page_title: William Tecumseh Sherman
section_title: Autobiography and memoirs
hierarchical_section_title: William Tecumseh Sherman / Historiography / Autobiography and memoirs
caption_attribution_description: English: A black and white profile photograph mostly of William Tecumseh Sherman's head. The photograph is from his later years and he is in civilian evening dress. Français&#160;: Une photographie de profil en noir et blanc de William Tecumseh Sherman.
context_page_description: William Tecumseh Sherman was an American soldier, businessman, educator, and author. He served as a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War, receiving recognition for his command of military strategy as well as criticism for the harshness of the scorched earth policies he implemented in conducting total war against the Confederate States. British military theorist and historian B. H. Liddell Hart declared that Sherman was "the first modern general."
  Born in Ohio to a politically prominent family, Sherman graduated in 1840 from the United States Military Academy at West Point. He interrupted his military career in 1853 to pursue private business ventures, and at the outbreak of the Civil War he was superintendent of the Louisiana State Seminary of Learning & Military Academy. Sherman distinguished himself at the First Battle of Bull Run in 1861, before being transferred to the Western Theater. Stationed in Kentucky, his pessimism about the outlook of the war led to a nervous breakdown that required him to be briefly put on leave. He recovered by forging a close partnership with General Ulysses S. Grant.
context_section_description: Around 1868, Sherman began to write a "private" recollection for his children about his life before the Civil War, identified now as his unpublished "Autobiography, 1828–1861".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.
  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. Sherman.  By Himself, published by D. 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". 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. 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.
  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. 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. Blaine (who was related to Sherman's wife). Unfortunately, this edition omits Sherman's prefaces to the 1875 and 1886 editions.
  In 1904 and 1913, Sherman's youngest son (Philemon Tecumseh Sherman) republished the memoirs, 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 is the useful biographical material contained in the 1891 Johnson and Blaine editions.
caption: Sherman in his later years, in civilian evening clothes
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