Herald and news. [volume] (West Randolph, Vt.) 1878-1943, 1890-05-29
SHERMAN THE SOLDIER.
IT MAY BE CRITICISM, 1T NAY BE
PRAISE; BUT 1T is GRAPHIC.

The First Thorough Analysis of Cump"
sherman's Career which Appeared After
the war-It May stin he Read with Deep
Perhaps the briefest expressions of Gen.
Sherman's professional character may be
found in the reversal of well known
apothegm by Kinglake: he is too war
like to be military. Yet, like most ap-
plications of such sayings, this is only
partially just. He is indeed warlike by
nature, and his ardor often carries him
beyond mere military rules-sometimes
10 evil, as at Kenesaw; sometimes to
great glory, as in the march to the sea;
yet in many things devoted to the sever
est military methods. In moving, sup
plying and maneuvering great armies,
undertakings in which rigid adherence
to method is vital, he is without rival
or an equal. In the whole branch of the
logistics of war he is the foremost gen
eral of the country and worthy to be
named beside the foremost of the CEN
fury.
As strategist he has displayed in
ferior but still brilliant powers. He
cannot here be declared without rival
He is indeed to be named after one or
two generals who have achieved much
smaller measure of success. But the
single campaign in which he was en-
| a6l I-o. 1s-,.loxr -
strategy against worthy antagonist
will long be studied as happy exempli-
| fication of the art of war. In the cam
! paigns through Georgia and the Caro-
linas he was unworthily opposed and his
superiority of force was for the most part
overwhelming; but he still carried the
same skill into the management of his
columns, and drew an impenetrable veil
of mystery over his movements. His topo-
graphical knowledge was wonderful, and
it is to be observed that he never seemed
burdened with the manifold details which
he accumulated, but, rising above them,
| took i'm their import with coup d oeil
as comprehensive as it was minute.
In his plans there was often happy
mingling of audacity with system; of de-
fiance of military methods in the concep-
ton with a sbillful use of them in the
execution. II was unmilitary, as he him
self said 10 turn his back ON Hood and
set out for Savannah; but there was no
unmilitary looseness in the order of
march or in the handling of the cavalry.
1t was audacious TO project this army
into the heart of Georgia, along thread
of railroad that for hundreds of miles
was vulnerable at almost every point;
but there was no unmilitary audacity in
the care which established secondary de-
pots along the road, or in the system
which pervaded the whole railroad man
agement and made it marvel forever.
Into all these details, too, he personally
entered He turned from a study of Jo-
seph Johnston's latest move to specify
the kinds of return freight the railroad
might carry; from the problem Of what
to do with Atlanta after he got it to the
status of news agents, and the issue Of a
decree that the newspapers might be
transported, but not the newsboys.
Through such minute matters his won
derful energy carried him; and, when he
turned to the larger problems before
him, not one trace of the faHgue from
the labor or confusion of the details
blurred the clearness of vision which he
brought TO the determination of Hoods
purposes, or to the estimate of the diff
culties between him and Savannah.
There was unconscious egotism in his
beginning a long letter 10 Grant about
his plans with the phrase: 81 still have
some thoughts in my busy brain that
should be confided to YOU But it ex-
pressed the embodied energy and force
of the man. His brain was a busy one
always seeking something new, always
revolving a thousand chances that might
never occur, always rowing over the
whole field that he filed and into many
an obscure border besides. Physically
he was the most uniformly restless man
in the army.
Out of this sprang many of those hasty
opinions-dashed off ON the spur of the
moment and expressed with his usual
Iooseness of language and habit of ex-
aggerating for the sake of emphasis
to which, in their literal meanings. it
would be SO hard TO hold him. No man
at the close of the war was probably
more opposed at heart to the policy of
confscation; but, in the heat OF an argu-
ment with the people of Huntsville in
the first days of 1864, he declared him
self in favor of coniiscation if the war
should last another year. No man prob
ably knew better than he how hollow was
the shell of the Confederacy, and how
near its collapse; but in the heat Of an
argument with the secretary Of war
against negro recruiting he declared,
late in the autumn OF 1864, that the war
was but fairly begun. No man was more
committed to the theory Of overwhelm-
ingly large armies. and for himself he
demanded at least 100, 600 men on starting
for Atlanta; but. in arguing with Hal
le,rk AGAINST a concentration with Grant