William Tecumesh Sherman
By: Ruth Ceasar
Background & Early Life of Sherman
Sherman was born on February 8, 1820 in Lancaster, Ohio to the late Charles Robert Sherman and Mary Hoyt Sherman. Sherman was an American soldier,business,educator, and author. He was born in Lancaster, Ohio near, the banks of the hooking river. His father was a successful lawyer who sat on the ohio supreme court. He served as a general in the union army during the american civil war. Sherman served under Ulysses S. Grant.
Military Training & Service
At the age of 16 Sherman was cadet in the United States Military Academy at west point. Upon graduation in 1840, Sherman entered the army as a second lieutenant in the 3rd U.S. Artillery and saw action in Florida in the second seminole war. Sherman's lack of a combat assignment discouraged him and may have contributed to his decision to resign his commission.
Careers
Marriage and Business Career
In 1850, Sherman was promoted to the substantive rank of a captain and married Thomas Ewing's daughter, Elanor Boyle (Ellen) Ewing, in a washington ceremony attended by President Zachary Taylor and other political luminaries.
Civil War
Sherman was first commissioned as a colonel of the 13th U.S. Infantry regiment, effective May 14, 1861. President Lincoln, however, was impressed by Sherman while visiting the troops on July 23rd and promoted him to brigader general of volunteers.
Battle of Bull Run
This was a new regiment yet to be raised, and Sherman's first command was actually of a brigade of three-month volunteers, at the head to distinguish himself at the first Battle of Bull Run on July 21st, 1861, where he was gazed by bullets in the knee and shoulder.
Emancipation
Slavery & Emancipation
Sherman was not an abolitionist before the war and, like others of his time and background, he did not believe in equality between races. Sherman's military campaigns of 1861 and 1865 freed many slaves, who greeted him "as a second Moses and Aaron and joined his marches through Georgia and the Carolinas by the of thousand.
Modern Assessment & Death
After the fall of Atlanta in 1861, Sherman ordered the city's evacuation. Literary critic Edmund Wilson found is Sherman's memories a fascinating and disturbing account of an "appetite for warfare" that "grows as it feeds on the south. Sherman passed away in New York City at 1:50 on Saturday, 14 February 1891. General Sherman's body was then transported to St. Louise, where another service was conducted on the 21st of February 1891 at a local Catholic Church.