[145] According to a war-time account, it was around this time that Sherman made his memorable declaration of loyalty to Grant: General Grant is a great general. His men swore by him, and most of his fellow officers admired him. He returned to Washington in 1876, when the new Secretary of War, Alphonso Taft, promised him greater authority. William Tecumseh Sherman (1820-1891) 2. [85] His problems were compounded when the Cincinnati Commercial described him as "insane". In 1850 Sherman married one of the Ewing daughters, Ellen. He steadfastly refused to be drawn into party politics and in 1875 published his memoirs, which became one of the best-known first-hand accounts of the Civil War. Although Sherman was technically the senior officer, he wrote to Grant, "I feel anxious about you as I know the great facilities [the Confederates] have of concentration by means of the River and R[ail] Road, but [I] have faith in youCommand me in any way. Sherman accepted the surrender of all the Confederate armies in the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida in April 1865, but the terms that he negotiated were considered too generous by U.S. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, who ordered General Grant to modify them. He lived in Lancaster, Fairfield, Ohio, United States in 1860. Sherman was distantly related to US founding father Roger Sherman. Along with fellow Lieutenants Henry Halleck and Edward Ord, Sherman embarked from New York City on the 198-day journey around Cape Horn, aboard the converted sloop USS Lexington. Start your search on William Tecumseh Sherman. Early life and career [266] President Benjamin Harrison, who served under Sherman, sent a telegram to Sherman's family and ordered all national flags to be flown at half staff. [231], Sherman regarded the expansion of the railroad system "as the most important element now in progress to facilitate the military interests of our Frontier". Skip Ancestry navigation Main Menu. [122] However, he enjoyed Grant's confidence and friendship. He told Grant that, if he remained in the army, "some happy accident might restore you to favor and your true place". They were the parents of at least 5 sons and 5 daughters. [228] He testified in the trial on April 11 and 13, 1868. 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. [98] Grant made Sherman a corps commander and put him in charge of half of his forces. [207][208] Though exact figures are not available, the loss of civilian life appears to have been very small. Johnston did catch a serious cold and died one month later of pneumonia. Spouse 1: Martha Rosa Taylor 1868-1899 K4P2-1WH Marriage: 17 September 1887 at Tate, Pickens, Georgia, United States Children of Martha Rosa Taylor and William Sherman Tecumseh Cagle: Joseph Benson Cagle 1893-1966 . He served as a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War (18611865), achieving recognition for his command of military strategy as well as criticism for the harshness of the scorched-earth policies that he implemented against the Confederate States. . After Pemberton surrendered to Grant on July 4, Johnston advanced towards the rear of Grant's forces. "[27] Sherman was later stationed in Georgia and South Carolina. Four or more generations of descendants of William Tecumseh Sherman (1820-1891) if they are properly linked: 1. [243][244] During this time, Sherman also reorganized the U.S. Army forts to better accommodate the shifting frontier. The resulting trial of Satanta and Big Tree marked the first occasion in which Native American chiefs were tried by a civilian court in the United States. The North can make a steam engine, locomotive, or railway car; hardly a yard of cloth or pair of shoes can you make. Critical press reports about Sherman began to appear after the U.S. Secretary of War, Simon Cameron, visited Louisville in October 1861. He was Promoted to general (lieutenant general), 4 Mar 1869. [48][49] Late in life, Sherman said of his time in a San Francisco gripped by the frenzy of real estate speculation: "I can handle a hundred thousand men in battle, and take the City of the Sun, but am afraid to manage a lot in the swamp of San Francisco. [100], In December, Sherman's forces suffered a severe repulse at the Battle of Chickasaw Bayou, just north of Vicksburg. Gen. Rufus Saxton, an abolitionist from Massachusetts who had previously directed the recruitment of black soldiers, to implement that plan. Sherman, beset by hallucinations and unreasonable fears and finally contemplating suicide, had been relieved from command in Kentucky. Besides, where are your men and appliances of war to contend against them? Sherman took command of the infantrymen in the local Union garrison and successfully repelled the Confederate attack. In May 1865, after the major Confederate armies had surrendered, Sherman wrote in a personal letter: I confess, without shame, I am sick and tired of fightingits glory is all