This message was put on a vessel on December 22, passed on by telegram from Fort Monroe, Virginia, and apparently received by Lincoln on Christmas Day itself. [221], In this general connection, it is also noteworthy that Sherman and his subordinates (particularly John A. Logan) took steps to protect Raleigh, North Carolina, from acts of revenge after the assassination of President Lincoln.[222][223]. [37][38], At John Augustus Sutter Jr.s request, Sherman assisted Capt. 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. In 1864, she took up temporary residence in South Bend, Indiana in order to have her young family educated at the University of Notre Dame and St. Mary's College, both Catholic institutions. At about the time of Elizabeth's birth (1723), the Shermans left Newton and settled in the south precinct of Dorchester, which three years later became the township of Stoughton, MA. Sherman served in that capacity from 1869 until 1883 and was responsible for the U.S. Army's engagement in the Indian Wars. For other uses, see. Sherman, one of eleven children, was born into a . [226] Tasked with guarding a vast territory with limited forces, Sherman grew weary of the multitude of requests for military protection addressed to him. General Sherman was born February 8, 1820, and named William Tecumseh after the great Shawnee leader but acquired the nickname "Cump" from his siblings. [150], Sherman captured Columbia, the state capital, on February 17, 1865. Saved. [45][46] He resigned his commission in 1853 and entered civilian life as manager of the San Francisco branch of the Bank of Lucas, Turner & Co., whose corporate headquarters were in St. Louis. "[272] He is buried in Calvary Cemetery in St. [65][66], Sherman then moved to St. Louis to become president of a streetcar company called the "Fifth Street Railroad". When Grant became President of the United States in March 1869, Sherman succeeded him as Commanding General of the Army. Father and son, however, were reconciled when Thomas returned to the United States in August 1880, after having travelled to England for his religious instruction. "[60] In what some authors have seen as an accurate prophecy of the conflict that would engulf the United States during the next four years,[61][62] Boyd recalled Sherman declaring: You people of the South don't know what you are doing. This strategy has been characterized by some military historians as an early form of total war, although the appropriateness of that term has been questioned by many scholars. 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. [127] In July, 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. [161] The U.S. Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton, leaked Sherman's memorandum to The New York Times, intimating that Sherman might have been bribed to allow Davis to escape capture by the Union troops. I did not want them to cast in our teeth what General Hood had once done at Atlanta, that we had to call on their slaves to help us to subdue them. Nicholas Street Austin Butler TV and Movie Actor 6th cousin 6 times removed via Richard Raymond Brewster H. Shaw NASA Astronaut 6th cousin 5 times removed According to critic Edmund Wilson, Sherman: [H]ad a trained gift of self-expression and was, as Mark Twain says, a master of narrative. Two of his foster brothers served as major generals in the Union Army during the Civil War: Hugh Boyle Ewing, later an ambassador and author, and Thomas Ewing Jr., who was a defense attorney in the military trials of the Lincoln conspirators. 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. [188][191], Sherman's military legacy rests primarily on his command of logistics and on his brilliance as a strategist. Some pro-Confederate sources have repeated a claim that Oliver Otis Howard, the commander of Sherman's 15th Corps, said in 1867 that "It is useless to deny that our troops burnt Columbia, for I saw them in the act. Username and password are case sensitive. [177] Some abolitionists accused Sherman of doing too little to alleviate the precarious living conditions of these refugees, motivating Secretary of War Stanton to travel to Georgia in January 1865 to investigate the situation. (#17258) FamousKin.com. General Notes: William Tecumseh Sherman was one of the most famous military leaders of the At Shiloh, he may have wished to avoid appearing overly alarmed in order to escape the kind of criticism he had received in Kentucky. [238][239] Sherman encouraged bison hunting by private citizens and, when Congress passed a law in 1874 to protect the bison from over-hunting, Sherman helped convince President Grant to use a pocket veto to prevent it from coming into force. On November 25, Sherman took his assigned target of Billy Goat Hill at the north end of the ridge, only to find that it was separated from the main spine by a rock-strewn ravine. When Sherman reached the age of sixteen, Ewing secured Sherman an . As long as resistance is made[,] death must be meted out, but the moment all resistance ceases, the firing will stop and all survivors turned over to the proper Indian agent". You are rushing into war with one of the most powerful, ingeniously mechanical, and determined people on Earthright at your doors. However, Sherman had proceeded without authority from Grant, the newly installed President Andrew Johnson, or the