Sherman: A Soldier's Passion for Order

Chapter 2: Making Southern Friends

CHAPTER 2 MAKING SOUTHERN FRIENDS GRADUATION FROM WEST POINT marked the end of Cump's youth but not ofhis 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 South, meeting people and having experiences that would influence him for the rest of his days. He continued trying to find himself during these years, groping to chart the right course for his future. But first he spent the customary postgraduation furlough at home. The Ewing home was full of visitors that summer, so he stayed with his mother down the street. Politicians, including William Henry Harrison, the Whig party's presidential candidate, were in Lancaster planning the upcoming fall campaign. Cump felt too self-important with his fresh commission and monthly salary of sixty-five dollars to pay the Ewing children much attention. Eleven-year-old Jimmy, the later famous politician James G. Blaine, took plenty of notice of Cump, "a tall and very slender young man, straight as an arrow, with a sharp face and a full suit of red hair." Cump came in for his share of ribbing during the round of social events that summer. One night Ellen Ewing gave "a fancy-dress party," and Cump, though never much on ceremony, appeared in uniform. When a bat suddenly came flying at the dancers, he began flailing away at the pest with his cap. Meanwhile , servants rushed in carrying buckets to battle what they supposed from the noise was a fire. Seeing the bat, they threw the buckets at the flying invader, frightening the onlookers more than 30 MAKING SOUTHERN FRIENDS --------------------------*-------------------------the pest. Finally, Cump jumped on a chair and drove the bat toward the open door and out into the night darkness. The crowd broke into relieved laughter, complimenting Cump on successfully winning "General Sherman's first battle."l Cump was anxious to get on with his military life and fight some real battles. He, along with fellow graduates Stewart Van Vliet and George H. Thomas, had volunteered for duty with the Third Artillery Regiment in Florida. Toward the end of the summer, Cump received orders to report to New York's Governor's Island for transportation south. On the way, he decided to pay one final visit on his many friends at West Point. It was against academy regulations to visit cadets during study time, but Cump thought that his lieutenancy gave him special status. It did not. A tactical officer reported his transgression, and the superintendent cited him for "unofficerlike conduct" and confined him to the hotel grounds. He immediately wrote Superintendent Richard Delafield a round-about apology that Dicky the Punster should have appreciated . "My feelings," he insisted, "prompted me to do a common and friendly act, bid my friends a farewell upon parting with some perhaps forever." Delafield freed Cump from the hotel, but he sent him to his new post with a letter of condemnation. Perhaps fearing Thomas Ewing's wrath, Delafield also informed Secretary of War Joel R. Poinsett, who found the whole thing ridiculous.2 Cump left West Point chagrined but unbowed. He accepted temporary command of an infantry recruit company and sailed out of New York harbor in early October 1840, taking with him a recently purchased black pointer dog for companionship. The vessel reached Savannah in mid-October, where the party switched to a smaller ship for the trip to St. Augustine. He deposited the infantry there, bumped into West Point friend Braxton Bragg, and took a small boat toward his station, Fort Pierce, in south Florida.3 The young lieutenant had entered a combat zone. The U.S. Army was fighting a frustratingly difficult war against the resourceful Seminole Indians in the swamp-infested wilderness. This Second Seminole War4 was the result of the general American determination to push the Indians out of the white man's way and prevent them from aiding fugitive slaves. Neighboring slave states were particularly determined to stop what they character31 SHERMAN --------------------------*-------------------------ized as the dangerous flow of their chattel to Florida. Andrew Jackson had fought the First Seminole War, hanging two British subjects in the process and convincing the Spanish to sell Florida to the United States or face more incursions. Florida became U.S. territory in 1821 for $5 million. The Seminoles, however, had never accepted Spanish control, so they...