moonshine; even success the most brilliant is over dead and mangled bodies, with the anguish and lamentations of distant families, appealing to me for sons, husbands and fathers tis only those who have never heard a shot, never heard the shriek and groans of the wounded and lacerated that cry aloud for more blood, more vengeance, more desolation. The nomination was not submitted to the Senate until December. Sherman survived two shipwrecks and floated through the Golden Gate on the overturned hull of a foundering lumber schooner. "[275] In letters written in 1865 to Thomas, his eldest surviving son, General Sherman said "I don't want you to be a soldier or a priest, but a good useful man",[276] and complained that Thomas's mother Ellen "thinks religion is so important that everything else must give way to it". He voiced this view in remarks to a joint session of the Texas legislature in 1875, although the U.S. Army under Sherman's command never conducted its own program of bison extermination. W. T. Sherman (1887)[285], In the years immediately after the war, Sherman was popular in the North and well regarded by his own soldiers. Sherman served in that capacity from 1869 until 1883 and was responsible for the U.S. Army's engagement in the Indian Wars. "[94], In late April a Union force of 100,000 men under Halleck's leadership, with Grant relegated to second-in-command, began advancing slowly against Corinth. [232] One of the main concerns of his postbellum service was, therefore, to protect the construction and operation of the railroads from hostile Indians. [294] More recently, historians such as Brian Holden-Reid have challenged such readings of Sherman's record and of his contributions to modern warfare. 142, 38Th Congress, 2D Session by Gen William Tecumseh Sherman, George Henry Thomas, John Pope, 9780342519576, available at LibroWorld.com. After his father's death, the nine-year-old Sherman was raised by a Lancaster neighbor and family friend, attorney Thomas Ewing. [262] However, Sherman did include the views of some others in the appendices to the new edition.[j][k]. [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. "[50], The failure of Page, Bacon & Co. triggered a panic surrounding the "Black Friday" of February 23, 1855, leading to the closure of several of San Francisco's principal banks and many other businesses. This was a new regiment yet to be raised. [245], In 1875, ten years after the end of the Civil War, Sherman became one of the first Civil War generals to publish his memoirs. [273] He later married his foster sister Ellen, who was also a devout Catholic. [51][52] In 1856, during the vigilante period, he served briefly as a major general of the California militia. [106], The failure of the first phase of the campaign against Vicksburg led Grant to formulate an unorthodox new strategy, which called for the invading Union army to separate from its supply train and subsist by foraging. [65][66], Sherman then moved to St. Louis to become president of a streetcar company called the "Fifth Street Railroad". The severity of the destructive acts by Union troops was significantly greater in South Carolina than in Georgia or North Carolina. Sherman observed but did not join in the religious ceremonies of the Ewing household. [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). "Yes," Grant replied, puffing on his cigar. Sherman had dismissed the intelligence reports from militia officers, refusing to believe that Confederate general Albert Sidney Johnston would leave his base at Corinth. William Tecumseh Sherman: Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman . [281] In 1888, Sherman wrote publicly that "my immediate family are strongly Catholic. "Well, Grant, we've had the devil's own day, haven't we?" He married Mary Elizabeth Berry on 15 October 1899, in Greenwood, Kansas, United States. You are rushing into war with one of the most powerful, ingeniously mechanical, and determined people on Earthright at your doors. [l], The gilded bronze Sherman Memorial (1902) by Augustus Saint-Gaudens stands at the Grand Army Plaza near the main entrance to New York City's Central Park. In all else you are totally unprepared, with a bad cause to start with. William was sent to the family of Thomas Ewing, a next-door neighbor who was a U.S. senator and a cabinet member. Ellen's father, Thomas Ewing, was the US Secretary of the Interior at that time. Born in Ohio into a politically prominent family, Sherman graduated in 1840 from the United States Military Academy at West Point. One of his younger brothers, John Sherman, was one of the founders of the Republican Party and served as a U.S. congressman, senator, and cabinet secretary. According to critic Edmund Wilson, Sherman: [H]ad a trained gift of self-expression and was, as Mark Twain says, a master of narrative. 