Cabinet. At the insistence of Johnston, Confederate president Jefferson Davis, and Confederate Secretary of War John C. Breckinridge, Sherman conditionally agreed to generous terms that dealt with both military and political issues. [141] Upon reaching Savannah, Sherman appointed Private A. O. Granger as his personal secretary. [197][198][f] Another World War II-era student of Liddell Hart's writings on Sherman was General George S. Patton,[199] who "spent a long vacation studying Sherman's campaigns on the ground in Georgia and the Carolinas, with the aid of [Liddell Hart's] book" and later "carried out his [bold] plans, in super-Sherman style". [74] It was one of the four brigades in the division commanded by General Daniel Tyler, which was in turn one of the five divisions in the Army of Northeastern Virginia under General Irvin McDowell (see First Bull Run Union order of battle). Sherman commanded the division on the extreme right of the Union's right wing (under George Henry Thomas). [210] Consuming supplies, wrecking infrastructure, and undermining morale were Sherman's stated goals, and several of his Southern contemporaries noted this and commented on it. [138], After November elections, Sherman began marching on November 15 with 62,000 men in the direction of the port city of Savannah, Georgia,[139] living off the land and causing, by his own estimate, more than $100million in property damage. Sherman was one of the few Union officers to distinguish himself in the field and historian Donald L. Miller has characterized Sherman's performance at Bull Run as "exemplary". [242], Sherman's early tenure as Commanding General was marred by political difficulties, many of which stemmed from disagreements with Secretary of War Rawlins and his successor, William W. Belknap, both of whom Sherman felt had assumed too much power over the army and reduced the position of Commanding General to a sinecure. [67] While trying to hold himself aloof from politics, he observed first-hand the efforts of Congressman Frank Blair, who later served under Sherman in the U.S. Army, to keep Missouri in the Union. I know him well. This country will be drenched in blood, and God only knows how it will end. Eventually, Sherman won approval from his superiors for a plan to cut loose from his communications and march south, having advised Grant that he could "make Georgia howl". Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for William Tecumseh Sherman by James L. McDonough at the best online prices at eBay! [188][189][190] In that essay, Sherman called upon the South to "let the negro vote, and count his vote honestly", adding that "otherwise, so sure as there is a God in Heaven, you will have another war, more cruel than the last, when the torch and dagger will take the place of the muskets of well-ordered battalions". [112], After the surrender of Vicksburg and the re-capture of Jackson, Sherman was given the rank of brigadier general in the regular army, in addition to his rank as a major general of volunteers. [256], Sherman lived most of the rest of his life in New York City. If one of them becomes President, it will be all in the family.". [79] Sherman was then assigned to serve under Robert Anderson in the Department of the Cumberland, in Louisville, Kentucky. [229], When the Medicine Lodge Treaty failed in 1868, Sherman authorized his subordinate in Missouri, Major General Philip Sheridan, to lead the winter campaign of 18681869, of which the Battle of Washita River was part. Looting was officially forbidden, but historians disagree on how rigorously this regulation was enforced. The publication of Sherman's memoirs sparked controversy and drew complaints from many quarters. Today we are pleased to welcome guest author Derek D. Maxfield with a review of Robert L. O'Connell's Fierce Patriot: The Tangled Lives of William Tecumseh Sherman (New York: Random House, 2014). Parents. ", Sherman to Grant, February 15, 1862, Papers of Ulysses S. Grant 4:216n, Sherman to Grant, December 28, 1866, Papers of Ulysses S. Grant 16:422. [21] His friends and family called him "Cump".[22]. He played a role in triggering the California Gold Rush. William Tecumseh Sherman, although not a career military commander before the war, would become one of "the most widely renowned of the Union's military leaders next to U. S. Grant.". [228] In one instance, he was summoned to testify as a witness in Andrew Johnson's impeachment trial. Sherman was distantly related to American founding father Roger Sherman and grew to admire him. [91], With a heavy rain coming down [at the end of the first day of fighting at Shiloh, Sherman] came upon Grant standing under a large oak tree, his cigar glowing in the darkness. The only general engagement during Sherman's marches through Georgia and the Carolinas, the Battle of Bentonville, took place on March 1921, 1865. Born on February 08, 1820 in Lancaster, Ohio, USA , United States. [274] He later married his foster sister Ellen, who was also a devout Catholic. 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 "made up his mind that there had been no such army in existence since the days of Julius Caesar". [176] Their fate soon became a pressing military and political issue. Frederick Douglass, Ulysses S. Grant, and now William T. Sherman, the Union's second most famous general and, arguably, its first modern one. . You people speak so lightly of war; you don't know what you're talking about. William Tecumseh Sherman was born 8 February 1820 in Lancaster, Ohio, into a family of eleven. