Sherman, William T.

Sherman, William T. (1820–1891), Civil War leader, postwar commanding general.Born in Lancaster, Ohio, and the foster son of the Whig party politician Thomas Ewing, Sherman graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1840 and served his earliest army tours of duty in the South. In the 1850s, he resigned his commission to become a California banker and experienced a series of business failures there, in New York, and in Kansas. When the South seceded in 1861, Sherman was superintendent of the Louisiana Military Seminary, forerunner of the modern‐day Louisiana State University.

Returning to the U.S. Army, he participated in many of the Civil War's major battles and campaigns, including Bull Run, Shiloh, Vicksburg, Chattanooga, and Atlanta. He conducted marches of selective destruction through Mississippi, Georgia, and the Carolinas. He then negotiated the controversially mild surrender agreement with the Confederate general Joseph E. Johnston and, during Reconstruction, was the South's leading northern supporter. In 1869, he became commanding general of the army, a post he held until he retired in 1884. He was the driving force in the Indian wars of those years and the implementer of the concept of professional schools for army officers.

Sherman is most famous for his psychologically intimidating strategy of selective destruction against southern society. He saw this approach as helping to end the war in the shortest time possible with the fewest casualties; southern whites would long denounce his campaign as one of particular devastation and brutality. He is also remembered for two sayings: “War is hell” and (when mentioned as a possible presidential candidate) “I will not accept if nominated and will not serve if elected.”
See also Military, The.

Bibliography

William T. Sherman , Memoirs of General W.T. Sherman, Library of America ed., 1990.
John F. Marszalek , Sherman, a Soldier's Passion for Order, 1993.

John F. Marszalek