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. [278], Some modern historians have characterized Sherman as a deist in the manner of Thomas Jefferson,[279] while others identify him as an agnostic who accepted many Christian values but lacked faith. He had at least 2 daughters with Elizabeth Bell Dyer. 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. "[271] He is buried in Calvary Cemetery in St. [87] Operating from Paducah, Kentucky, he provided logistical support for the operations of Grant to capture Fort Donelson in February 1862. "Lick 'em tomorrow, though. 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. Father James A. Ryder, president of Georgetown College, officiated at the Washington, D.C., ceremony. [242], Much of Sherman's time as Commanding General was devoted to making the Western and Plains states safe for settlement through the continuation of the Indian Wars, which included three significant campaigns: the Modoc War, the Great Sioux War of 1876, and the Nez Perce War. 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. According to Liddell Hart, this strategy was most clearly illustrated by Sherman's series of turning movements against Johnston during the Atlanta campaign. [298] The admiration of scholars such as B. H. Liddell Hart,[299] Lloyd Lewis, Victor Davis Hanson,[300] John F. Marszalek,[301] and Brian Holden-Reid[302] for Sherman owes much to what they see as an approach to the exigencies of modern armed conflict that was both effective and principled. North Carolina, unlike its southern neighbor, was regarded by the Union troops as a reluctant Confederate state,[153] having been second from last to secede from the Union, ahead only of Tennessee. This frontal assault was intended as a diversion, but it unexpectedly succeeded in capturing the enemy's entrenchments and routing the Confederate Army of Tennessee, bringing the Union's Chattanooga campaign to a successful completion. [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. But you cannot have peace and a division of our country. [256] Sherman stepped down as commanding general on November 1, 1883,[257] and retired from the army on February 8, 1884. [116] Following the defeat of the Army of the Cumberland at the Battle of Chickamauga by Confederate general Braxton Bragg's Army of Tennessee, President Lincoln re-organized the Union forces in the West as the Military Division of the Mississippi, placing it under General Grant's command. On the other hand, he was adamantly opposed to the secession of the southern states. [72] On June 3, he wrote in a letter to his brother-in-law: "I still think it is to be a long warvery longmuch longer than any Politician thinks. Sherman then became the military governor of occupied Memphis. He led the capture of the strategic city of Atlanta, a military success that contributed to the re-election of President Abraham Lincoln. According to Sherman's biographer Robert O'Connell, "Shiloh marked the turning point of his life. [56] Sherman was an effective and popular leader of the institution, which would later become Louisiana State University. [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. [142] Sherman then dispatched a message to Lincoln, offering him the city as a Christmas present.[143][e]. [39] He also opened a general store in Coloma, which earned him $1,500 in 1849 while his army salary was only $70 a month. When Grant was promoted and took over the armies in the east, Sherman was put in charge of those in the west. One 19th-century source, for example, states that "General Sherman, we believe, is the only eminent American named from an Indian chief". 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. [79] Sherman was then assigned to serve under Robert Anderson in the Department of the Cumberland, in Louisville, Kentucky. [140] At the end of this campaign, known as Sherman's March to the Sea, his troops took Savannah on December 21, 1864. 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. Sherman". [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. [247][i] Grant, who was president when Sherman's memoirs 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 companionsto myself particularly sojust such a book as I expected Sherman would write."[250]. The army took 4,000 prisoners and commandeered many wagons and horses. Sherman's initial assignments were rear-echelon commands, first of an instructional barracks near St. Louis and then in command of the District of Cairo. 