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. [281] Except during the personal crisis triggered by his son Thomas's decision to become a priest, Sherman's personal attitude towards the Catholic Church was tolerant and even friendly at a time when anti-Catholic prejudice was common in the United States. [12] He left his widow, Mary Hoyt Sherman, with eleven children and no inheritance. Unbeknownst to Sherman, Grant abandoned his advance, and Sherman's river expedition met more resistance than expected. When he attempted to attack the main spine at Tunnel Hill, his troops were repeatedly repelled by Patrick Cleburne's heavy division, the best unit in Bragg's army. [76] During the fighting, Sherman was grazed by bullets in the knee and shoulder. Sherman's subsequent famous "March to the Sea" through Georgia and the Carolinas involved little fighting but large-scale destruction of military and civilian infrastructure, a systematic policy intended to undermine the ability and willingness of the Confederacy to continue fighting. When Sherman's older brother James was born, the general related, his father "insisted on engrafting the Indian name 'Tecumseh' on the usual family list." Sherman's mother, who had named her first son after a brother of hers, prevailed, however, in her desire to name her second son after a second brother of hers. [118], After Chattanooga, Sherman led a column to relieve Union forces under Ambrose Burnside thought to be in peril at Knoxville. When Sherman was nine years old his father, a successful lawyer on the Ohio Supreme court, unexpectedly died in 1829. He married Emily Cynthia Babbitt in 1854. "[220] Historian James M. McPherson has concluded that: The fullest and most dispassionate study of this controversy blames all parties in varying proportionsincluding 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. Rachel Ewing Thorndike daughter Robert Otho Sherman son Eleanor Mary Thackara daughter Mary A. Pickering daughter William Tecumseh Sherman, Jr. son Charles Celestine Sherman son Philemon Tecumseh Sherman son Hon. William Tecumseh Sherman, was born February 8, 1820, in Lancaster, Ohio. Sherman conducted the ensuing Jackson Expedition, which concluded successfully on July 25 with the re-capture of the city of Jackson. Sherman also earned money from surveying and by the sale of lots in Sacramento and Benicia. William Sherman was born at Lancaster, Ohio, on February 8 th 1820. "Lick 'em tomorrow, though. [130][d], Sherman's Atlanta campaign concluded successfully on September 2, 1864, with the capture of the city, which Hood had been forced to abandon. Sherman had dismissed the intelligence reports from militia officers, refusing to believe that Confederate general Albert Sidney Johnston would leave his base at Corinth. [77] Holden-Reid also concluded that Sherman "might have been as unseasoned as the men he commanded, but he had not fallen prey to the nave illusions nursed by so many on the field of First Bull Run. McPherson. One, Charles, was conceived during the. : Dear Tommy", "General William Tecumseh Sherman 1888, cast 1910", "The sculpture "Victory" fully restored, on display at the Memorial Amphitheater", "General William Tecumseh Sherman Statue", "Firefighters are girding Earth's biggest tree. William Tecumseh Sherman Biss married Amelia Rose Slavick and had 4 children. [136][137] Sherman left forces under Maj. Gens. [271] Former U.S. president and Civil War veteran Rutherford B. Hayes, who attended both ceremonies, said at the time that Sherman had been "the most interesting and original character in the world. When the bank failed during the Panic of 1857, he closed the New York branch. [119][120] Sherman's army captured the city of Meridian on February 14 and proceeded to destroy 105 miles of railroad and 61 bridges, while burning at least 10 locomotives and 28 railcars. [169][170][171] Throughout the Civil War, Sherman declined to employ black troops in his armies.[172][173]. [31][32], Sherman and Ord disembarked in Monterey, California on January 28, 1847, two days before the town of Yerba Buena acquired the new name of "San Francisco". "[27] Sherman was later stationed in Georgia and South Carolina. The massive Confederate attack on the morning of April 6, 1862, took most of the senior Union commanders by surprise. [97], On November 1862, U. S. Grant, acting as commander of the Union forces in the state of Mississippi, launched a campaign to capture the city of Vicksburg, the principal Confederate stronghold along the Mississippi River. [208][209] Though exact figures are not available, the loss of civilian life appears to have been very small. In fact, Sherman's first command was a brigade of three-month volunteers who fought in the First Battle of Bull Run on July 21, 1861. Grave. [246], In 1875, ten years after the end of the Civil War, Sherman became one of the first Civil War generals to publish his memoirs. He is perhaps the most eccentric general of the Civil War. He left his widow, Mary Hoyt Sherman, with eleven children and no inheritance. Grant may have had to intervene to save Sherman from dismissal for having overstepped his authority. The influential 20th-century British