William tecumseh sherman
William tecumseh shermanIf 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...
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