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". [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". [83] While he was at home, his wife Ellen wrote to his brother, Senator John Sherman, seeking advice and complaining of "that melancholy insanity to which your family is subject". A bill was introduced in Congress to promote Sherman to Grant's rank of lieutenant general, probably with a view towards having him replace Grant as commander of the Union Army. [16] Sherman had already been baptized as an infant by a Presbyterian minister[17][18] and recent biographers believe, contrary to Lewis's claims, that he was probably given the first name "William" at that time. [210] For instance, Alabama-born Major Henry Hitchcock, who served in Sherman's staff, declared that "it is a terrible thing to consume and destroy the sustenance of thousands of people," but if the scorched earth strategy served "to paralyze their husbands and fathers who are fighting it is mercy in the end". For other uses, see. Shortly after the Union forces occupied Corinth on May 30, Sherman persuaded Grant not to resign from his command, despite the serious difficulties he was having with Halleck. William Tecumseh Sherman (WTS) was born in Lancaster, Fairfield County, OH, and he died in New York City, NY. [228], When the Medicine Lodge Treaty failed in 1868, Sherman authorized his subordinate in Missouri, Major General Philip Sheridan, to lead the winter campaign of 186869, of which the Battle of Washita River was part. Although he was impatient, often irritable and depressed, petulant, headstrong, and unreasonably gruff, he had solid soldierly qualities. [169][170][171] Throughout the Civil War, Sherman declined to employ black troops in his armies.[172][173]. [80], Having succeeded Anderson at Louisville, Sherman now had principal military responsibility for Kentucky, a border state in which the Confederates held Columbus and Bowling Green, and were also present near the Cumberland Gap. Since that time he has not been a communicant of any church. [311], This is actually a re-printing of the second, revised edition of 1889, published by D. Appleton & Company, of New York City. The magazine Confederate Veteran, based in Nashville, dedicated more attention to Sherman than to any other Union general, in part to enhance the visibility of the Civil War's western theater. Fires began that night and by next morning most of the central city was destroyed. When comparing Sherman's scorched-earth campaigns to the actions of the British Army during the Second Boer War (18991902) another war in which civilians were targeted because of their central role in sustaining a belligerent power South African historian Hermann Giliomee claims that it "looks as if Sherman struck a better balance than the British commanders between severity and restraint in taking actions proportional to legitimate needs". At the White House, Sherman met with Abraham Lincoln a few days after his inauguration as president of the United States. Sherman commanded the division on the extreme right of the Union's right wing (under George Henry Thomas). Husband of Alice Matteson. 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. As with all family trees on this website, the sources for each ancestor are listed on the family group pages so that you can personally judge the reliability of the information. [15] However, Lloyd Lewis's 1932 biography claimed that Sherman was originally named only "Tecumseh" and that he acquired the name "William" at the age of nine or ten, when he was baptized as a Catholic at the behest of his foster family. Father of Edward Sherman. "[78], The outcome at Bull Run caused Sherman to question his own judgment as an officer and the capabilities of his volunteer troops. 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. Mary Elizabeth Sherman (1852-1925) 2. [99] According to historian John D. Winters's The Civil War in Louisiana (1963), at this stage Sherman, had yet to display any marked talents for leadership. I want peace, and believe it can only be reached through union and war, and I will ever conduct war with a view to perfect and early success. [220], 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.[221][222]. For further details about Sherman's banking career, see Dwight L. Clarke. However, Sherman had proceeded without authority from Grant, the newly installed President Andrew Johnson, or the Cabinet. 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. [117], At Chattanooga, Grant instructed Sherman to attack the right flank of Bragg's forces, which were entrenched along Missionary Ridge overlooking the city. They are a peaceable people but an earnest people, and they will fight, too. [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. Afterwards the rank of Commander, Military Division of the Mississippi, 1864-1866; Commander, Military Division of the Missouri, 1866-1869. This letter was to James E. Yeatman, May 21, 1865, and is excerpted more extensively (and with slight variations) in Bowman and Irwin. "[64], Sherman departed Louisiana and traveled to Washington, D.C., possibly in the hope of securing a position in the U.S. Army. For more detailed discussion of this overall period, see Marszalek. [90] His first major test under Grant was at the Battle of Shiloh. After ordering almost all civilians to abandon the city in September, Sherman gave instructions that all military and government buildings in Atlanta be burned, although many private homes and shops were burned as well. He was born in Lancaster, Ohio as William Tecumseh Sherman into a family of eleven. [102] Soon after, Major General John A. McClernand ordered Sherman's XV Corps to join in his assault on Arkansas Post. [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. Historical Person Search Search Search Results Results William Tecumseh Sherman Merchant (1867 - 1929) . 