military historian and theorist B.H. Liddell Hart ranked Sherman as "the first modern general" and one of the most important strategists in the annals of war, along with Scipio Africanus, Belisarius, Napoleon Bonaparte, T.E. Lawrence, and Erwin Rommel. [43], Sherman was appointed as captain in the Army's Commissary Department on September 27, 1850, with offices in St. Louis, Missouri. (General William Tecumseh Sherman descends here) 6. [128][129] Meanwhile, in August, Sherman "learned that I had been commissioned a major-general in the regular army, which was unexpected, and not desired until successful in the capture of Atlanta". [53], Sherman's San Francisco branch closed in May 1857, and he relocated to New York City on behalf of the same bank, travelling on the steamer SS Central America. When William Tecumseh Sherman was born on 21 August 1874, in St Paul, Neosho, Kansas, United States, his father, Daniel M Sherman, was 55 and his mother, Mary Ann Post, was 24. 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. Date of Birth - Death February 8, 1820 - February 14, 1891. "[261] Such a categorical rejection of a candidacy is now referred to as a "Shermanesque statement". [101] Sherman's operations were supposed to be coordinated with an advance on Vicksburg by Grant from another direction. [124] As Grant took overall command of the armies of the United States, Sherman wrote to him outlining his strategy to bring the war to an end: "If you can whip Lee and I can march to the Atlantic I think ol' Uncle Abe [Lincoln] will give us twenty days leave to see the young folks. As Sherman himself once noted, his unusual middle name came from his father's "fancy for the great chief of the Shawnees, Tecumseh," who headed a confederacy of Native American tribes in Ohio. [134], During September and October, Sherman and Hood played a cat-and-mouse game in northern Georgia and Alabama, as Hood threatened Sherman's communications to the north. [10][259] During this period, he remained in contact with war veterans, and he was an active member of various social and charitable organizations. When William Tecumseh Sherman was born on 12 December 1828, in Columbia, New York, United States, his father, Roger Stevens Sherman, was 32 and his mother, Orilla Moses, was 34. [56] Sherman was an effective and popular leader of the institution, which would later become Louisiana State University. Place of Burial: Mansfield, Richland County, OH, United States. War & Affiliation Civil War / Union. Died on February 14, 1891 in New York City, New York, USA. He returned to Washington in 1876, when the new Secretary of War, Alphonso Taft, promised him greater authority. [109] During the long and complicated maneuvers against Vicksburg, one newspaper complained that the "army was being ruined in mud-turtle expeditions, under the leadership of a drunkard [Grant], whose confidential adviser [Sherman] was a lunatic". 0% Complete. [159], Following Lee's surrender and the assassination of Lincoln, Sherman met with Johnston on April 17, 1865, at Bennett Place in Durham, North Carolina, to negotiate a Confederate surrender. Sherman's younger brother John was, from his seat in the U.S. Congress, a prominent advocate against slavery. "[64], Sherman departed Louisiana and traveled to Washington, D.C., possibly in the hope of securing a position in the U.S. Army. Despite his harsh treatment of the warring tribes, Sherman spoke out against speculators and government agents who abused the Native Americans living within the reservations. Heeding, he would say, "some wise and sudden instinct not to mention retreat," he made a noncommittal remark. According to British military historian Brian Holden-Reid, "if Sherman had committed tactical errors during the attack, he more than compensated for these during the subsequent retreat". This appears to have been a consequence of the animosity felt by Union soldiers and officers for the state that they regarded as the "cockpit of secession". "Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." [29] During that voyage, Sherman grew close to Ord and especially to the intellectually distinguished Halleck. On April 20, Sherman dispatched a memorandum with those terms to the government in Washington. Therefore, he believed that the North had to conduct its campaign as a war of conquest, employing scorched earth tactics to break the backbone of the rebellion. Thus, he was living in the border state of Missouri as the secession crisis reached its climax. 04/14/13 re: Sherman Family: (1) John Sherman was 'appointed' Senator from Ohio by the State Legislature and Governor; W.T. Sherman was fond of the Ewings' eldest daughter, Ellen, and frequently corresponded with her while at West Point. Sherman's . Linked pages will continue with descendants of each main line, in a growing database of Sherman lines, both of English and other roots. American historian Wesley Moody has argued that these commentators tended to filter Sherman's actions and his hard-war strategy through their own ideas about modern warfare, thereby contributing to the exaggeration of his "atrocities" and unintentionally feeding into the negative assessment of Sherman's moral character associated with the "Lost Cause" school of Southern historiography. It also dealt a major blow to the popularity of the Democratic presidential candidate, George B. McClellan, whose victory in the election had until then appeared likely to many, including Lincoln himself. [a] According to Sherman's Memoirs, he was named "William Tecumseh", his father having "caught a fancy for the great chief of the Shawnees, 'Tecumseh'". Senator from Ohio [1830-1836] and later a member of the cabinet under four U.S. Presidents, William Henry . William Tecumseh Sherman, (born February 8, 1820, Lancaster, Ohio, U.S.died February 14, 1891, New York, New York), American Civil War general and a major architect of modern warfare. His conduct and deportment toward us characterized him as a friend and a gentleman. Free delivery for many products! 