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William Tecumseh Sherman

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Military People

                             William Tecumseh Sherman
   February 8, 1820 – February 14, 1891
   Portrait of William Tecumseh Sherman
   by Mathew Brady
       Nickname     Cump, Uncle Billy
    Place of birth  Lancaster, Ohio
    Place of death  New York City, New York
      Allegiance    United States of America
   Years of service 1840–84
         Rank       Major General (Civil War),
                    General of the Army of the United States (postbellum)
       Commands     Army of the Tennessee (1863),
                    Military Division of the Mississippi (1864),
                    Commanding General of the United States Army (postbellum)
     Battles/wars   Shiloh, Vicksburg Campaign, Chattanooga, Atlanta Campaign,
                    March to the Sea, Carolinas Campaign
        Awards      Thanks of Congress (1864 and 1865)
      Other work    Bank president, lawyer, university superintendent, streetcar
                    executive
                    30th U.S. Secretary of War
                    September 9, 1869 – October 24, 1869

   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."

   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 theatre 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.

Early life

   Sherman was born Tecumseh Sherman 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 neighbour 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, a Roman Catholic of Irish descent, 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 Episcopal, and he never became a devout
   Catholic.

   He also never completely accepted the name "William" and friends and
   family always called him "Cump." 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.
   Enlarge
   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. 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." 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.

   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 Old South society.

   While many of his colleagues saw action in the Mexican-American 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. 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, like her mother, a devout Catholic and
   their eight children were raised in that faith. To Sherman's great
   displeasure and sorrow, one of his sons, Thomas Ewing Sherman, was
   ordained a Jesuit priest in 1879. Thomas would preside over his
   father's funeral mass in 1891.

   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 eventually suffered from stress-related asthma due to 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
   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.

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. He proved an effective and popular
   leader of that institution, which would later become Louisiana State
   University (LSU). 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."

   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.

   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."
   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.

Civil War service

   Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman. Portrait by Mathew Brady, ca. 1864.
   Enlarge
   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 volunteer troops. President Lincoln, however,
   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). 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." 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."

   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. 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."

   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. 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.

Vicksburg and Chattanooga

   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 favour and your
   true place." The careers of both officers ascended considerably after
   that time. Sherman later famously declared that "Grant stood by me when
   I was crazy and I stood by him when he was drunk and now we stand by
   each other always."

   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. 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.
   Map of the Battle of Chattanooga, 1863
   Enlarge
   Map of the Battle of Chattanooga, 1863

   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. Sherman's effort was overshadowed by George
   Henry Thomas's army's successful assault on the centre of the
   Confederate line, a movement originally intended as a diversion.

   Despite this mixed record, Sherman enjoyed Grant's confidence and
   friendship.

Georgia

   Map of Sherman's campaigns in Georgia and the Carolinas, 1864-1865
   Enlarge
   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 Theatre of the war.

   As Grant took command of the Army of the Potomac Sherman told him
   before he proposed his idea to Lincoln "If you can whip Lee 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 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. 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.
   Green-Meldrim house where Sherman stayed, upon taking Savannah in 1864.
   Enlarge
   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", 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. 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.

The Carolinas

   General Sherman and his staff
   Enlarge
   General Sherman and his staff

   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."
   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.
   Enlarge
   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 still others that the 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 either General Grant or the
   United States government. Washington refused to honour the terms, which
   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.

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." His military campaigns of 1864
   and 1865 freed many slaves, who greeted him "as a second Moses or
   Aaron" 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.

   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. 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.

Strategies

   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.

   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

   1868 engraving by Alexander Hay Ritchie depicting the March to the Sea
   Enlarge
   1868 engraving by Alexander Hay Ritchie depicting the March to the Sea

   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. 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.
   Map of Sherman's advance from Atlanta to Goldsboro
   Enlarge
   Map of Sherman's advance from Atlanta to Goldsboro

   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. 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."

   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. 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.

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.

   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." 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 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.

   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." 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 Memoirs, 1889
   Enlarge
   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.

   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.
   Shoulder strap insignia, introduced by Sherman in 1872 for his use as
   General of the Army
   Enlarge
   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. Despite his harsh treatment of the warring tribes,
   Sherman spoke out against speculators and government agents who treated
   the natives unfairly within the reservations.

   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.

   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.

   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 theatre 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.
   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."

Death and posterity

   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. His son, Thomas Ewing Sherman, a Roman Catholic Jesuit priest,
   presided over his father's funeral mass. 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.

   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.

Writings

     * 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)

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