American General: The Life and Times of William Tecumseh Sherman, by John S.D. Eisenhower
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American General: The Life and Times of William Tecumseh Sherman, by John S.D. Eisenhower
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Civil War general William Tecumseh Sherman earned a place in history as “the first modern general,” yet behind his reputation as a fierce warrior was a sympathetic man of complex character.A century and a half after the Civil War, Sherman remains one of its most controversial figures—the soldier who brought the fight not only to the Confederate Army, but to Confederate civilians as well. Yet Eisenhower, a West Point graduate and a retired brigadier general (Army Reserves), finds in Sherman a man of startling contrasts, not at all defined by the implications of “total war.” His scruffy, disheveled appearance belied an unconventional and unyielding intellect. Intensely loyal to superior officers, especially Ulysses S. Grant, he was also a stalwart individualist. Dubbed “no soldier” during his years at West Point, Sherman later rose to the rank of General of the Army, and he had great affection for the people of the South despite his commitment to the Union cause.In this remarkable reassessment of Sherman’s life and career, Eisenhower takes readers from Sherman’s Ohio origins and his fledgling first stint in the Army to his years as a businessman in California and his hurried return to uniform at the outbreak of the war. From Bull Run through Sherman’s epic March to the Sea, Eisenhower offers up a fascinating narrative of a military genius whose influence helped preserve the Union.
American General: The Life and Times of William Tecumseh Sherman, by John S.D. Eisenhower- Amazon Sales Rank: #964878 in Books
- Published on: 2015-10-06
- Released on: 2015-10-06
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.98" h x .73" w x 5.96" l, 1.00 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 352 pages
Review “Brilliantly written and researched biography…a must read.”—Douglas Brinkley“John S. D. Eisenhower, who knows something about generals and soldiering, has written a marvelous biography of a much misunderstood man.”—Evan Thomas“Only U.S. Grant could have written a truer portrait of William Tecumseh Sherman.”—Sidney Blumenthal
About the Author John S. D. Eisenhower was a brigadier general (Army Reserves), a U.S. ambassador to Belgium during the Nixon administration, and the author of numerous works of military history and biography. The son of Dwight D. Eisenhower, he lived in Maryland.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
FOREWORD
It is hard to articulate the sum of a life. But my father, John S. D. Eisenhower, who died before the publication of this book, produced a loving family and accomplished his professional goals. The only surviving son of Mamie and General and President Dwight D. Eisenhower, John Eisenhower wore his father’s fame with dignity and resolve. By midcareer, he had gotten into “the writing game” to fulfill his desire to be an author. He also knew it would help him create an identity of his own. In the succeeding decades he made an independent reputation for himself, becoming what the Washington Post called “a soldier, diplomat and acclaimed historian.”
John Eisenhower’s life was utterly shaped by the military. As a young man, he moved with his parents from army assignment to assignment, in places like Panama and the Philippines. After high school he sought an appointment to West Point. After three years he graduated from the Academy coincidentally on June 6, 1944, just hours after the invasion of Normandy had begun. He served in intelligence posts in Europe before the war ended, and later in combat operations in Korea. He left the Army in 1963 to pursue his love of writing.
Becoming a military historian was, for John Eisenhower, more than a vocation. “Putting pen to paper” is not just what he did; being a writer is who he was. He knew this even before he graduated from West Point. After VE Day he got a master’s degree at Columbia University and was assigned to the English Department at West Point. Between 1948 and 1951, he was, in his own words, “able to learn much of what he and the Class of 1944 had missed because of West Point’s [foreshortened graduation schedule] during the war.” His master’s thesis was on the role of the military in William Shakespeare’s work. In addition to military histories, he loved humorists like Mark Twain and P. G. Wodehouse and appreciated the lean, evocative style of Ernest Hemingway.
In the late 1960s, after serving as an editor on Ike’s two-volume White House memoirs, my father wrote his first book, The Bitter Woods, on the Battle of the Bulge. He undertook extensive research on the subject, which included doing interviews at all echelons in the chain of command, including those who fought on the German side. I remember vividly dining with the 5th Panzer Army General Hasso von Manteuffel after his interview with my father at our house in Pennsylvania. The German general had played a significant role in the Battle of the Bulge.
After The Bitter Woods appeared on bestseller lists, my father was appointed as U.S. Ambassador to Belgium, and he served in that capacity from 1969 to 1971. During his tenure my parents rented a small cottage in the Ardennes forest, and on my visits “home” he would take me out on battlefield excursions, much like he did with my other siblings.
As my father’s career developed, he and I made trips to a number of Civil War battlefields, family landmarks and other points of historic interest. There he would try to learn more, all the while he told me stories and explained the significance or the strategic importance of the place.
