William Tecumseh Sherman Essay Research Paper William

William Tecumseh Sherman Essay, Research Paper

William Tecumseh Sherman

If the question was asked, “Who was and still is the most hated and despised man in the history of the South” the response would be William Tecumseh Sherman. From the onset of hostilities in the Atlanta Campaign on May 6, 1864 and the march to the Sea ending two days before Christmas 1864 with him capturing Savannah, no one created more destruction. As a result of his successful campaign in Georgia, the Confederacy was split in two and deprived of much needed supplies, ending the war quickly with a Union victory.

Born on May 8, 1820 in Lancaster, Ohio, his father died when he was young. Widowed and unable to care for the entire family, his mother sent his brother Thomas to be raised by an aunt and William became a foster child to Thomas Ewing, his father’s friend. Cump, as he was known, later married Mr. Ewing’s daughter, Ellen. Educated at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, he graduated in 1840. During the Mexican War, Sherman was posted in San Francisco. He resigned his commission in 1853 to become a partner in a bank there.

Prior to the outbreak of hostilities between the North and the South, William Tecumseh Sherman was Superintendent of the Louisiana State Seminary and Military Academy at Alexandria, Louisiana. After the war, the school moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana and became Louisiana State University (LSU). Talk of the secession from the Union was rampant. On January 18, 1861, Sherman resigned his position stating that he preferred to maintain his allegiance to the Constitution as long as a fragment of it survived. On the 25th of February, Sherman left Louisiana and returned to Ohio. He remained in Lancaster for a month and then moved his family to St. Louis, Missouri where he was elected President of the Fifth Street Railroad.

On May 8, 1861, Sherman wrote to the Secretary of War, offering his services not for three months, but for three years. He did not want to become a political general and on June 20, 1861 accepted the grade of Colonel in the Thirteenth Regular Infantry. He assumed command of a brigade in the First Division of McDowell’s army under the command of Brigadier-General Daniel Tyler. His brigade, stationed at a stone bridge during the battle of First Manassas(Bull Run), was routed by devastating Confederate cannon fire.

In August, 1861, Sherman and George H. Thomas were promoted to Brigadier General and were assigned to the Department of the Cumberland under the command of Brigadier-General Robert Anderson. Anderson was in command of Ft Sumter when P.T. Beauregard opened fire upon it, beginning the war. Sherman had previously served under Anderson, and it was Anderson that requested that Sherman be transferred to his command.

In October, 1861, Sherman relieved Anderson. Filling quotas for Kentucky volunteers was extremely difficult. The State was split on their beliefs and where their allegiance should be placed. Later that month, Sherman told Secretary of War Cameron that if he had 60,000 men, he would drive the enemy out of Kentucky, and if he had 200,000 men, he would finish the war in that section. When Cameron returned to Washington, he reported that Sherman required 200,000 men. The report was given to newspapers and a cry of indignation arose from the public. Due to the pressure of the press on November 12, 1861, Brigadier-General Don Carlos Buell relieved Sherman of his command, and Sherman was assigned to the Department of the West, in St. Louis, Missouri under Major-General Halleck. After moving to Missouri, newspapers and gossip continued to harass him with reports that he was insane and that he was not fit to command, demanding his recall.

On February 13, 1862, Sherman assumed the command of the post at Paducah Kentucky relieving U.S. Grant of that position. On March 11, 1862, Halleck was assigned to command the Department of the Mississippi and Major-General U.S. Grant to command the army in the field. The organization and the name given to this army was the Army of the Tennessee. Sherman was placed in command of the Fifth Division of this army.

The Army of the Tennessee saw its first battle at Shiloh. With green troops, the North lost the first day’s battle, but with re-enforcements from Buell and the Army of the Cumberland, routed the Confederate troops. In July 1862, Sherman was assigned to command the District of Memphis. Later that year Sherman failed to seize the Confederate stronghold of Vicksburg, but was with Grant in the campaign that finally ended in the capture of that city in July 1863. Sherman was given command of the Army of the Tennessee in the fall of 1863 and fought in the Battle of Chattanooga with his troops unsuccessfully assaulting Pat Cleburne’s troops on Missionary Ridge, whose cannon’s, especially Swet’s Battery, were too much for them to be successful. Later Federals did capture the Ridge and Bragg’s troops retreated eastward.

In the spring of 1864, Sherman was made supreme commander of the armies in the West and was ordered by Grant to “create havoc and destruction of all resources that would be beneficial to the enemy.” With a grand aggregate of 98,797 troops and 254 cannons, on May 4, 1864, Sherman began the Atlanta Campaign.

The red-haired Ohioan found fierce resistance from the Confederate troops under Joe Johnston. Johnston held off the tro