General William Tecumseh Sherman
Learn About the Leaders of the Great American Civil War, Buy A Book Today !
Cick on Book Cover
|
|
Memoirs of General William T. Sherman
by William T. Sherman, William
S. McFeely
|
William T. Sherman was Ulysses S. Grant's staunchest ally in the Union
Army; in 1862 he even dissuaded his friend from resigning. This opinionated work on the leader of the merciless March to the Sea takes issue with many previous biographies. According to Stanley Hirshon, Sherman was not a racist (at least, not by 19th-century standards), not a philanderer (though he liked to flirt), and not a bad general (though he lost a lot of battles). The author makes a persuasive case for these contentions in his strongly argued text. |
Sherman's March
by Burke Davis
|
Sherman's March is the vivid narrative of General William T. Sherman's devastating sweep through Georgia and the Carolinas in the closing days of the Civil War. Weaving together hundreds of eyewitness stories, Burke Davis graphically brings to life the dramatic experiences of the 65,000 Federal troops who plundered their way through the South and those of the anguished -- and often defiant -- Confederate women and men who sought to protect themselves and their family treasures, usually in vain. Dominating these events is the general himself -- "Uncle Billy" to his troops, the devil incarnate to the Southerners he encountered.
"What gives this narrative its unusual richness is the author's collation
of
|
Sherman's Civil War : Selected Correspondence
of William T. Sherman, 1860-1865
by William T. Sherman,
Jean V. Berlin
|
General William Tecumseh Sherman, perhaps the Union Army's fiercest
and most complicated soldier, wages war in these letters against the Confederacy, the pressand himself. Much of the general's correspondence has been published previously, but this collection of 400 letters compiled by Simpson (History/Univ. of Arizona; The Reconstruction Presidents, 1998) and Berlin (who served on the editorial staff for The Papers of George Washington) restores some of the general's more colorful comments and prints for the first time other letters in manuscript collections. His letters, by his own admission occasionally ``imprudent,'' are not only essential for all serious Civil War scholars, but also a delight for the general reader. Sherman constantly, reveals the manifold aspects of his personality: self-doubt, depression, conservatism, intelligence, cynicism, honesty, loyalty to country and comrades, love of family, and courage. The letters begin in late 1860, when Sherman, as head of the Louisiana State Seminary and Military Academy, warns that secession will be ``a crime against civilization'' that will unleash anarchy. Over the next four years, Sherman writes of the battles and campaigns that made him immortal. Along the way, he discusses race relations, Reconstruction, strategy, his growing partnership with Ulysses S. Grant, and his major bugaboo, the press (``the most contemptible race of men that exist''). He bewails how rumors of his insanity in late 1861 will disgrace the family name, then recovers his self-confidence by degrees in battle. He vents despair over the death of son Willie. Above all, we witness the evolution in his perception that the will of Southern civilians must be broken in order for the war to end (e.g., telling officials who protest resettlement of Atlanta's civilians, I myself have seen . . . women & children fleeing from your armies and desperadoes, hungry and with burning feet . . . . Now that war comes home to you, you feel very different''). A classic of Civil War literature worthy of a place beside the general's own Memoirs. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. |
Citizen Sherman : A Life of William
Tecumseh Sherman (Modern War Studies)
|
Those readers familiar with the life and career of William Tecumseh
Sherman know he was rarely a happy person. When he was nine, Sherman's widowed, destitute mother "farmed" him out to be the ward of the prosperous Ewing family; Sherman never fully warmed to his foster father, and he nursed a sense of rejection and alienation all his life. Like his mentor, U. S. Grant, Sherman endured the shame of business failure as a civilian before the war, and he remained subject to periodic bouts of severe anxiety and depression. Although his marriage endured the strains of prolonged physical separations, Sherman's feelings toward his wife (who was also his foster sister) ranged from irrational resentment to an abject sense of inadequacy for failing to meet her emotional and sometimes financial needs. In tracing his subject's life, Fellman is moving over well-traveled ground. However, his probing into Sherman's deeper motivations and feelings makes for fascinating reading and speculation. If Fellman seems alternately entranced and repelled by Sherman's actions and personality traits, it seems a natural reaction to one of our most enigmatic and frustrating military figures. Jay Freeman Copyright© 1995, American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. |