My father was a cerebral man—a quiet observer of the many things to which he’d been exposed. He had done a lot of living. During the war in Europe, he’d been to Buchenwald and seen the Holocaust firsthand. He was a combat officer in the Korean War, and that conflict also left a deep imprint on him. Perhaps, notably, he may have been the last person alive who had dined with both Churchill and Stalin—and he went with his father to Normandy just after the invasion. He wrote several books on World War II, but on subjects he later tackled—from General Winfield Scott and the War of 1812 to the United States’ intervention in Mexico and World War I—he used his love of writing as a gateway to a lifetime of intellectual discovery. He had an instinct for detail and an eye for spotting uncommon capabilities, historic ironies, and the elements of a good story.
What impressed me the most was his extraordinary ability to connect the intellectual dots across centuries of history and articulate them as simple principles, often associating them with the events of the day. He had a striking ability to identify the exceptional qualities in people that made them leaders, as well as the ones that made others fall short.
With respect to our society, it was the changing mores and attitudes that fascinated him. In this, he saw the hand of time as a mysterious “fourth dimension,” which altered things as no physical change ever could.
My father also liked colorful characters—he knew a few in his day. Perhaps this is what drew him to General Sherman in the first place. It was Sherman who famously said: “War is hell.” Indeed, fact and lore reveal a quick-witted Sherman who didn’t hesitate to speak his mind. One such example relates to Sherman’s disdain for journalists, whom the General deemed as nothing better than battlefield spies and gossipmongers. On hearing that three correspondents had been killed near Vicksburg, Sherman is said to have quipped, “Good! Now we shall have news from Hell before breakfast.”
In the course of his lifetime, John Eisenhower edited three books and wrote thirteen others. American General was his fourteenth. It was under way in the last two years of his life. Just as my father was preparing this book for the editor, he died on December 21, 2013, at age ninety-one. In fact, the manuscript was the subject of my last conversation with him, shortly before he passed away. He asked that I serve as his “stand-in” for getting the book ready for publication.
While no one could ever hope to substitute for John Eisenhower, I have been privileged to play a small role in helping to bring this project to fruition, an important piece of his body of work.
My father’s legacy will become clearer with the fullness of time. But it was gratifying to read the many articles written about his life and to receive countless letters from people who’d read his books. The field of military and leadership history, many observers wrote, is richer today because John Eisenhower devoted himself to the writing craft.
Sage insights on world leaders, observations about strategy and its impact, and sensitivity to the fighting man’s condition are part of what my father leaves behind. His determination to be his own man, to pursue his talents and to forge his own identity, is also how he will be remembered—and another reason for why he will be missed.
INTRODUCTION
The Tactical Department at the United States Military Academy, West Point, in evaluating the Class of 1840, dubbed the sixth-highest-ranking cadet in the class, William Tecumseh Sherman, as “no soldier.” A century later, General George S. Patton would use the same term in describing Terry Allen and Teddy Roosevelt Jr., two of the most pugnacious infantrymen of World War II. Both the West Point tacs and “Old Blood and Guts” made the same error; they equated spit and polish with “soldiering.” Sherman’s appearance was rough-hewn, with scraggly red hair. His uniforms were always rumpled. Using that criterion, of course, they were both right.
Sherman was not concerned with that evaluation. Indeed, in later years he reveled in it. Even at the time, it seemed to cause him no grief. Actually, if required to summarize this otherwise complex man, I for one would be inclined to call him a “soldier’s soldier.”
Sherman’s basic attitudes were typically military. He was physically fearless—or appeared so. He distrusted politicians and the press, considering the latter to be licensed spies. He was loyal to a fault, both to the office of his superiors and certainly to Ulysses S. Grant personally. But Sherman could never be put in a mold. He was one of the most colorful figures of the American Civil War, or any other American war. To many people he is best remembered for his answer to the suggestion that he run for the presidency: “If nominated, I will not run. If elected, I will not serve. If given the choice between four years in the presidency or four years in prison, I will choose prison, thank you.” He put a new word in our language: “Shermanesque.”
These idiosyncrasies, however, are not the reason we remember Sherman. The military historian B. H. Liddell Hart called him “the first of the modern generals.” If that evaluation seems to be a bit of an exaggeration, it must be admitted that Sherman was a truly independent thinker. Conventionality was not part of his makeup. And part of his original thinking was the concept that to conquer a nation determined to resist, the attacking force cannot limit its efforts to that people’s armed forces; the war must be waged against the will of the civilian populace as well. Hence the term “total war.” Only one other Civil War general, the venerable Winfield Scott, also realized what has become a truism. But not until Sherman made his vaunted march from Atlanta to Savannah in late 1864 did it come to be universally acknowledged. The victims of this concept, the American Confederacy, have never forgiven him for it.
Actually, it is too much to give Sherman credit for discovering the feasibility of an army’s living off the land of the enemy, free of its own supply lines. He seems to have learned that lesson from U. S. Grant at Vicksburg, when Grant, having secured a foothold on the lands south of the city, attacked Jackson, Mississippi, without a supply line. In fact, the discovery was not even Grant’s. Henry W. Halleck, in 1862, lived off the land in his large-scale movement from Shiloh to Corinth. But Sherman was the first to adopt the policy for purposes beyond feeding his troops: that of depriving the enemy of all matériel necessary to war as well as making use of it himself.
In writing this short book I found his personality even more interesting than his deeds. The contrast between Sherman’s true affection for the people of the South and his actions toward them is to me mind-boggling. (Of course, unreconstructed Southerners hardly return that affection.) When the military phase of the Civil War was finished, he made a sentimental trip to Charleston, South Carolina, to check on the welfare of the friends of twenty years earlier. (He found almost none.)
It is the combination of military genius and complexity of character that has made this book a joy to write. Sherman’s major role in bringing about the ultimate Union triumph in the Civil War, along with being the most unlikely general, is unique in American military history.
PROLOGUE
In early 1861, a forty-one-year-old ex-soldier named William Tecumseh Sherman, then president of the Louisiana State Seminary of Learning & Military Academy (later Louisiana State University), was dining with Professor David F. Boyd, a dear friend from Virginia, a state contemplating secession from the Union. As recalled by Boyd, Sherman minced no words:
You people of the South don’t know what you are doing. This country will be drenched in blood, and God only knows how it will end. It is all folly, madness, a crime against civilization! You people speak so lightly of war; you don’t know what you’re talking about. War is a terrible thing! You mistake, too, the people of the North. They are a peaceable people but an earnest people, and they will fight, too. They are not going to let this country be destroyed without a mighty effort to save it. . . . Besides, where are your men and appliances of war to contend against them? The North can make a steam engine, locomotive, or railway car; hardly a yard of cloth or pair of shoes can you make. You are rushing into war with one of the most powerful, ingeniously mechanical, and determined people on Earth—right at your doors. You are bound to fail. Only in your spirit and determination are you prepared for war. In all else you are totally unprepared, with a bad cause to start with. At first you will make headway, but as your limited resources begin to fail, shut out from the markets of Europe as you will be, your cause will begin to wane. If your people will but stop and think, they must see in the end that you will surely fail.1
Sherman knew whereof he spoke. With remarkable prescience, he described as concisely as can be imagined the tragedy that was about to befall the United States, the American Civil War. He had no inkling of the major role he would play in this drama, something that seemed to come about almost by chance. There was little in his background that would presage it.
Book I
CHAPTER ONE
On a cold and windy day in mid-February 1891, an elaborate funeral was held in New York City for general of the army William Tecumseh Sherman. All the important people were there: Among them were President Benjamin Harrison, former presidents Rutherford B. Hayes and Grover Cleveland, and thirty thousand troops, including the entire corps of cadets from West Point. One of the honorary pallbearers, present at Sherman’s previous request, was an unlikely member: Joseph Eggleston Johnston, a onetime general of the Confederate States of America and Sherman’s fierce antagonist. The two men—with a fourteen-year difference in their ages—had fought hard against each other during the Civil War, but in later years they had developed a warm friendship, working together to repair the Union that had been rent asunder between the years 1861 and 1865.
Johnston’s friends were worried about him, for despite the icy winds, his eighty-four years of age, and frail health, he insisted on remaining bareheaded throughout the ceremony. Johnston would have none of his friends’ protests. “If I were in [Sherman’s] place, and he were standing in mine, he would not put on his hat.” A month later Johnston died of pneumonia, presumably the result of exposure at Sherman’s funeral.
Johnston’s affection for Sherman, expressed at risk to himself, was contrary to the feelings of his fellow Southerners; Sherman’s name, in fact, still stands as a symbol of the destruction he visited on their lands while marching from Atlanta to Savannah in late 1864. The contrast between those who knew him as a warm and somewhat sensitive man and those who knew him only by the measures he took in war characterizes the contrasts of Sherman’s life. He was a man who hated war and all it stood for, but whose duty, as he saw it, called for measures designed to finish off a failing enemy.
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Sherman came from a prominent family, but little in his ancestry indicated that one day he would be recognized as one of the nation’s most brilliant generals. If anything, his background should have led him to the legal profession. He was born in 1820 in Lancaster, Ohio, to Charles Sherman, Esq., and his wife, Mary Sherman. Charles Sherman was a distinguished lawyer, a member of the Ohio Supreme Court. The Sherman family had come from Essex County, England, in two groups; William Sherman’s family came to Connecticut in 1636. A cousin, Roger Sherman, had been a signer of the Declaration of Independence. The boy’s grandfather, Taylor Sherman, had moved out to the west and settled in Ohio. Charles R. Sherman, William’s father, had moved his family to Lancaster, Ohio, just in time to get involved in the War of 1812, fought between the United States and Great Britain. For some reason he had become an ardent admirer of the statesmanlike qualities of the Shawnee chief Tecumseh, even though Tecumseh had fought on the British side. As a result Charles Sherman named the son born in 1820 William Tecumseh, which the family quickly abbreviated to the nickname of “Cump.”
