advance through Georgia and South Carolina was characterized by widespread destruction of civilian supplies and infrastructure, and sometimes accompanied by looting; although officially forbidden, historians disagree on how well this regulation was enforced.
[See, for instance, Grimsley, pp. 190-204, McPherson, pp. 712-714, 727-729] 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
South.
The damage done by Sherman was almost entirely limited to the destruction of
property. Though exact figures are not available, the loss of civilian life appears to have been very small.
[See, for instance, Grimsley, p. 199] 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,
Alabama-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."
[Hitchcock, p. 125]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."
[ See, for instance, Grimsley, pp. 200-202] One of the most serious accusations against Sherman was that he allowed his troops to burn the city of Columbia. Historian
James M. McPherson, however, claims that:
The fullest and most dispassionate study of this controversy blames all parties in varying proportions—including the Confederate authorities for the disorder that characterized the evacuation of Columbia, leaving thousands of cotton bales on the streets (some of them burning) and huge quantities of liquor undestroyed ... Sherman did not deliberately burn Columbia; a majority of Union soldiers, including the general himself, worked through the night to put out the fires.[McPherson, pp. 728-729]
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 legitimately do to quash the rebellion:
You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices to-day than any of you to secure peace. But you cannot have peace and a division of our country. If the United States submits to a division now, it will not stop, but will go on until we reap the
fate of Mexico, which is eternal war.
[...] I want peace, and believe it can only be reached through union and war, and I will ever conduct war with a view to perfect and early success.
But, my dear sirs, when peace does come, you may call on me for anything. Then will I share with you the last cracker, and watch with you to shield your homes and families against danger from every quarter.
[Letter by Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman, USA, to the Mayor and City Council of Atlanta, Sept. 12, 1864]Literary critic
Edmund Wilson found in Sherman's
Memoirs a fascinating and disturbing account of an "appetite for warfare" that "grows as it feeds on the South."
[Wilson, p. 184] Former
U.S. 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[McNamara and Blight, p. 130] and in his interview for the film
The Fog of War. Some modern sympathizers of the Confederate cause have denounced Sherman's attitude as proto-
totalitarian and as a harbinger of the inhumanity of the large-scale wars of the 20th century.
[See, for instance, "Targeting Civilians," by Thomas DiLorenzo]On the other hand, 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."
[Giliomee, p. 253] 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.
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Illustration from the second edition of Sherman's Memoirs, 1889 |
In May 1865, after the major Confederate armies had surrendered, Sherman wrote in a personal letter:
I confess, without shame, that I am sick and tired of fighting—its glory is all moonshine; even success the most brilliant is over dead and mangled bodies, with the anguish and lamentations of distant families, appealing to me for sons, husbands, and fathers ... it is only those who have never heard a shot, never heard the shriek and groans of the wounded and lacerated ... that cry aloud for more blood, more vengeance, more desolation.[Quoted in Liddell Hart, p. 402]
On
July 25,
1866, Congress created the rank of
general of the army for Grant and promoted Sherman to
lieutenant general. When Grant became
president in 1869, Sherman was appointed
commanding general of the U.S. Army. After the death of
John A. Rawlins, 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 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.
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Shoulder strap insignia, introduced by Sherman in 1872 for his use as General of the Army |
Sherman's main concern as commanding general was to protect the construction and operation of the
railroads 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 decimation of the
buffalo, which were the primary source of food for the
Plains Indians.
[See Isenberg, pp. 128, 156] Despite his harsh treatment of the warring tribes, Sherman spoke out against speculators and government agents who treated the natives unfairly within the
reservations.
[See, for instance, Lewis, pp. 597-600]In 1875 Sherman published his memoirs in two volumes. According to critic
Edmund Wilson, Sherman
had a trained gift of self-expression and was, as Mark Twain says, a master of narrative. [In his Memoirs] the vigorous account of his pre-war activities and his conduct of his military operations is varied in just the right proportion and to just the right degree of vivacity with anecdotes and personal experiences. We live through his campaigns [...] in the company of Sherman himself. He tells us what he thought and what he felt, and he never strikes any attitudes or pretends to feel anything he does not feel.[Wilson, p. 175]
In June 19, 1879, Sherman delivered his famous "War Is Hell" speech to the graduating class of the
Michigan Military Academy and to the gathered crowd of more than 10,000:
There is many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory, but, boys, it is all hell.
