Sherman

Sherman: A Soldier’s Passion for Order. By John F. Marszalek. (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, c. 1993. Pp. xxiv+635).

The name William Tecumseh Sherman holds a firm and noteworthy place in Civil War history. Following the capture of Atlanta, his famous March to the Sea, and the eventual forced surrender of Joe Johnston’s force in the Carolinas, only Ulysses Grant’s fame could match that of his close friend. Sherman: A Soldier’s Passion for Order, John Marszalek’s biography of the Civil War hero, places the general’s Civil War career in the context of a man searching for order and stability in his own life. Marszalek sees this theme of order defining Sherman’s life, and thus his biographical treatment.

The future war-hero was born as Tecumseh Sherman in Lancaster, Ohio to a line of successful businessmen. When his father Charles suddenly died in 1829, he shockingly left his family financially adrift. This forced Charles’ widow Mary to give away their children for foster care, as she could not provide for them. Tecumseh went to the family of Thomas Ewing, a powerful neighbor. This traumatic event haunted Sherman, and as the boy grew up, Tecumseh became obsessed with the prospect of supporting himself. Sherman was determined not to follow the path of his father. Ewing and his family accepted Tecumseh as one of their own, and had him baptized as a Roman Catholic, where he received the Christian name “William.” Though Sherman never accepted the Catholic faith beyond this point, it proved to be a source of strain between him and his eventual wife, Ellen, Thomas Ewing’s devoted daughter and Sherman’s foster sister. The wealthy and powerful Ewing provided a strong home for Sherman, and as a member of Congress secured a desired position at West Point for young William. Sherman treasured his years at the Academy, returning whenever the opportunity arose. He also welcomed Army life, as it provided structure and a family connection he could not feel anywhere else. Sherman’s post-graduation career consisted of terms in and out of the Army, with stints in Florida, California and St. Louis, with a failed business venture in San Francisco making his life particularly difficult.

In the 1850s, Sherman finally found some measure of peace when he accepted the position of headmaster at a Louisiana military college. Unfortunately, this would eventually fall apart with the nation in 1860. Sherman went north, convinced the South was wrong in taking up arms against the United States. His prior army experience and the influence of Ewing and his own brother, Representative Thomas Sherman, netted Sherman an officer’s commission. Eventually Sherman went west, and made a name for himself serving under Grant at Shiloh and Vicksburg. When Grant took command of the entire Union war effort, Sherman took command in the west. His capture of Atlanta in late 1864 proved crucial to the eventual Union victory, but nothing compared to what would follow. His December March to the Sea is the source of much legend, and Marszalek takes care to separate fact from fiction. Sherman and his men foraged, and burned what materials they felt necessary, but once a site surrendered, the army worked tirelessly to restore order. This, combined with his generous surrender terms for Joe Johnston in 1865, actually increased Sherman’s standing in the South as a benevolent force. While this leniency created short-term political problems, his massive success quickly overshadowed it. Sherman had achieved success on his own, without assistance from Ewing or anyone else.

The chaos of Reconstruction soon replaced the neatly ordered world of the wartime army. Though Sherman remained in the military, quelling Indian problems in the West, he also faced battles with politicians whose meddling and opinions he did not respect. The situation worsened when Sherman’s close friend Grant became President. Rather than leaving the army to the generals, Grant consistently deferred to his political advisors, damaging the close friendship of the Civil War’s brightest stars. Sherman’s continued role in the army as well as his ability to remain in the public eye continuously encouraged sentiment that the general would run for President. This feeling reached its apex in 1884, when events at the Republican convention forced Sherman to famously state that, “I will not accept if nominated and will not serve if elected.” To his death in 1891, Sherman remained in the public eye due to his outgoing and friendly nature. His long career of service to his country eventually was able to provide the security for his family that he so long desired.

