Great Commanders, General Sherman E-Book

General Manning Force

• Herausgeber: Charles River Editors
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 536

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

The Pergamum Collection publishes books history has long forgotten. We transcribe books by hand that are now hard to find and out of print.

Das E-Book Great Commanders, General Sherman wird angeboten von Charles River Editors und wurde mit folgenden Begriffen kategorisiert:
william tecumseh sherman; civil war; union; ulysses s grant; memoirs of william t sherman

Leseprobe

CHAPTER I.ANTE BELLUM.

William Tecumseh Sherman came from brainy stock. His brother Charles, his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather were judges; Roger Sherman, signer of the Declaration of Independence, William M. Evarts, Senator and Judge Hoar were collateral kindred. All were descended from Edmond Sherman, who emigrated from Dedham, Essex County, England, and was in Boston with three sons before 1636. Taylor Sherman, born in 1758 and died in 181 5, great-great-great-grandson of Edmond Sherman, was lawyer and judge in Norwalk, Conn. He received two sections of land in Ohio as compensation for his services as one of the commissioners who settled the title and boundaries of the Fire Lands in the Connecticut Western Reserve in Ohio.

Charles Robert, son of Taylor Sherman, was admitted to the bar in Norwalk, married there Mary Hoyt, migrated to Ohio, and settled in Lancaster in 1811, being then twenty-one years old. He was held in high esteem, and was appointed judge of the Supreme Court of the State in 1821, and remained on the bench till his death, in 1829. He conceived a great admiration for Tecumseh, who figured conspicuously in Ohio in the War of 1812, and when his third son was born, February 8, 1820, gave him the name William Tecumseh. He died poor, but left to his large family of children the rich inheritance of a good name. The widowed mother was unable to care for them, but friends gladly took to their homes and adopted the children of Judge Sherman. William Tecumseh was adopted by a neighbor and friend of his father, Thomas Ewing.

Lancaster lay amid a stretch of fertile lands by the winding river, almost under the rocky eminence of Mount Pleasant. When Sherman was a boy the original pioneers who planted their cabins there in the trackless forest had barely passed away. It was a small town; its population in 1846 was only 2,120. But it had a notable society—notable for ability, character, and graceful hospitality. The central figure was Thomas Ewing. He was a man of powerful frame and majestic bearing. He was in youth a noted athlete. He could jump higher, leap farther, and run faster than any competitor, and was famed for being the only man who could throw an axe over the courthouse. His mind was as vigorous as his body. He was recognized as the master intellect in Ohio. The State sent him several times to the national Senate, and he was a member of the Cabinet under President Harrison and President Taylor. Politics never weaned him from his devotion to law. In the first cases that he tried he excited surprise, and won reputation by discovering unexpected points which determined the cases in his favor. