American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1876-03-11
Sherman, the American Nanoleon

! lltu w dtultN
ment" of General Sherman, (whon
he styles the best and brarest of the
! Union leaders, "his great march to
the sea-" uses the following lugu-
brious language:
| alt is hard to realize that in ten short
years il requires the pen of any writer to
defend such n man from the charge of
incapacity as a General and want of cour-
age as man.
1t may be s'hard" for Gen. Kill
patrick to "realize" this, but if he
lives another ten short years, he
will realize a great. deal more. The
people of the North are beginning
gradually to recover from the "de-
lirium tremensv of their long intox-
ication. When it fully wears off,
he will discover that a good many
other Union idols besides Sherman
will be dashed from their pedestals
and broken to pieces by the hands
of Northern iconoclasts. Let him
make note Of this.
General Sherman, doubly prompt
ed by vanity and cupidity, has pub
Iished a book full of self-laudatiou,
and in that book furnishes the facts
and figures which must inevitably
destroy whatever military reputa-
ton he may be supposed to have
won.
| In his Mentors, vol. 9. p. Is, care
fully tabulating tho number of
forces belonging to the different
armies under his command, he says:
"By the returns of April 10, 1864.
it will be seen that there were on
the muster rolls of the
-Army Of the Cumberland,
Men present and absent.................i71, 450
| Men present for duty..................S &C, SS3
| Army Of the Tennessee,
Men present and absent.....- .134 1853
Men present for duty ............... 64.9o7
AYmy Of the Ohio,
Men present and observation-disclosures. &c, 052
Men present for duty. &c, 2i2
Grand total. 3'552 ,265
Total on duty. -........- lot, Oo2
1t thus appears by General Sher-
mans own showing, that he entered
upon his Southern campaign with
an army aggregating OH the muster
rolls, 3d., 2G5 men, of all arms, and
actually numbering 1S0,0S2 men
''present for daty.7 The Confederate
forces under General Joseph E.
John>t Il could not have exceeded
so, 900 men, all told. General Sher-
mans fighting force, then, amount
ed to just three times that of his
adversary. But besides and behind
this, he had, by his own exhibit, an
auxiliary force of 172, 1873 men, run-
ming about loose, supplying garri
sons, guarding railroads and pro-
tecting quartermaster and commiss
sary stores, subject, nevertheless, to
be ordered to the front, whatsoever
their services were required there.
The above are startling figures,
but they are General Sherman's own
figures, and he could hardly be sus
spected OF exaggerating against
himself. They present a fearful
disparity in favor of the Federals,
and the verdict of every dispassion
ate mind must be, that whatever
credit may be due for "wouder
full achievement" that credit should
be bestowed on General Johnston
for the mastery strategy and skill
he displayed. with such overwhelm
ing odds against him, i'll holding
his enemy i'll check so long, and
Furnishing him, on numerous occa
sions, SO severely.
1t is bombast, then, for General
Sherman and his friends to be
Boosting of ''that wonderful achieve
ment," the march to the sea. With
his immense numerical preponder
ance, he deserves to be censured
for not accomplishing it i'll far less
time than he did, and with a much
smaller loss of men. The fact is, it
took him all summer and half of the
fall to push Johnson's comparative
ly little army, starved and ragged
as it was, back through the noun
tains of Georgia, from Dalton to
Atlanta, himself losing heavily all
the time-so heavily, that after the
hot affair at Kennesaw, General
Thomas dispatched or wrote to him,
ga few moro such fights will use
ND this army" When Johnston's
army was, upon change of com
subsequently withdrawn
from Shcrman's front, everybody |
knows there was nothing to prevent |
his uninterrupted ''march to tue |
sea- The way was wids open.
Leave out the Boosting, then, Of
this modern Napoleon, and does his |
Southern campaign compare with |
any of the campaigns Of the real
Take, for example, the
first Italian expedition. In this
Napoleon crossed the Alps with an
army of $4,000 men, and i'll one
month defeated the armies OF Aus
ria, greatly exceeding his own in
numbers, annihilated those of Sar-
LIMA, and brought the whole of
Italy PROSTATE and suppliant to his
eet. Sherman. Outnumbering his
antagonist at least three to one,
ought him for six months and new
II whipped him once. How many
Shermans would it take to make a
Napoleon HAMPDEN.
GEN. LESLIE COOMDS, the vet