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. "[284][285], "Since the public mind has settled to the conclusion that the institution of slavery was so interwoven in our system that nothing but the interposition of Providence and horrid war could have eradicated it, and now that it is in the distant past, and that we as a nation, North and South, East and West, are the better for it, we believe that the war was worth to us all it cost in life and treasure." Sherman wrote both to his brother, Senator John Sherman, and to General Grant vehemently repudiating any such promotion. [195], Liddell Hart credited Sherman with mastery of maneuver warfare, also known as the "indirect approach". [227], There was little large-scale military action against the Indians during the first three years of Sherman's tenure as divisional commander, as Sherman allowed negotiations between the U.S. government and Indian leaders to proceed, while he built up his troops and awaited completion of the Union Pacific and Kansas Pacific Railroads. Sherman". The army took 4,000 prisoners and commandeered many wagons and horses. Harrison, in a message to the Senate and the House of Representatives, wrote that: He was an ideal soldier, and shared to the fullest the esprit de corps of the army, but he cherished the civil institutions organized under the Constitution, and was only a soldier that these might be perpetuated in undiminished usefulness and honor. The North can make a steam engine, locomotive, or railway car; hardly a yard of cloth or pair of shoes can you make. [55], In 1859, Sherman accepted a job as the first superintendent of the Louisiana State Seminary of Learning & Military Academy in Pineville, Louisiana, a position he sought at the suggestion of Major Don Carlos Buell and obtained through the support of General George Mason Graham. [102] Soon after, Major General John A. McClernand ordered Sherman's XV Corps to join in his assault on Arkansas Post. Their second-oldest daughter Mary Elizabeth Sherman (a.k.a., "Lizzie") is buried to the left. Ellen's father, Thomas Ewing, was the US Secretary of the Interior at that time. "[235] In 1867, he wrote to Grant that "we are not going to let a few thieving, ragged Indians check and stop the progress" of the railroads. [154] Having defeated the Confederate forces under Johnston at Bentonville, Sherman proceeded to rendezvous at Goldsboro with the Union troops that awaited him there after the captures of the coastal cities of New Bern and Wilmington. This was the largest single capitulation of the war. Sherman appointed Brig. His men swore by him, and most of his fellow officers admired him. "Yes," Grant replied, puffing on his cigar. In 1859, he became superintendent of the Louisiana State Seminary of Learning & Military Academy (now Louisiana State University), a position from which he resigned when Louisiana seceded from the Union. [19][20] As an adult, Sherman signed all his correspondence including to his wife "W. T. Here's how General Sherman got its name(s)", "The Religion of William Tecumseh Sherman", The Destructive War: William Tecumseh Sherman, Stonewall Jackson, and the Americans, Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War, Works by or about William Tecumseh Sherman, Military orders of General William T. Sherman, 1861'65, William T. Sherman Family Papers: 18081959, List of Union Civil War monuments and memorials, List of memorials to the Grand Army of the Republic, Confederate artworks in the United States Capitol, List of Confederate monuments and memorials, Removal of Confederate monuments and memorials. He interrupted his military career in 1853 to pursue private business ventures, without much success. [213] This made repairs extremely difficult at a time when the Confederacy lacked both iron and heavy machinery.[214]. While stationed in San. [205] 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,[205][206] Sherman sent a written 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 do to end the rebellion: You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. [35][36] Sherman unwittingly helped to launch the California Gold Rush by drafting the official documents in which Governor Mason confirmed that gold had been discovered in the region. They were the parents of at least 5 sons and 5 daughters. Sherman commanded a brigade of volunteers at the First Battle of Bull Run in 1861 before being transferred to the Western Theater. Brother of Charles Taylor Sherman, Mary Elizabeth (Sherman) Reese, James Sherman, Amelia (Sherman) McComb, Julia Ann (Sherman) Willock, Lampson Parker Sherman, John H. Sherman, Susan Denman (Sherman) Bartley, Hoyt Sherman and Frances Beecher (Sherman) Moulton