Sherman
A Soldier's Passion for Order
Publication Year: 2007
Published by: Southern Illinois University Press
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Contents
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pp. ix-
Preface
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pp. xi-xv
WHEN WILLIAM T. SHERMAN published his memoirs in 1875, there already existed numerous articles about him and even a 512-page “Military Biography” by two friends, Colonel S. M. Bowman and Lieutenant Colonel R. B. Irwin. In his memoirs, Sherman made an...
Acknowledgments
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pp. xvii-xxi
THE LATE T. T. McAVOY, C.S.C., of the University of Notre Dame first suggested Sherman as a research interest to me, and Vincent P. DeSantis directed my doctoral dissertation. Vincent has since become a friend who continues to provide...
Prologue
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pp. xxiii-xxiv
WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN sat quietly atop his horse that November in 1864. He was a slim six footer with piercing eyes, red hair and beard askew as always, and a face that was a corduroy of wrinkles. Before him his troops trudged forward into the Georgia...
Chapter 1: Unstable Beginnings
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pp. 1-29
THE HUGE MAN WALKED the one hundred yards down the Main Street hill to the house of his newly widowed neighbor. He would take one of her sons, he said, "the brightest of the lot," promising to "make a man of him." Mary Sherman pointed...
Chapter 2: Making Southern Friends
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pp. 30-51
GRADUATION FROM WEST POINT marked the end of Cump's youth but not of his youthful uncertainty. He was twenty years old, his education complete, eager to begin his military career. Significantly, he was to spend most of his early career in the...
Chapter 3: Gold Rush Soldier
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pp. 52-76
WHEN SPRING CAME to South Carolina in 1846, "so little was stirring that a page a year would suffice for history," Sherman disgustedly wrote his brother. News of the progress of the American war against Mexico continued to drift...
Chapter 4: Setting Down Roots
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pp. 77-92
SHERMAN'S TRIP BACK EAST in a steamship by way of Panama took only 30 days, in marked contrast to the 198 days going around the horn on the wind-blown Lexington. There were no terrible storms nor fishing for birds this time, just the regular rhythm of the...
Chapter 5: The Disorder of Financial Life
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pp. 93-122
SHERMAN'S MARRIAGE had not provided him with the personal stability he sought. Unfulfilled, he decided to risk his one real home-the army-to see if he could find success and contentment elsewhere. He hesitated because he feared he was taking the...
Chapter 6: Contented Southern Schoolmaster
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pp. 123-139
As SHERMAN ENTERED still another new beginning, he felt less optimistic than he would have wished. He yearned for a return to the army; a Louisiana quasi-military position was a weak substitute. Louisiana was far from Ohio, so he knew that Ellen and the...
Chapter 7: Reluctant Warrior Under Attack
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pp. 140-170
SHERMAN BOARDED THE TRAIN in New Orleans on March 1, 1861, leaving behind his Southern friends, the military seminary he had established and nurtured, and the cadets he had come to see as his sons. He had been on the verge of putting his life in order in...
Chapter 8: Rebirth at Shiloh
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pp. 171-187
MARCH 1862 ARRIVED in Paducah, Kentucky, with Sherman forwarding troops to Ulysses S. Grant and raising his own division for active service in the field. He seemed to be much calmer, the result of his growing relationship to Grant. The more he watched...
Chapter 9: Restoring Order to Memphis
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pp. 188-201
HALLECK'S GRAND ARMY stood in possession of Corinth, Mississippi, after a slow campaign-an advance of less than a mile a day and construction of earthworks at every stop. There was no Shiloh surprise this time, but there was no dramatic victory either. Union...
Chapter 10: Battling the Bayous to Reach the Vicksburg Fortress
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pp. 202-231
SHERMAN'S WORK IN MEMPHIS had been pivotal. His success in producing order out of chaos boosted his self-confidence, and his experience with the guerrillas led him to look at war in a new way. Over the next year he continued to grapple with the nature of war...
Chapter 11: Practicing Destructive War in Mississippi
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pp. 232-258
THE DUAL VICTORIES on July 4 at Vicksburg in the West and Gettysburg in the East resulted in an optimism in Union army ranks not experienced since early in the war. Union soldiers felt pleased with their spectacular successes, though they realized that...
Chapter 12: Atlanta Falls
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pp. 259-287
IT SEEMED LIKE A DREAM that spring of 1864. William Tecumseh Sherman was commander of the Union war effort in the entire West, from the Appalachian Mountains to Arkansas. He had become the second most powerful military man in the Federal...
Chapter 13: March to the Sea
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pp. 288-316
THE FALL OF ATLANTA in September 1864, the reelection of Abraham Lincoln in November, and U. S. Grant's persistent hammering of Robert E. Lee in Virginia signaled the beginning of the end for the Confederacy. Union military might was exerting...
Chapter 14: Punishing South Carolina and Ensuring Victory
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pp. 317-333
SHERMAN'S MARCH ACROSS GEORGIA was the successful implementation of the use of destruction to produce order. Confederate civilians had experienced firsthand the full implication of continued resistance to Union forces-hard, unflinching war...
Chapter 15: Fame Tarnished
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pp. 334-359
SINCE BEGINNING his Atlanta campaign in May 1864, Sherman had captured the city, marched through Georgia to Savannah, and then made the amazing movement through the water-logged Carolinas. He had rocked...
Chapter 16: National Hero and the South's Friend
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pp. 360-376
THE WAR WAS OVER and the Union was intact, but enormous problems remained. Four years of hard conflict had resulted in over six hundred thousand fatalities and numberless widows and orphans throughout the North and South. Where armies had...
Chapter 17: Indian Country Chaos
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pp. 377-400
WHILE WASHINGTON STRUGGLED to secure the Union in the aftermath of the Civil War, another arena of violent conflict was heating up in the West-the climax of the age-old struggle between the native American's survival and white society's...
Chapter 18: The Anchor of Home
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pp. 401-421
DURING THE IMMEDIATE YEARS after the Civil War, while he jousted with Andrew Johnson and fought the Indians on the Great Plains, Sherman pursued a busy social life befitting his status as Civil War hero and commanding general. He was invited to social...
Chapter 19: Commanding General Versus the Politicians
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pp. 422-444
BEING COMMANDING GENERAL was not easy. As soon as Sherman had gained the office in March 1869, he had found himself battling politicians in Washington and Indian agents in the West. Even his Civil War comrade, U. S. Grant, the new president...
Chapter 20: Retiring from the Army and Refusing the Presidency
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pp. 445-459
THROUGHOUT THE CIVIL WAR, whenever Sherman had felt particularly upset, he had threatened to quit and go home. Afterward as commanding general, he regularly took long tours when things were not going his way. Increasingly in the late 1870s...
Chapter 21: Safeguarding Historical Order
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pp. 460-478
SHERMAN LOOKED BACK to the Civil War as a time of glory that achieved the Union's preservation and his personal success. He had played a leading role in overwhelming the anarchy that had threatened to destroy the nation and his own future, and, in the...
Chapter 22: A Full Life Ends
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pp. 479-499
RETIREMENT BROUGHT MAJOR CHANGES to Sherman's life, the most significant being his freedom from politicians. It did not, however, slow him down; he continued to live his life at full throttle. The lack of official duty gave him the opportunity to fill...
Notes
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pp. 501-585
Bibliography
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pp. 587-611
Index
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pp. 613-635
Author Bio
Galleries
Back Cover
E-ISBN-13: 9780809387625
Print-ISBN-13: 9780809327850
Publication Year: 2007
