William Tecumseh Sherman: In the Service of My Country

I just finished reading Professor James Lee McDonough's wonderful new biography of General Sherman.  This is a traditional "old school" biography which tells the story of the subjects life in a narrative form.

Sherman is a truly fascinating character.  His father, a lawyer and early justice of the Ohio Supreme Court, had an admiration for the Seneca Chief Tecumseh who tried to unite the Indian tribes to fight the United States.  Sherman's father died when Sherman was nine years old.   Being unable to care for her children, Sherman's mother divided up the children and sent them to live with various family members and friends. Sherman was sent to live with the family of U.S. Senator Thomas Ewing.  Ewing's wife was staunchly Catholic and raised all of her children as Catholics.  Although raised in a devout Catholic home, Sherman always refused to accept the Catholic faith.  Sherman eventually married Ellen Ewing whom he had been raised with.  Ellen was a very devout Catholic and reared all of the Sherman children in the Catholic faith.  Ellen's staunch religious views would be a source of contention between her and "Cump" (Sherman's childhood nickname) for the rest of their lives.

Sherman during the Atlanta Campaign

Sherman's career both before and after the Civil War are just as fascinating as his Civil War service.  As a young army officer, Sherman fought the Seminole Indians in Florida and was present in California when gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill which launched the California Gold Rush.  Resigning from the army, Sherman took a job managing a bank in San Francisco.  Sherman weathered an economic downturn and a run on the bank, only to have the bank fail because the home bank in St. Louis failed.  For a short time, Sherman managed a bank on Wall Street until it too failed. For a very short period of time, Sherman tried to practice law, which also ended in financial disaster. For the rest of his life, Sherman hated bankers and lawyers.

Sherman in later life.

The eve of the Civil War found Sherman as the Superintendent of the State Military Academy in Louisiana.  It seems strange to say that Sherman loved the South and liked Southerners.  His early days as an army officer were spent in Florida, South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama.  Sherman became good friends with a number of prominent Southerners during his army service.

Resigning his position in Louisiana after that State seceded from the Union, Sherman returned to the army and led a division with some distinction at the battle of First Bull Run.  As a commander in Kentucky early in the war, Sherman had what can only be described as a nervous breakdown. Sherman realized that Southerners intended to fight to the bitter end and that it would be a long and bloody war of conquest.  Everybody thought Sherman was crazy and he was almost sent home in disgrace.  Fortunately, General Grant salvaged Sherman's career and gave him command of an army corps.  As Sherman was later to write, "Grant stood by me when I was crazy, and I stood by him when he was drunk.  Now we stand by each other always."

Professor McDonough goes into great detail regarding Sherman's generalship.  Sherman disdained large battles with huge loss of life and sought to carry on a war of maneuver.  McDonough has high praise for Sherman's generalship, although he sees the march through the Carolinas as much more challenging than the vaunted "March to the Sea."

Sherman's relationship with African Americans is also interesting.  Sherman was a racist who often employed the "N" word.  He believed that blacks were inferior and should not be given full citizenship.  After the war, Sherman advocated ending reconstruction and giving control back to former Confederates so long as they were now loyal to the Union.  Sherman's career after the war sees him leading the U.S. Army's efforts against the Plains Indians.  Although Sherman generally felt that the Indians had been mistreated by the whites, he clearly saw them as inferior to whites and made some statements to the effect that it might be better to just wipe some of the tribes out altogether.

James Lee McDonough, Professor Emeritus of History, Auburn University

Sherman is an endlessly fascinating character, which is why another Sherman biography is not a waste of time.  Professor McDonough's book is well written and enjoyable.  Five out of five cannons.   

THE CONFEDERACY'S LAST HURRAH

It's probably not politically correct anymore to even study Civil War history.  Seemingly we have reached a point where we will be required to white wash any history that the ruling elite doesn't like.

After a visit to Franklin, TN in May I got back interested in reading about The Late Unpleasantness With the North.  I have had this book sitting around for a long time and decided to read it.  Originally published in hardback in 1992 as Embrace an Angry Wind: The Confederacy's Last Hurrah: Spring Hill, Franklin & Nashville and released in paperback simply as The Confederacy's Last Hurrah, this is currently the best account of the Army of Tennessee's ill fated 1864 Autumn Campaign now in print.

Written by independent scholar Wiley Sword, the book is well written, well researched and entertaining.  In recent years Sword has come under fire by apologists for Confederate General John B. Hood who object to Sword's portrayal of the General.  Hood apologist and distant relative Stephen Hood has pointed out errors in some of Sword's statements and conclusions.  I find these errors and distortions to be minor.  The Confederacy's Last Hurrah is an excellent book.

Author Wiley Sword

Sword especially takes fire for describing in detail General Hood's relationship and failed engagement to the beautiful young Southern Belle Sally "Buck" Preston.  Although the "moon light and magnolia" romance lends nothing to the military history it does show that Civil War Generals were real flesh and blood human beings who have all of the problems and weaknesses that human beings have.  It also makes for very entertaining reading.

General John Bell Hood, C.S.A.

Sword has also been criticized for alluding that General Hood may have made bad military decisions because he was high on laudanum because of his horrific battle injuries.  (Hood had an arm mangled at Gettysburg and lost a leg at Chickamauga.)  I don't think that there is any doubt that in his crippled condition, regardless of how good his mind was, Hood was not in good enough physical shape for the rigors of commanding a Civil War army in the field.   Hood would have been fine for the job that Jefferson Davis gave Braxton Bragg, to sit around in Richmond and advise the President on strategy. But hours in the saddle in the field had to be taxing on a physically fit man, it was probably brutal on a man in Hood's condition.