Cump’s boyhood, as with so many others in days when many people died young, was uprooted in 1829. When he was nine years old, his father suddenly passed away, leaving his widow, Mary, practically penniless, and saddled with a family of eleven children. Of these, two had grown up and had left home, but Mary, with nine still to care for, was faced with starvation. Deciding to keep the youngest three at home, she gave up six. Fortunately, those six were kindly taken in to be raised by friends and relatives.
Cump’s situation, sad though it was, could have been worse. His foster parents were nearby neighbors and distant relatives. Thomas Ewing, like Judge Sherman, was a highly successful lawyer, and in 1830, the year after Cump joined his household, was elected to the United States Senate from Ohio. Fortunately, Ewing was a kind man, and he recognized the deep debt he owed to Cump’s father for having assisted in launching his own law career years earlier.* Ewing and his wife had four children of their own and were also acting as foster parents for three others besides Cump.
The Ewings were a congenial family, and their residence was sufficiently close to that of Mary Sherman that the Sherman children had been playmates with those of the Ewings even before tragedy struck. While living with the Ewings, young Cump occasionally went to his own family’s house for dinner. Though Sherman was only nine years old at the time of his father’s death, Judge Charles had had an influence on him. Sherman always remained proud of his family’s accomplishments, and he appears to have inherited an unusually strong sense of duty and a passionate belief in the Union, a conviction that would give him the strength to perform unpleasant duties in his years of service to his country.
According to one biographer, however, Cump never got over the feeling of being abandoned, the child who’d been sent away. Dangerous as such theorizing may be, Sherman throughout his life exhibited characteristics that could well stem from that circumstance. He was intelligent and imaginative but extremely touchy and sometimes nervous, though cool in battle. His loyalties to such men as Grant and later (though not at first) to Lincoln were so strong as to work sometimes to his peril. On the other hand, his hatred of the press and politicians was also exaggerated, sometimes with dire results.
A strong figure in the Ewing household was the wife and mother, Maria. She was a staunch, devout Roman Catholic, and she raised her children strictly. Her husband, Tom, and Cump did not share her views on religion, but they respected her. The family situation has given rise to the story that Cump’s father had not named him William; rather he had named him Tecumseh. It was Maria, so the story went, who was responsible for William’s Christian name. She is said to have been unable to tolerate the boy lacking a Christian name, and even though the Ewings never formally adopted their four foster children, she insisted that Tecumseh be baptized. Apparently any Christian name would do, and the officiating priest, noting that the date of the baptism was St. William’s Feast, is given credit for naming the boy William. From then on, his name would be William Tecumseh Sherman. It makes a good story, but Sherman, in his memoir, does not mention it. He simply states that his father named him William Tecumseh.1
During the seven years that Sherman resided with the Ewings, he developed an affectionate relationship with one of the Ewing daughters, Eleanor (“Ellen”) Boyle Ewing. Their mutual affinity had to be platonic for a long time because William was five years older than Ellen. (She later admitted being interested in him when she was four years old and he had just arrived at the Ewing home.) Their personal contact was interrupted in 1836, however, when Senator Ewing secured William an appointment to West Point. By then William and Ellen were sufficiently close that the two of them maintained an extensive correspondence while he was a cadet and beyond. West Point regulations forbade a cadet’s leaving the post for a full two years from the date of entry. Fortunately for the two of them, an upper-class cadet from Lancaster was willing to act as a sort of go-between. The letters Cump wrote to Ellen were both lengthy and literate, as well as upbeat and detailed. On one occasion, Ellen sent William a present that included some welcome candy.
Sherman was apparently a happy cadet, and in his letters he described various features around West Point, which provided scenery close to breathtaking. He mentioned such landmarks as Fort Putnam, which had been so important in the American Revolution. He admired the Kosciuszko Monument, dedicated to the Polish engineer who had laid out the West Point defenses that had stopped the British in 1778. In 1839, the nineteen-year-old Cadet Sherman urged the fifteen-year-old Ellen to visit West Point to see all these wonders for herself.2 These letters, many of which have survived and even been published, cast considerable light not only on Sherman himself but also on the American society as it then existed. History is richer for the preservation of their correspondence.
