William T. Sherman

**William Tecumseh Sherman** (February 8, 1820 – February 14, 1891) was Commanding General of the United States Army from March 4, 1869 to November 1, 1883, succeeding Ulysses S. Grant and preceding Philip Sheridan. Sherman was a renowned Union general during the American Civil War and an avid supporter of total war, best exemplified in the scorched earth policies employed in his "March to the Sea" in December 1864.

## Biography

William Tecumseh Sherman was born in Lancaster, Ohio in 1820 to a prominent political family; he was the younger brother of federal judge Charles Taylor Sherman and the older brother of US Senator John Sherman. When he was nine years old, his father died and his family became poverty-stricken, so he was adopted by leading Ohio politician Thomas Ewing. Sherman grew up asthmatic and depressive, but Ewing found him a place at West Point, and, after graduation, Sherman took part in the war against the Seminoles in Florida. He missed the Mexican-American War, however, and resigned from the army in 1853 without having seen much combat. After failing as a banker, he had become superintendent of the Louisiana State Seminary of Learning & Military Academy (now Louisiana State University) when the American Civil War ensued. Sherman came to respect Southern culture and their practice of slavery, but he was oppoesd to secession.

Sherman's political connections allowed him to command a brigade at the First Battle of Bull Run in July 1861, but the Union debacle confirmed the negative view he had formed of the war. Sent to Kentucky as a Brigadier-General, he asked to be relieved of his post when the resignation of his superior officer Robert Anderson made him senior commander. Newspaper reports appeared questioning his sanity.

### A change of stance

The turning point in Sherman's life came when he was serving under Ulysses S. Grant at the Battle of Shiloh in April 1862. Nearly routed by an unexpected Confederate attack, Sherman performed with courage and competence in the heat of battle, helping Grant save the day. In the aftermath, he encouraged Grant to weather criticism, so creating a lasting bond between the two men. As Sherman put it, "Grant stood by me when I was crazy, and I stood by him when he was drunk." After a costly failure attacking the Chickasaw Bluffs in December 1862, Sherman supported Grant ably enough during the Siege of Vicksburg and afterward at the Chattanooga Campaign. When Grant left for Washington DC in March 1864, Sherman was given command of the western theater. Skillfully forcing the Confederates back through maneuver rather than assault, he reached Atlanta in September.

Sherman had long believed that waging economic and psychological war on the Southern population would best win the conflict. This motivated his March to the Sea through Georgia to the port of Savannah, laying waste to the land as he went. The Confederates only halted him temporarily en route at such battles as Bentonville. He continued the policy into South Carolina the next year.

After the Civil War, Sherman took over grom Grant as commander of the army and led a pitiless campaign to break Native American resistance. Sherman advocated total war to force the Indians back onto their reservations, fighting them for 15 years. He was skeptical of the government's Reconstruction policies in the postbellum South, but, from September to October 1869, he briefly served as President Grant's acting Secretary of War. He retired from the army in 1884 and died in New York City in 1891.