William Tecumseh Sherman
Colonel William. T. Sherman (while his commission as BGUSV was dated 5/17/61, he was not nominated until 8/2/61 and was confirmed three days later) commanded a brigade in Daniel Tyler’s division of McDowell’s army during the First Bull Run campaign. He’s been in the news lately thanks to a couple of programs on The History Channel (see here and here). The battle marked an inauspicious beginning to his storied Civil War career, and he would end up as the commanding general of the U. S. Army after his friend U. S. Grant became president. But at Bull Run, Sherman committed his brigade in the same piecemeal fashion favored by his fellow commanders on both sides. I’m not too hard on those fellows, because McDowell’s army of about 35,000 was the largest ever assembled on the North American continent up to that point, and the only man in the country experienced in commanding a force of even 40% its size was Winfield Scott.
As with all Union generals from Ohio, I’m finding the interrelationships surrounding Sherman and shaping his rise to brigade command somewhat labyrinthine. Sherman briefly partnered in a law firm with members of the Ohio McCooks and his influential in-laws the Ewings. And the colonel of the 1st OHVI in Schenck’s brigade of Tyler’s Division, Alexander McCook? His middle name was McDowell. Powerful Treasury Secretary Salmon Chase, during this time sometimes referred to as General Chase, was from Ohio, and Sherman’s brother Thomas was elected to fill Chase’s vacated senate seat when the latter was appointed to Lincoln’s cabinet. It doesn’t take long to realize that a non-political general was a rare bird indeed.
Brian Downey recently wrote of a post-war scandal involving Sherman and the widow of Joseph Audenried, who as a young Lt. served on the staff of Sherman’s direct superior Tyler during the campaign. John Tidball, who was also with McDowell’s army in the summer of ‘61, would wind up on Sherman’s staff years later, when “Uncle Billy” held the highest military office in the land. Tidball’s biography (discussed here) includes his sketch of his boss at that time which touches on Sherman’s affection for the ladies (page 415):
He was exceedingly fond of the society of ladies, and took as much delight in dancing and such pleasures as a youth just entering manhood, and with them he was as much of a lion as he was a hero with his old soldiers.
With those of the romantic age he was often sprightly upon their all absorbing topic of love and matrimony, a condition of mind that he regarded as a mere working out of the inflexible laws of nature; but while regarding it in this light he did not condemn or ridicule the romantic side of it as mere nonsensical sentimentality. From young ladies with whom he was intimately acquainted he was fond of extracting the kiss conceded by his age and position, and which they were not loath to grant, nor upon which neither parents or beaux were disposed to frown. By the envious it was said that in these osculatory performances he sometimes held in so long that he was compelled to breathe through his ears.
Cump, you dog!
William Tecumseh Sherman; born Lancaster, OH 2/8/20; foster son of Senator Thomas Ewing (Sherman’s father, an Ohio supreme court justice, died in 1829); foster brother and brother-in-law of generals Charles, Hugh, and Thomas Ewing; brother of Senator John Sherman;; Uncle of the wife of General Nelson Miles; West Point Class of 1840 (6 of 42); 2nd Lt. 3rd Arty 7/1/40; 1st Lt. 3rd Arty 11/30/41; wounded 1845 – dislocated shoulder while hunting; Bvt. Capt. to date 5/30/48 for gallant and meritorious service in California during the war with Mexico; Capt. Commissary of Subsistence 9/27/50; resigned 9/6/53; moved to San Francisco, CA, 1853; worked in banking (the bank ultimately failed); MG of California Militia 1856; moved to New York, 1857; moved to Leavenworth, KS, 1858, practiced law with 2 brothers-in-law; moved