Fierce Patriot : : the Tangled Lives of William Tecumseh Sherman

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Call Number: 921 Sherman, William
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The military strategist. Tyro ; The Golden State ; Into the gloom ; The black hole ; Swamped ; Atlanta ; The March ; Bands of steel -- The General and his Army. The boys ; Road warriors -- The man and his families. Cump ; Big time -- Visit to the General.
A profile of the iconic Civil War general explores the paradoxes attributed to his character to discuss such topics as his achievements as a military strategist, his contributions to the Transcontinental Railroad, and his tempestuous family relationships.

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Manifest Destiny submitted by Rich Mirth on December 29, 2016, 7:58pm I not sure; perhaps, this is more a summary of this book than a review.

Part I
I read a book about Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman before. What I remember was: at the beginning of the Civil War, he was called "insane" and was relieved. His wife helped him; he got better. He and Gen. Ulysses S. Grant were friends; they won the war. After the war, Sherman was witty with all the women in the salons in New York. Can't remember much else.

Learned many new things. Sherman went to West Point when he was 16. His, foster father, US senator Tomas Ewing got him in. Sherman was in the Seminole Wars but not the Mexican War. He went to California, left the army. He was a bank president; the bank failed. Sherman married his sister, Ellen. What? She was his foster sister.

Sherman was superintendent of the Louisiana State Seminary of Learning and Military Academy. It opened on January 2, 1860; Sherman resigned when the Civil War broke out. The school later became Louisiana State University (LSU). Sherman was the school's founder; no wonder the football team is so good. Think Les Miles know? [Les Miles is no longer the coach at LSU.]

Sherman, "Uncle Billy," was loved by his solders. He was a brilliant tactician; he was manic, couldn't stop talking. Depression was in his family; maybe he was manic-depressive.

There is bad side of Sherman. He was a bigot, I think. In the "March to the Sea" from Atlanta, GA, Sherman wanted to go quickly out of Georgia into South Carolina to get supplies. The army had put a pontoon bridge over a creek; Sherman wanted to be rid of the Freedmen following the army. An officer, Jefferson C. Davis (a northern Jefferson Davis), pulled up the pontoons; many Freedman were killed or drowned.

After the war, Sherman was the head of the Mississippi Division of the Military; his headquarter was in St. Louis. When Grant became the President, Sherman became general of the army, he keep his office in St. Louis (the government was glad to keep Sherman out of Washington). Sherman's job after the war was to oversee the building of a transcontinental railroad.

Back to the bad side, building the railroad was a grand combination including extinction of the buffalo and the Native Americans.
Quotes of Sherman: "I don't care about interesting myself too far in the fate of the poor devils of Indians... ." Also, "Captain Jack" and a band of Modocs broke out of their reservation and ravaged the countryside. Sherman's instructions to the soldiers to capture the Indians: "You will be fully justified in their utter extermination." Several Modocs were hung and 160 were sent in exile to Oklahoma.

Regarding the buffalo, Sherman suggested to Gen. Phil Sheridan to get "all the sportsmen of England and America there this fall for a Great Buffalo hunt and make one grand sweep of them all." Between 1867 and 1874, five million buffalo were killed.

Sherman was not faithful to his wife; he had affairs. I haven't finished the book.

Part II
I finished the book about Sherman. After the incident at the creek, it was investigated by Stanton, the Secretary of War. The army had reached the sea (it had been the "March to the Sea" from Atlanta, Georgia). Several of the African American in the area, were questioned without Sherman being present. The African Americans said Sherman was "a gentlemen and a friend." Sherman was given African American soldiers to his army. After he got them, he took away their rifles and gave them shovels and picks. Sherman was not an abolitionist; he wanted to save the Union.

Sherman was, also, a good general because he was a good administrator. The Army of the West had 100,000 soldiers in it. The army had a chief of engineers, a quartermaster, a commissary chief, a medical director, an inspector general, an intelligence officer, and a spokesman. The Army of the West was three armies, the Army of Tennessee, the Army of the Cumberland, and the Army of Ohio. I think Sherman's army had far fewer casualties than Grant's army in the east. Grant had more big battles with dug in armies, and then the soldiers charged across big battlefields. Grant was called a "butcher."

Sherman had won the "Battle of Atlanta" and assured Lincoln's election in 1864. Before Sherman's victory at Atlanta, it was expected that Lincoln would lose the presidential election to the Democrat candidate, former general, George McClellan.

Something else I learned. The main rifle used in the war on both sides was a single-shot rifle, that, I knew. However, the North had repeating rifles, seven shot Spencers and sixteen shot Henrys. And again, however, the army in Washington thought the guns would waste ammunition and not had them mass produced. The guns cost $48. Some of soldier bought their own repeating rifles. A private only made $13 a month then. The South couldn't make repeating rifles. If they captured repeating rifles, they couldn't use them because they they couldn't make the ammunition for them because it took cooper which the South didn't have. A southern soldier said the repeating rifles "could be loaded on Sunday and shot all week." One time, some northern soldiers were caught with repeating rifles by southern soldiers; the northern soldiers were executed by the southern soldiers. The southern soldiers thought it was unfair for the northern soldiers to use the repeating rifles.

An aside, privates now make about $20,000 a year; benefits could double the salary. A wife and children and experience makes the pay go up. Officers make a whole lot more. An article, on the internet, said it's a myth the military is underpaid. But, all of us who haven't served in the military do owe them for their duty. I would like all of them who served my "thank you."

I think privates after the first year are called specialist now like a "spec 4." I'm sure the soldiers don't need to buy their automatic rifles. The US's M-16 rifle cost $650, eight million have been made. A Russian invented the automatic AK--47 rifle which cost $160; a used one can be obtained on the "Black Market " in Africa for only $6 or traded for a chicken or a bag of maize. 100 million AK-47's have been made. These guns are used beside the military and police and unfortunately by terrorists and criminals. (My data about military and the guns is from the internet.)

Sherman was born in 1820 in Ohio; he died in 1891 in New York City. He had a funeral parade in New York City; there was another funeral in St. Louis, MO. The funeral in St. Louis was done by his son, Tom, who was a priest. Sherman is buried in St. Louis next to his wife, Ellen, and his son, Willy, who had died as a child. Sherman was baptized Catholic by his foster mother; he received last rights by a priest. He believed in good works rather than faith; he wouldn't have liked to be have been prayed over.

Since Sherman married his foster sister, he was his own brother-in-law as was his wife was her own sister-in-law. This is somewhat like the bluegrass song, "I'm My Own Grandpa." In France, Napoleon's complicated family's situation was similar. His step-daughter married Napoleon's younger brother. Their son was Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte who became the president and then the emperor, Napoleon III of France. Since Napoleon's step-daughter cheated on her husband, Napoleon III may not have been a blood relative of Napoleon I. That all might have been even a better song.

After reading the book about Sherman, I can see why O'Connell titled the book the "Tangled Life of William Tecumseh Sherman." Sherman was part of the United States's great "Manifest Destiny."
Submitted by Richard A., M.A., History EMU