Sherman’s record as a cadet at West Point was creditable but unremarkable. He was highly intelligent, and of the ninety-four “new cadets” who had entered the academy in 1836, his final class standing was sixth out of the forty-seven who had survived that stringent curriculum. He seems to have been driven by no ambition to emulate such model predecessors as Robert E. Lee, who had graduated the same year that Judge Charles Sherman had died in Lancaster. As Sherman described his cadet career,
At the Academy I was not considered a good soldier, for at no time was I selected for any office, but remained a private throughout the whole four years. Then, as now, neatness in dress and form, with a strict conformity to the rules, were the qualifications required for office, and I suppose I was found not to excel in any of these. In studies I always held a respectable reputation with the professors, and generally ranked among the best, especially in drawing, chemistry, mathematics, and natural philosophy. My average demerits, per annum, were about one hundred and fifty, which reduced my final class standing from number four to six.3
One feature of Sherman’s years as a cadet would prove invaluable in the future: the opportunity to become acquainted with many of the cadets he would later serve with and against. The most important of these was Ulysses S. Grant, who entered the academy as a plebe in 1839, Sherman’s first class year, his final at West Point before graduation. Nobody could predict the close relationship that would blossom later, but Sherman took an interest in Grant, especially because both youngsters were from Ohio. In one letter, Sherman described to Ellen his perplexity over the question of how Grant had picked up the nickname of “Sam.” The cadets finally concluded that Grant’s initials, [U]lysses [S]impson, stood for “Uncle Sam,” and the nickname derived from it. Never mind that Grant’s true given name had previously been “Hiram” before some minor official at West Point decided to designate it otherwise.4
In any event, the tall, redheaded boy of twenty graduated from West Point in the Class of 1840 and was assigned to the 3d Artillery, which was stationed along the east coast of Florida. His company, “A,” was located at Fort Pierce, on the Indian River. He was a good officer, and he was content. The assignment, even though the Second Seminole War was still officially on, offered very little by way of orthodox combat experience. By then the Seminoles, who never reconciled themselves to being moved to Oklahoma, had been fairly well scattered, and aside from one attack on the camp gave little trouble. The most valuable aspect of that assignment was common to all new West Point graduates: indoctrination into the realities of the army as it truly existed, in contrast to the high standards, observed under ideal conditions, that all cadets had known on the Hudson River.
Sherman long remembered dramatic incidents. Fort Pierce was a lonely place, and men were allowed to bring their wives, if a woman could be induced to live under such primitive conditions. But the fact that some men had families present and others did not was a potential source of trouble. In one instance a relatively frail soldier found that a husky, burly comrade was hanging around his quarters and paying what he considered undue attention to his wife. After consulting with friends and apparently receiving some encouragement, the husband shot and killed the intruder. No action was taken against him.
Another tragedy, a result of the elements, involved Sherman. A lonely soldier went from Fort Pierce to St. Augustine to meet his young wife and her younger sister, who were to join him at his duty station. The seas were rough, and for some reason the skipper of the small boat was able to get the two women ashore but not the husband. Eventually the boat floundered on a reef in rough waters infested with sharks. The two women, onshore, long held hope that a miracle would save the husband’s life. It was not to be, and it was the duty of Second Lieutenant Sherman to so inform a weeping widow. Other excitement was confined to patrols that were occasionally sent out, and the duty was a good breaking-in.
—
In 1841, about the time of Sherman’s promotion to first lieutenant, the 3d Artillery was transferred to Fort Moultrie, a fortress located just outside Charleston, South Carolina. In contrast to the wild, primitive existence in Florida, the men of the 3d Artillery enjoyed congenial relations with the citizens of Charleston, who were known for their hospitality. Sherman circulated among the elite. In a country in which affairs were conducted by a small group of oligarchs, it was known that Sherman had close connections with a former senator and cabinet officer, and he was treated especially warmly. The four-year tour gave Sherman his first exposure to Southerners, and he could not have failed to sense some of the steel and determination that lay hidden beneath the hospitality and charm. Sherman and General Winfield Scott, who was a Southerner himself, would, in a far-off day, be among the few who understood the mettle of the enemy they were facing in the Civil War.
During all this time Sherman kept up his correspondence with Ellen Ewing. In 1843 he was granted leave to visit his home at Lancaster, and while he was there he became officially engaged to his lifelong confidante. This they arranged over the objections of her father, who, though fond of Sherman, hated to allow his rather sickly daughter to marry into the army and share the rigorous life of a frontier officer. For that reason, as well as Ellen’s poor health, the engagement dragged on for seven years.