to Pineville, LA, 1859; superintendent of Louisiana State Seminary of Learning and Military Academy (later LSU), 1859-1861; he resigned in January 1861 when asked to receipt a portion of the arms surrendered at the US Arsenal in Baton Rouge, telling the governor “On no earthly account will I do any act or think any thought hostile” to the United States; moved to St. Louis, MO where for a short time he headed a street car company, the St. Louis Railroad; Col. 13th US Infantry 5/14/61; BGUSV 5/17/61 (n 8/2/61 c 8/5/61); 3rd brigade, 1st Division, Dept. of NE VA., 6/30/61 to 8/17/61; slightly wounded in knee and shoulder at Bull Run, 7/21/61; Sherman’s Brigade, Army of the Potomac, 8/17/61 to 11/9/61; Dept. of the Cumberland, 10/6/61 to 11/9/61 (first as deputy to Robert Anderson – during this period Sherman had problems with the press and his superiors over estimates of enemy strength; Paducah, KY 2/62; Dist. of Cairo, Dept. of the Missouri, 2/14/62 to 7/11/62 (offered to waive seniority to serve under Grant); 5th Div., Dist. of Memphis, Army of the Tennessee, 3/1/62 to 7/11/62; wounded in right hand at Shiloh, 4/6/62; MGUSV 5/1/62 (n 4/17/62 c 5/1/62); 5th Div., Dist. of Memphis, Army of the Tennessee (AotT), 10/26/62 to 11/25/62; Right Wing, 13th Corps, AotT, 11/27/62 to 1/4/63 and 1/12/63 to 10/29/63; 2nd Corps, Army of the Mississippi, 1/4/63 to 1/12/63; BGUSA 7/4/63 (n 12/31/63 c 2/29/64); Dept. of the Tennessee, 10/17/63 to 3/12/64; AotT, 10/24/63 to 3/26/64; received Thanks of Congress on 2/19/64 Chattanooga; Military Div. of the Mississippi, 3/18/64 to 8/6/66; mustered out of volunteers 8/12/64; MGUSA 8/12/64 (c 12/12/64 s 1/13/65); received Thanks of Congress on 1/10/65 for Atlanta and March to the Sea (the only officer to receive the thanks of Congress twice during the war); LtGUSA 7/25/66 (n 7/26/66 c 7/26/66); Military Div. of the Missouri, 8/6/66 to 3/16/69; Military Div. of the Atlantic, 2/12/68 (he did not serve); Bvt. General USA, 2/13/68 (nomination was dropped); General, USA 3/4/69; CIC USA 3/8/69 to 11/1/83; interim U. S. Secretary of War, 9/9/69 to 10/18/69; in 1874 moved his headquarters from Washington, D. C. to St. Louis, MO (returned it to Washington in 1876); established the Command School at Ft. Leavenworth, KS; retired 2/8/84; moved to New York, NY, 1886; authored General Sherman’s Official Account of His Great March through Georgia and the Carolinas, from His Departure from Chattanooga to the Surrender of General Joseph E. Johnston and the Confederate Forces Under His Command (1865), Memoirs of General William T. Sherman, Written by Himself (1875), Home Letters of General Sherman (1909, posthumous), General W. T. Sherman as College President: A Collection of Letters, Documents and Other Material, Chiefly from Private Sources, Relating to the Life and Activities of General William Tecumseh Sherman, to the Early Years of Louisiana State University, and to the Stirring Conditions Existing in the South on the Eve of the Civil War (1912, posthumous), Sherman at War(1992, posthumous), and Sherman’s Civil War: Selected Correspondence of William T. Sherman, 1860-1865 (1999, posthumous); coauthored Reports of Inspection Made in the Summer of 1877 by Generals P. H. Sheridan and W. T. Sherman of Country North of the Union Pacific Railroad (1878), The Sherman Letters: Correspondence between General and Senator Sherman from 1837 to 1891(1894, posthumous), and The William Tecumseh Sherman Family Letters (1967, posthumous); died New York, NY 2/14/91; buried Cavalry Cemetery, St. Louis, MO.
Sources:
Eicher & Eicher, Civil War High Commands, pp 484-485, 701, 702, 705, 717, 728
Heitman, Historical Register and Dictionary of the U. S. Army, Vol. I p 882
Sifakis, Who Was Who in the American Civil War, pp 590-591
Warner, Generals in Blue, pp 441-444.
Photos:
a, b, c - www.generalsandbrevets.com; d - www.findagrave.com
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