Sally "Buck" Preston

It's obvious that Wiley Sword thinks that John Bell Hood was a bad general.  He's entitled to his opinion.  I tend to agree with Bruce Catton that at the stage of the war when Hood was appointed to command the Army of Tennessee there was no good decision that he could make.  Any decision Hood made was going to be a bad one.   By the summer of 1864, in order to win, any Confederate general was going to have to take long chances.  Jefferson Davis fired Joe Johnston because the President perceived that Johnston wouldn't fight.  Hood was expected to fight for Atlanta and that's what he proceeded to do.  Hood's plans were not bad on paper - but the execution of them always seemed to get bungled.

The invasion of Tennessee was controversial even then.  Hood pulled his troops out of Georgia and left Georgia to the mercy of Sherman and headed for Tennessee.  The best chance for victory in Tennessee came at Spring Hill when the Army of Tennessee almost trapped an entire Federal Army Corps.  The failure at Spring Hill is due to several factors.  As Sword points out, due to Hood's physical condition he left matters primarily to his subordinates and rather than going to the front himself and pushing the attack, Hood retired to his headquarters for rest.  A man in good physical condition would have probably gone to the front himself and pushed the attack like Stonewall Jackson did.  The escape of the Federal Army at Spring Hill was not entirely Hood's fault.  As Sword points out, Hood's lieutenants served him poorly at the Battle of Spring Hill.

There is considerable controversy over whether the disastrous assault at Franklin the next day, was ordered by Hood as a punishment for the Army allowing the Federals to escape at Spring Hill.  There is no doubt that Hood was livid at his subordinates for their bungling.  Time and again Civil War Generals ordered frontal assaults on prepared positions which in retrospect should not have been made.   Burnside assaulted Marye's Heights at Fredricksburg, Lee assaulted Cemetery Ridge at Gettysburg, Sherman assaulted Cheatham's Hill at Kennesaw Mountain, and Grant assaulted the formidable Confederate position at Cold Harbor.  Hood was certainly not alone among Civil War Generals in ordering a disastrous front assault.

I don't think that Hood realized how well the Union Army was entrenched at Franklin.  And except for a few accidents of war, like a Yankeee Brigade accidentally resting where it could repulse the Confederate breach of the line, Hood's assault at Franklin almost worked.  Nobody could have predicted the horrendous casualties that would be suffered by the Army of Tennessee on that day.  To the extent that Sword insinuates that Hood may have ordered the attack to impress his girlfriend, that's just nonsense.  Sword also says some unkind things about Hood's post-war marriage and says that he fathered 11 children in order to show he was a still a man.  Stephen Hood is right that Sword's comments along these lines are just plain mean.

The so called siege of Nashville by the Army of Tennessee was a forlorn hope.  That it would eventually repulsed and the Rebel army beaten back were almost a foregone conclusion.

I have left out of the above a lot of really interesting reading in this book regarding the politics and squabbling among the Union High Command during the Autumn Campaign.

The Confederacy's Last Hurrah is a very good book.  Highly recommended. 

CONFEDERATES IN THE ATTIC

Twenty years ago, in the mid-1990's, journalist Tony Horowitz made a trek through the South to discover why Southerners are still so obsessed by the Civil War (or the Late Unpleasantness With the North, or the War Between the States, or the War Against Yankee Aggression).

As you would expect, Tony wound up talking to every eccentric and nut job in every town he visited. He talks to fanatical neo-Confederates who are ready to continue the war and militant radical black activists who want to tear down every Confederate memorial and denounce Robert E. Lee as a "criminal."  Horowitz came in for several close calls in a couple of biker bars he visited.  It was also very amusing every time one of his subjects began to cuss "The Jews,"  Sometimes the Jewish Horowitz would let it go and other times he would say, "I'm Jewish."  One neo-Confederate responded, "Then you know what I'm talking about."

He found the real last Confederate widow, living in rural South Alabama, who was briefly married to an elderly veteran in the 1920s when she was a teenager.  I was fascinated that she said that he was so old "I called him Mr. Martin, even in bed."  Although Heritage groups had pumped up old man Martin's service record to make him a hero of the Army of Northern Virginia, Horwitz hired a researcher to comb through the archives and find out the truth.  Martin was drafted as a teenager in 1864 and sent to Virginia.  Hospitalized for the Measles, Martin just left and went back home to Alabama.  The regimental rolls listed him as a deserter for the rest of the war.  Martin's brother, who was also drafted at the same time was killed.

Robert Lee Hodge

Everybody's favorite character is "hardcore" reenactor Robert Lee Hodge. (They don't like to be called reenactors, they prefer the term "Living Historians").    Hodge wants everything to be period perfect and criticizes reenactors who he doesn't think are true to the Civil War period. (Anything that is out of sinc with the mid-19th century is "Farb").  With Hodge dressed as a ragged Confederate and Horwitz as a Yankee soldier, Hodge takes Horwitz on a whirl-wind tour of Civil War battlefields and musuems that Hodge calls "The Civil Wargasm."

Confederate History

At that time, in the mid 90's there was a lot of controversy going on about whether the Confederate Battle Flag should be removed from State Flags and State Capitol Buildings.  Horowitz's interviews with protesters on both sides of the issue is fascinating.

Confederate Kitsch

Also great reading in this book is Horowitz's interview with Shelby Foote (1916-2005).  Every much as eccentric as some of the others Horowitz interviewed, Foote still wrote his books in longhand and answered his own phone without a secretary.

Even twenty years later, Confederates In the Attic: Dispatches From the Unfinished Civil War is a very good read.  Five out of Five Stars and Bars.

Tony Horwitz and his wife, novelist Geraldine Brooks