Based mostly on Sherman’s personal correspondence, but filled in with other detail, Marszalek’s biography does justice to the War’s hero. Though the author supports and identifies his thesis of Sherman’s desire for order and security with the subtlety of the general’s March to the Sea, it is hardly an unsupportable claim. This detailed and comprehensive biography gives great insight into the general and the man.

Texas Christian University Keith Altavilla

Sherman: A Soldier’s Passion for Order. By John Marszalek. New York: The Free Press, 1993. Pp. xvi-635.

During his life some called him crazy, others thought he was brilliant, and many more applied various phrases in an attempt to understand an American Civil War legend. In his well written book, Marszalek presents an in depth look at William Tecumseh Sherman as a man trying to find some sense of consistency and balance that underpinned his entire life—his fears, his motivations, his sense of order. The author emerges with a psychohistory of Sherman, applying a general psychological construct, at times somewhat liberally, to explain Sherman’s actions, beliefs, successes, and failures.

At the age of nine, Sherman’s father suddenly died leaving his mother overwhelmed with massive debt and the disorder created on her family of eleven. To ease this burden and provide Sherman with a better life, his mother sent him to live with the Ewing family, who eventually took him in as one their own. From this experience the author maintains Sherman acquired a dread of social instability, which he saw as incipient anarchy—and he considered almost any measure justified to restore order. Furthermore, Marszalek implies the pressure caused by Sherman’s stepfather added to this insatiable hunger for order, pinning his success on Ewing’s approval. This pattern emerges again and again throughout the work, and the author uses it to explain Sherman’s philosophy toward and actions during the Seminole War, the California gold rush, his personal relationship with his wife Ellen, his support of slavery, his disdain for secession, and his actions during and after the Civil War. In almost every attempt, Sherman proved unable to strike the kind of order he wanted, and as a result most of his life reflects that of a tragic hero.

The only system that provided Sherman with a sense of order and accomplishment proved to be the military. His time at West Point helped establish him a solid reputation and allowed him to excel, where before there had been only failure. Wanting to gain financial independence and the blessing of the Ewing family, Sherman left the military for the civilian life as a banker in California and New York, and then as an educator in Louisiana. Just as order seemed almost attainable, the fallout caused by secession threatened the national balance. Though Sherman had a great admiration for the South, its people, and upheld a belief in the system of slavery, he placed the survival of the Union and the order created by it as more important.

During the early battles of the Civil War, Sherman internalized the failings of the Union as an outgrowth of his own personal failures. The debacle at Bull Run and his inability to find success in gaining recruits in Missouri and Kentucky had harmed his ego, but being labeled by the press as insane sent him into depression and lethargy. Luckily, Sherman’s luck changed beginning with his actions during the battle of Shiloh and his role as military governor in Memphis. These successes brought him back from the brink and provided him with a sense of confidence in his abilities. Also, Sherman had finally earned the respect of his wife and his stepfather. According to Marszalek, U.S. Grant had much to do with these new developments in Sherman’s life. Grant provided Sherman with a comparative example of what one could accomplish even in distressing circumstances. Grant’s leadership and Sherman’s logistical mind proved to be a wonderful combination in the battlefield.

Marszalek attempts to refine the image of Sherman as destroyer of the South. He uses the concepts of psychological and total war to underpin his actions on the March to the Sea. Sherman believed war was no half measure and should be ended as quickly as possible. The only way to accomplish this was through wholesale destruction while fighting, followed by a swift and fair peace that brought Southerners back into the system. Marszalek underscores this point by showing Sherman’s disdain for pitched battles and the lack of heavy casualties.

Though the success of the war brought him much esteem, Sherman proved unable to resist his constant quest for financial security and his more important quest for order. “Cump” found disdain in the efforts of reconstruction and decided to take the fight to the Native Americans in the west. Like his stance on blacks, Sherman considered the Indian as inferior, but did not advocate total extermination. Instead, he once again advocated total war as the only to end the conflict and bring order to a chaotic situation.

