William Tecumseh Sherman: In the Service of My Country: A Life

Book Preface

William Tecumseh Sherman is remembered today as a major American historical figure, one whose Civil War career was both highly significant and controversial. This biography presents and analyzes Sherman’s generalship. His battles, campaigns and marches are recounted, often in greater detail, and sometimes with different interpretations, than previous biographies. For example, I am convinced, after taking another look at the Battle of Shiloh, that Sherman deserves more credit for that Union triumph than earlier biographers have assigned him; indeed, more credit than I gave him in my book about Shiloh, which I researched and wrote between 1971 and 1973.

This is certainly not to say that I have neglected the rest of Sherman’s life. Far from it. The man was forty-one years old when the Civil War began, and the prewar years are arresting and crucial if one hopes to understand the General who developed into one of the nation’s great military leaders. Following the war, Sherman was the general-in-chief of the U.S. Army for fifteen years, from 1868 to 1883.

From the early days of the U.S. Military Academy, the Seminole Wars in Florida, the antebellum Charleston aristocratic culture, the mad California Gold Rush, the early and wild years of San Francisco, the adventurous and dangerous water journeys between the East and West Coasts before the railroads and the Panama Canal, the wars against the Plains Indians, the building of the transcontinental railroad, the settlement of the great West and more—Sherman saw them all.

After the Civil War, wherever he lived and traveled, Sherman occupied the social limelight. With some his relationship was close and personal. He could be a lively, witty and substantive dinner companion. He always held strong opinions. However, unlike many outspoken people, he was not merely opinionated, but possessed an impressive store of knowledge to support his point of view.

Sherman’s interests were wide-ranging, and his talents considerable. He liked to ride horses and enjoyed hunting. He admired painting and artistic endeavors and was an amateur artist himself. He appreciated good writing and he knew how to turn a memorable phrase. He was a capable and honest businessman. He liked a circus. He loved to dance. He found much pleasure in attending the theater. He relished every opportunity to travel. He was a complex, engaging, intriguing character, the most fascinating, in my opinion, of all high-ranking Civil War personalities.

I approached this biography with a considerable degree of admiration and respect for Sherman. Upon learning more about the man, I sometimes admired him even more—for example, in his banking days in California, he demonstrated, during trying economic times, an uncommonly high standard of ethical responsibility and concern for his investors. At other times, I found Sherman troubling, even offensive.

Whatever Sherman is saying and doing, one factor is consistent: he is never boring. If I had known him, I sometimes think I would have liked him—and then again, I realize that, upon occasion, he undoubtedly would have irritated me. My somewhat mixed feelings about him, I think, are advantageous—if one strives for understanding and objectivity. While I acknowledge these goals to be unattainable in an absolute sense, that is no justification for not striving to achieve them. Harboring either an excessive fondness, a pitfall of many a biographer, or an intense dislike of one’s subject is not conducive to producing a satisfactory assessment.

For more than forty years I have lived, off and on, with Sherman. All of his Civil War career I have studied in depth, writing several books in which Sherman was a major figure. As to his life as a whole, I have brought a perspective to this study, being now older than Sherman was when he died, that would have been impossible years ago. This biography has enabled me to examine not only Sherman but the Civil War as well, from a matured perspective, crafting and refining some changes of analysis relative both to the war and to Sherman, as well as to reflect upon Nineteenth Century America—Sherman’s Century. For me, a Sherman biography has long seemed “a natural” project.

Finally, a few explanations are necessary. The general reader will find it helpful to keep in mind that the vast majority of United States soldiers who fought in the Civil War were so-called National Volunteers, rather than regular army. Consequently the rank of a regular army officer like Sherman can be confusing. When Sherman went back into the U.S. Army at the beginning of the war, he became a colonel. After the Battle of Bull Run, he was promoted to brigadier general of volunteers, while remaining a colonel in the regular army. Following the Battle of Shiloh, he was advanced to major general of volunteers. Not until 1863, after Vicksburg, did he become a brigadier general in the regular army. In 1864 he was promoted to major general in the regular army, the rank he held for the remainder of the war.

Sherman was a prolific writer, by any standard of comparison, and I have tried to present his words, phrases and sentences exactly as he penned them, without any effort to correct the occasional grammatical mistakes (which are very few considering how much and how rapidly he wrote), the misspelled words or the terms unacceptable today, most notably the word “nigger.” Several peculiarities of his writing will be apparent, such as sometimes capitalizing the first letter of a word when there is no reason to do so (many people of his era did this); sometimes expressing “damned” as “d——d”; or spelling a word more than one way, even the name of his son: “Willie” and “Willy.” I decided that the reader should get the full, unvarnished Sherman whenever he is quoted.

Of course, I alone am responsible for all statements of fact, interpretations, analyses and conclusions presented herein.

James Lee McDonough

October 2015