100% Safe Payment. General William Tecumseh Sherman is best remembered for his leadership during the Civil War. [241], 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. Sherman served under Grant in 1862 and 1863 in the Battle of Fort Henry and the Battle of Fort Donelson, the Battle of Shiloh, the campaigns that led to the fall of the Confederate stronghold of Vicksburg on the Mississippi River, and the Chattanooga campaign, which culminated with the routing of the Confederate armies in the state of Tennessee. The Sherman's were well educated and highly cultured by Lancaster standards at this time. Yet he did not want to run the family salt works near Lancaster. [226], 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. He married Emily Cynthia Babbitt in 1854. Oftentimes the family trees listed as still in progress have derived from research into famous people who have a kinship to this person. The site was chosen because Sherman was reported to have stood there while reviewing returning Civil War troops in May 1865. The family tree for General William Tecumseh Sherman is still in progress. According to Sherman, the trek across the Lumber River, and through the swamps, pocosins, and creeks of Robeson County was "the damnedest marching I ever saw". [251], During the election of 1876, Southern Democrats who supported Wade Hampton for governor used mob violence to attack and intimidate African American voters in Charleston. [114][115], Ordered to relieve the Union forces besieged in the city of Chattanooga, Tennessee, Sherman departed from Memphis on October 11, 1863, aboard a train bound for Chattanooga. [176] Their fate soon became a pressing military and political issue. Louis. [253] On April 11, 1880, he addressed a crowd of more than 10,000 in Columbus, Ohio: "There is many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory, but, boys, it is all hell. Some of us called upon him immediately upon his arrival, and it is probable he would not meet the Secretary [Stanton] with more courtesy than he met us. Contents 1 Early life 1.1 Sherman's given names 1.2 Military training and service 1.3 Marriage and business career 1.4 Military college superintendent 1.5 St. Louis interlude 2 Civil War service 2.1 First commissions and Bull Run 2.2 Kentucky and breakdown 2.3 Shiloh 2.4 Vicksburg 2.5 Chattanooga 2.6 Atlanta 2.7 March to the Sea 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. 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. "[283][284], "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." As a man, Sherman was an eccentric mixture of strength and weakness. [280] 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. [308], Other posthumous tributes include Sherman Circle in the Petworth neighborhood of Washington, D.C.,[309] the M4 Sherman tank, which was named by the British during World War II,[310] and the "General Sherman" Giant Sequoia tree, which is the most massive documented single-trunk tree in the world. He took no precautions beyond strengthening his picket lines, and refused to entrench, build abatis, or push out reconnaissance patrols. 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. William Tecumseh Sherman, c. 1860-65. [199], Like Grant and Lincoln, Sherman was convinced that the Confederacy's strategic, economic, and psychological ability to wage further war needed to be crushed if the fighting were to end. 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. Grant, the previous commander of the District of Cairo, had just won a major victory at Fort Henry and been given command of the ill-defined District of West Tennessee. [7] Liddell Hart's views on the historical significance of Sherman have since been discussed and, to varying extents, defended by subsequent military scholars such as Jay Luvaas,[192] Victor Davis Hanson,[193] and Brian Holden-Reid. Artillery and saw action in Florida in the Second Seminole War. Thus, he was living in the border state of Missouri as the secession crisis reached its climax. [111], During the siege of Vicksburg, Confederate general Joseph E. Johnston had gathered a force of 30,000 men in Jackson, Mississippi, with the intention of relieving the garrison under the command of John C. Pemberton that was trapped inside Vicksburg. [291] This led to the publication of several works, notably John B. Walters's Merchant of Terror: General Sherman and Total War (1973),[292] that presented Sherman as responsible for "a mode of warfare which transgressed all ethical rules and showed an utter disregard for human rights and dignity.