Although Marszalek research proves strong and commendable, the overarching premise for the work—Sherman’s search for order—and the author’s constant insistence on the dynamic’s all purpose explanation fails to convince this reader.

Sherman: A Soldier’s Passion for Order. By John F. Marszalek. New York: The Free Press, 1993.

William Tecumseh Sherman remains today a towering figure in Civil War historiography. John F. Marszalek probes Sherman’s motivations and familial relationships in pointed detail in his award-winning book, Sherman: A Soldier’s Passion for Order. Intelligently argued and well written, Sherman contributes significantly to the existing body of work about the man and his times, and Marszalek provides balanced and intriguing insight into Sherman’s passionate quest for financial and familial stability.

Young Tecumseh Sherman’s life changed drastically when in 1829 his father died suddenly, leaving his large family without income or prospects for anything but a meager survival. As Mary Sherman found the only way to ensure for her children a chance at survival was to place the oldest Sherman children in the care of various family and friends; a wealthy neighbor, Senator Thomas Ewing, adopted Tecumseh at age nine, christening him William. Marszalek identifies Sherman’s entry into the Ewing home as the point at which his need to create an ordered life began. Although the Ewing family embraced their new charge with much affection and as one of their own, Sherman from a very young age strove for independence from his stepfather. He entered West Point in 1836, and after graduation, he served in artillery during the Mexican American War, though he felt stymied by the lack of action he saw. He married Ellen Ewing, his stepsister, in May of 1850, and there began a lasting although not entirely harmonious relationship wherein Ellen served as her husband’s rock to which he could always turn in times of distress or calamity. The couple quickly started a family, retaining close ties with the Ewing family as well.

In 1860, after having left the army in 1853 to pursue financial stability in the civilian sector, Sherman rejoined the military to show his strong desire to restore and uphold the Union, despite his sympathy toward slaveholders. Eventually rising in the ranks to a generalship, where he finally found success as one of the most tenacious and loyal leaders of the Federal war effort, Sherman was well loved and respected by his soldiers and peers. His close relationship with Ulysses S. Grant provided him guidance and support, but as Marszalek tends to focus primarily on Sherman’s familial relationships, the topic receives less than exhaustive coverage. After the war, Sherman basked in the praise heaped upon him, serving as the commanding general of the United States Army after Grant ascended to the presidency through 1883, where he found his job hindered by the distasteful workings of democratic politics. He died peacefully on February 14, 1891, a man beloved by those who knew him personally and by his nation.

Regarding military tactics, Marszalek asserts that Sherman came to adopt fully the total war mentality in 1862, when he served as military governor of Memphis, Tennessee. There, Sherman came to understand that “war was more than soldiers, more than set conflict. The idea that war included the entire populace—its determination to fight and its material goods—became evident to him” (p. 189). His later conduct during his March to the Sea conforms to this idea, as he sought to wage psychological warfare upon the South, rewarding Southerners when they acknowledged their treachery against the Union, and punishing them when they refused to do so. Sherman was not a cruel or vindictive man; and though many in the South (even the twentieth century South) vilify his persona, Sherman saw destruction as a means to an end: the restoration of the Union.

John F. Marszalek has produced a readable and well-researched text in Sherman: A Soldier’s Passion for Order. While the author perhaps overemphasizes Sherman’s psychological need to free himself from his stepfather’s shadow, the book nonetheless greatly contributes to our understanding of William Tecumseh Sherman’s motivations, character traits, and long career. Drawn from a solid base of both primary and secondary sources, Marszalek’s conclusions illustrate the complexities of its subject’s desire to balance his private and public life, especially regarding his close-knit family. Marszalek avoids either excessive praise or harsh criticism of Sherman, instead showing both the positive and negative traits of a fallible human being. Sherman is recommended for scholars and lay readers alike, as the text is accessible and fast-paced, as well as clearly written and thought provoking.