Sherman: A Soldier’s Life (review)

Sherman: A Soldier's Life. By Lee Kennett. (New York: HarperCollins, 2001. Pp. 432. $35.00.)

In this latest biography of William Tecumseh Sherman, Lee Kennett is not concerned to repeat the narrative of campaigns, but to assess the general as a man. In a reasonably sized book, Kennett, a seasoned military historian and professor emeritus at the University of Georgia, manages to cover all aspects of Sherman's career and give us his estimate of the man's character and accomplishments. The treatment of Sherman's early years and antecedents is judicious and Kennett explains with clarity the convoluted politics of 1850s San Francisco and Sherman's role vis à vis the vigilante movement that plagued the city.

In looking at the soldier's war record, Kennett comes to a number of conclusions that students of the general will find worth considering. The author argues that Sherman at Shiloh was not surprised or caught without preparations, but he could have taken better precautions. He was slow in getting into his position at Chattanooga for the Battle of Missionary Ridge. According to Kennett, the general's performance throughout 1863 was uneven. As a campaigner, so as a military administrator, Sherman's performance could be spotty, even erratic. While in control of Memphis in 1862, for example, he made decisions according to the vagaries of the moment and these were often inconsistent. Although he claimed to have great respect for the Constitution, he often acted arbitrarily. Overall, he lacked sympathy for the plight of civilians. As an army commander, he tried to control the behavior of his troops into 1863, punishing those guilty of flagrantly preying on civilians. But it is clear that by late 1863 he was using the deliberate technique of "eating out" a community to punish regions that appeared to be passing information to the enemy or harboring guerrillas.

The chapter on the transition to hard war, which Kennett labels "Good War, Bad War," is one of the most insightful in the book. The author does not let the general off the hook for the worst aspects of the behavior of his troops on the march through Georgia and the Carolinas. He was responsible for the tone of his men on campaign, including the reckless torching of buildings. Kennett glances at the question of how far the hard or total war policy succeeded in destroying the Confederate will to fight but, like previous biographers, he does not go into this issue in sufficient depth. Studies of later campaigns, including area bombing in World War II, suggest that indiscriminate terror tactics are relatively ineffective in eroding morale and that, indeed, the will to fight may increase under this kind of assault. We need a very serious study of this issue regarding Sherman's march to the sea. The path has been charted with Mark A. Weitz's fine recent contribution, A Higher Duty: Desertion among Georgia Troops during the Civil War (2000). Weitz argues that the large-scale desertions by Georgians came before Sherman's march and were related to widespread disaffection in north Georgia, caused in part by the state's failure to distribute the salt ration which many poor families relied on to preserve food.

Kennett is less sympathetic to Sherman's postwar career than many authors. The general's hostile attitude to the Amerindian hamstrung his ability to be a force for reason in the West, and his chronic difficulty in dealing with politicians hurt his effectiveness as a spokesperson for the army.

The most controversial statement in the book involves Sherman's mentality. Noting his subject's erratic mood swings, his despair, his irrational fears that at times bordered on paranoia, and his distrust of others, Kennett speculates that Sherman was either a bipolar or narcissistic personality. The latter is usually brought about by an emotional injury in early life, in this case the death of the boy's father and separation from his natural family. The narcissist creates...