Three years later, in April 1846, the United States went to war with Mexico. A year earlier, President James K. Polk had ordered Brigadier General Zachary Taylor to concentrate a small army of about 3,500 men on the Texas border, anticipating annexation of that independent country to the United States. Mexico broke off relations, and Taylor’s army was sent to Corpus Christi, on the Sabine River, and in early 1846 was sent across disputed territory to the spot on the Rio Grande where Brownsville, Texas, now stands. Then, in late April 1846, a Mexican force crossed to the American side and killed or captured the members of an American patrol. President Polk claimed that “American blood” had been shed on “American soil,” and the two countries were at war. It was a heady period, though few Americans expected full-scale war at the time.
Sherman’s days of peacetime military duty were now at an end.
CHAPTER TWO
Before the dramatic news from the Mexican border reached Washington—or even Charleston—Sherman received orders to report to the army’s Eastern Command at Governors Island, New York. On arrival he was assigned to recruiting duty, an important activity, and was to be stationed at Pittsburgh. Accordingly, he and a small contingent took a stagecoach and set up headquarters within a couple of weeks. He was pleased to learn that his area of responsibility included a substation at Zanesville, Ohio, not very far from Lancaster. Any inspection trip to Zanesville could easily afford him a chance to visit home.
In late May events began to move rapidly. On a trip back to Pittsburgh from Zanesville, Sherman learned that war had been formally declared between the United States and Mexico. After the skirmish on the Rio Grande that precipitated the conflict, the Mexican commander at Matamoros, General Pedro de Ampudia, had brought his army across the Rio Grande, where Zachary Taylor’s men, though vastly outnumbered, had fought him to a standstill at Palo Alto. On May 9, the next day, the Mexican army at Resaca de la Palma had been shattered, inflicting heavy loss and forcing Ampudia to flee back across the river. The details were probably not in the dispatches that Sherman received, but the fact that actual fighting had broken out put him in a state of excitement. He decided on the spot that he could no longer tolerate recruiting duty; he had to get into the action.
On arrival back at Pittsburgh, Sherman found a letter waiting for him from Governors Island. His West Point roommate Edward O. C. Ord, like Sherman a member of the 3d Artillery, had received orders to proceed to California, and he was inviting Sherman to join him. Sherman grasped at the opportunity. He was not part of Taylor’s army, but he saw California as the coming theater. He wrote the adjutant general,1 who placed him on orders to join a group traveling by ship to California. Among the others, besides Ord, was a friend from West Point days, Lieutenant Henry Wager Halleck.
On July 14, 1846, Sherman’s packet departed New York City aboard the USS Lexington, an aged warship that had been converted into a “store ship” (freighter) carrying artillery pieces and a great amount of gunpowder. She was bound for California by way of Rio de Janeiro, the Strait of Magellan, and Valparaiso. As Sherman calculated it, the voyage would be twenty-two thousand miles in length and would require several months to complete. (He noted that the trip overland would be something like two thousand miles.)
The Lexington’s long route had her sailing eastward across the Atlantic to a point near Africa in order to make use of the prevailing winds from the west. After crossing the equator she would travel from east to west. Sherman at first hoped that this route would allow a stopover at Madeira, but the captain’s orders specified that the only refueling stations to be visited would be Rio de Janeiro and Valparaiso. So he missed a bit of sightseeing.
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The Lexington was a congenial ship. As the men expected action at the end of the voyage, they were buoyed by a spirit of adventure. The captain was an experienced old sailor who had crossed through the critical and dangerous Strait of Magellan several times. Though his position gave him the power to administer severe discipline, Sherman noted that such action was seldom necessary. There was, in fact, room for a bit of levity on occasion. A great deal, for example, was made of the fact of crossing the equator. In a letter home, Sherman described to Ellen how it was observed:
The ship was pronounced on the equator at eight this forenoon when I was summoned to the Captain’s cabin where a holystone [piece of hard stone used for cleaning decks] was presented for me to rest my hand upon when the following oath was administered by the Captain in person: “You do swear that you will not chew pig-tail when you can get good Cavendish, that you will not eat hard tack when you can get soft bread, unless you like the hard best, that you will not kiss the maid instead of the mistress, unless you like the maid best, and in all other things comport yourself like a true son of Neptune. So help you salt water”—a dash of which was sprinkled in my face. I was then duly initiated, and in my turn administered the same oath to all of our officers on the quarter deck, taking care to baptize them well in salt water.2
The Lexington was carrying ten officers, six from the army and four from the navy. Sherman, as a senior first lieutenant, was the highest-ranking army officer, and according to custom was the channel through whom the captain issued all his orders to the soldiers.
Life for the officers centered around a wardroom, which was surrounded by several officers’ cabins. Sherman shared a stateroom with Ord, and the other four army officers, including Halleck, roomed together. The space in the staterooms was limited, however, and they were used only for sleeping.