[From transcript published in the Ohio State Journal, Aug. 12, 1880, reproduced in Lewis, p. 637]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
Shakespeare.
[See, for instance, Woodward] Sherman was proposed as a
Republican candidate for the
presidential election of 1884, but declined as emphatically as possible, saying, "If nominated I will not run; if elected I will not serve." Such a categorical rejection of a candidacy is now referred to as a "
Sherman Statement."
Sherman died in New York City. On
February 19,
1891, a small funeral was held there at his home. His body was then transported to St. Louis, where another service was conducted on
February 21 at a local Catholic church. General
Joseph E. Johnston, the Confederate officer who had commanded the resistance to Sherman's troops in Georgia and the Carolinas, served as a
pallbearer. 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.
[See, for instance, Lewis, p. 652]Sherman is buried in
Calvary Cemetery in St. Louis. Major memorials to Sherman include the gilded bronze equestrian statue by
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 in
Washington, D.C. Other posthumous tributes include the naming of the
World War II M4 Sherman tank 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, the film
Sherman's March by
Ross McElwee, and
E.L. Doctorow's novel
The March.
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 (1865)
Memoirs of General William T. Sherman, Written by Himself (1875)
Reports of Inspection Made in the Summer of 1877 by Generals P. H. Sheridan and W. T. 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. T. 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)
Sherman at War (posthumous, 1992)
Sherman's Civil War: Selected Correspondence of William T. Sherman, 1860 – 1865 (posthumous, 1999)
*Brockett, L.P.,
Our Great Captains: Grant, Sherman, Thomas, Sheridan, and Farragut, C.B. Richardson, 1866.
*Daniel, Larry J.,
Shiloh: The Battle That Changed the Civil War, Simon & Schuster, 1997, ISBN 0-684-80375-5.
*Eicher, John H., & 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 0-5215-9941-5.
*
Hanson, Victor D.,
The Soul of Battle, Anchor Books, 1999, ISBN 0-3857-2059-9.
*Hirshson, Stanley P.,
The White Tecumseh: A Biography of General William T. Sherman, John Wiley & Sons, 1997, ISBN 0-4712-8329-0.
*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 0-5210-0348-2.
*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 0-3068-0507-3.
*
Marszalek, John,
Sherman: A Soldier's Passion for Order, Free Press, 1992, ISBN 0-0292-0135-7.
*
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 1-8916-2089-4.
*
McPherson, James M.,
Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era, illustrated ed., Oxford University Press, 2003, ISBN 0-1951-5091-2.
*Royster, Charles,
The Destructive War: William Tecumseh Sherman, Stonewall Jackson, and the Americans, Alfred A. Knopf, 1991, ISBN 0-6797-3878-9.
Sherman's Civil War: Selected Correspondence of William T. Sherman,1860-1865, eds. B.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. Sherman, 2nd ed., D. Appleton & Co., 1913 (1889). Reprinted by the
Library of America, 1990, ISBN 0-9404-5065-8.
*
Smith, Jean Edward,
Grant, Simon and Shuster, 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, Louisiana State University Press, 1964, ISBN 0-8071-0882-7.
*
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 0-3933-1256-9.
*
Woodward, C. Vann, "Civil Warriors,"
New York Review of Books, vol. 37, no. 17, Nov. 8, 1990.
*
U.S. Army Center of Military History*
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
*
General William Tecumseh Sherman, from
About North Georgia, concentrates on Sherman's time in Georgia
*
Sherman House Museum, at Sherman's birthplace in Lancaster, Ohio
*
St. Louis Walk of Fame*
Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman*
Free ebook of William Tecumseh Sherman at
Project Gutenberg