The main problem, which each man solved in his own way, was boredom. Fortunately, the running of the ship itself required the full-time efforts of about half the sailors, assisted by a quarter of the soldiers. Since an army officer had to be present to command the soldiers, Sherman found himself on deck duty about one day in four. Otherwise, he passed the time reading and writing letters. As he had great volumes of writing paper on hand—and an amazing eye for detail—his letters to his fiancée were voluminous and informative.3
Arranging for his letters to be delivered was a major problem. In the two ports of call where the Lexington stopped, he found ships heading for the United States to take his letters with them. Selection of couriers was a matter requiring great care. Since the route being followed by the Lexington was well traveled, it was possible at times to join up with a ship at sea bound for home. Not every ship encountered on the ocean would stop, however, and when one did heave to, Sherman would not always find her heading for home. A ship going to New York by way of Le Havre, France, would suffice. As the Lexington went farther along on her voyage, Sherman became less choosy in selecting his couriers.
The Lexington covered the first leg of the trip, to Rio de Janeiro, in two months almost to the day. She stayed in port for nine days, during which Sherman divided his time between sightseeing, which was ample and rewarding, and writing to Ellen. On September 21 the Lexington raised anchor and left Rio, setting out on the most dangerous part of the voyage, the passage around Cape Horn.
At first the Lexington enjoyed generally smooth sailing, with only a couple of storms along the coast of Patagonia, in South America. Even though the time of year corresponded to springtime in the northern hemisphere, the conditions were grim. The land areas were covered with snow, the winds from the west were fearsome, and the ocean currents flowed from the Pacific to the Atlantic.
As had become common practice for all vessels crossing from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the captain of the Lexington avoided using the Strait of Magellan itself, which is a narrow, extremely dangerous channel. Ferdinand Magellan had discovered it in 1520, after thirty-eight days waiting at the east entrance while scouting parties determined whether the strait actually led to open ocean on the west. The next significant traversing was that of Sir Francis Drake, 150 years later. Drake actually used Magellan’s strait, but he made a note that he believed a wider, safer passage existed south of Tierra del Fuego, the island south of Magellan’s passage. Thus, when this much wider passage was confirmed in the 1600s, it was named after Drake. That route was the one selected by the captain of the Lexington.
Though the Drake Passage is preferable to the Strait of Magellan, both have been generally considered the most dangerous waterways on the globe. Temperatures are extremely low and the winds strong, creating monster waves, some of them reaching crests of a hundred feet. The captain of the Lexington was forced to wait at the eastern entrance for thirty days before beginning passage. The passage itself took only twelve days.
Such a long wait was nothing unusual; nor was it uncommon for a ship to be tossed around. Sherman noted, with a touch of amusement, that tradition of the sea forbade complaint. An individual might be hurled from his seat at the dinner table, or his plate dumped into his lap, but anyone undergoing such an experience—it happened to everyone at least once—was required to laugh; any other reaction was verboten among his fellows.
On October 28, Sherman wrote Ellen, “The Horn is passed, and all now look upon our arrival at Valparaiso as a matter of course.”4 That optimism, however, was premature. An unexpected gale of wind blew the ship from the Pacific Ocean back into the Drake Passage. Once more out of the passage, however, sailing was smooth. The Lexington arrived at Valparaiso on November 24, 1846.
Unlike the enthusiasm Sherman had held for everything in Rio, he did not care much for Valparaiso. For some reason, when his cohorts Ord and Halleck made the sixty-mile trip inland to Santiago, Sherman did not accompany them. He was, he claimed, too busy with business and pleasure in the town. The business probably involved sending and receiving mail, but Sherman also witnessed a steeplechase, attended church, and took in an opera. He visited the British minister and conferred with the officers of some of His Majesty’s ships in the harbor. He noted an interesting matter of social structure. Whereas in Rio de Janeiro all manual labor and toting of bales was done by black slaves from Africa, in Chile no such slaves existed. Physical labor was performed by free men. Sherman was slightly amused to observe the efforts that menial laborers exerted to assure visitors that they were, despite the nature of their work, caballeros—gentlemen.
During the Lexington’s stay in Valparaiso, a couple of ships from California arrived, bound for Cape Horn. They brought jarring news. The Americans, they reported, had already taken possession of California, overcoming the weak resistance of the Californios. Having done so, the conquerors had begun squabbling among themselves as to who among them was actually in charge. The important thing to Sherman, however, was that the Lexington, with all its guns and ammunition, was arriving in a region where the fighting had ceased. He was therefore going not to a combat zone, but to an occupied territory where his duties would be administrative. It was quite a blow to an officer with career ambitions.
Sherman pondered issues wider than his own career. The United States had now become a power that owned foreign territory. In his conversations with a newly arrived British admiral at Valparaiso, he gathered that the British were not happy with America’s entrance onto the international stage. Yet he finally concluded that President Polk had been justified in annexing the area. He conjectured that in the absence of such action, another country, possibly Britain, would have taken California instead.
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On December 5, 1846, the Lexington set sail from Santiago, bound for California. Sherman had little to report on that leg of the voyage other than a couple of severe storms, which were to be expected. The final destination of the Lexington was uncertain. The captain divulged only that they were bound for some somewhere in northern California—probably either Monterey or San Francisco. Sherman hoped that they were headed for San Francisco, eighty miles beyond Monterey,5 because that region was relatively pristine. The Monterey area had been occupied by the Mexican Californios since 1821. He had been told that the barracks in Monterey were “flea-bitten.” Rumor had given him much by way of previous knowledge.
The mere fact that this leg of the journey was relatively uneventful did not mean it was short. On January 26, some fifty days after leaving Valparaiso, the Lexington pulled into the Bay of Monterey. Whether Sherman’s artillery would remain there or go on to San Francisco was not certain.
Sherman, it turned out, was to be assigned to headquarters at Monterey. Once there, he learned the details of the American takeover of California, of the aggressive and probably illegal actions of Commodore Robert F. Stockton in Los Angeles, of the role of the exploration party of John C. Frémont, and of Commodore John D. Sloat’s taking Monterey. He was also aware that Brigadier General Stephen Watts Kearny had arrived at San Diego, after a grueling trip overland, on December 12, 1846, and that Frémont had defied him by declaring himself governor, despite the fact that Kearny carried orders from President Polk to take over as governor.
The matter had been finally settled with the arrival of Commodore William Shubrick in early February, with a regiment of troops. As a regular soldier, Sherman personally favored Sloat and Kearny in that unfortunate internecine quarrel. Frémont and Stockton, it is widely held, had done more harm than good. One Californio advised Sherman that had it not been for their antics, the native population would have submitted to American rule without firing a shot.6
Kearny was a hero to Sherman. It was a big day, therefore, when the general came from the Cyane and visited the Independence while he was there:
Where to Download American General: The Life and Times of William Tecumseh Sherman, by John S.D. Eisenhower
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18 of 21 people found the following review helpful. "War is cruelty" but this biogrphy is a great read. By James D. Miller Military Historian John S. D. Eisenhower, was a Brigadier-General in the U.S. Army Reserves, served as the United States’ Ambassador to Belgium during the first term of the Nixon Administration, and was the son of President Dwight D. and Mamie (Doud) Eisenhower.Eisenhower, the author of numerous works of military history and biography including “Agent of Destiny: The Life and Times of General Winfield Scott,” “So Far From God: The U.S. War with Mexico 1846-1848,” and “Zachary Taylor,” died at Trappe, Maryland on December 21, 2013. At the time of his death he was the oldest living presidential child. His final book, “American General: The life and Times of William Tecumseh Sherman,” was being made ready for publication at the time of his death and will be published posthumously on October 7, 2014.“American General” is a short womb-to-tomb biography surveying the life of William Tecumseh Sherman, a Major-General in the Union Army during the American Civil War, and later General of the Army of the United States. Sherman, often referred to as “the first modern general” is a polarizing figure of the Civil War depending on which side of the Mason-Dixon line one hails, his is either a hero or a villain, and rarely anything in between. Eisenhower’s biography is not heavy on historical minutia, relying heavily on secondary sources and published letters, “American General” is a brief synthesis of Sherman’s life. His engaging narrative moves quickly from event to event from his birth to his death.While there is nothing new between its covers “American General” is a solid biography of Sherman, though there are a more than a couple of errors of a typographical nature (such as dates of the wrong year) that should Mr. Eisenhower have been alive at the time of publication surely would have been caught, but they few and their actual meaning is clear and they do not interrupt Eisenhower’s easily read narrative.“American General” is well written and adequately researched. Though there is nothing really “new” within it, it is still an excellent biography of one of America’s most memorable generals, and would serve as a great introduction to those who have only a basic knowledge of the man who was William Tecumseh Sherman.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful. Enjoyable as an easy read, but it lacks depth. By Kurt R. Nelson The late John Eisenhower's writing style makes for easy reading. It is a "quick" read because of his style, but also because a lack of insight. Sherman's life is told, but what is lacking is any attempt at delving into the why of his actions, some of which are critical for understanding the interaction of the players. Sherman's association with Halleck is merely passed off as because they knew each other from before the war. I would recommend many other books for a better understanding, such as Flood's Grant and Sherman.Enjoyable as an easy read, but it lacks depth.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful. I found this to be an extremely erudite, well ... By Papachoochoo I found this to be an extremely erudite, well researched and concise biography of William T. Sherman. It delves into his life before the Civil War and after the Civil War and is a concise history of Sherman during the Civil War. While there is nothing new, I question whether any thing new would be discovered after some one hundred and forty years, it will provide the reader with a clear understanding of William T. Sherman the man and the General.
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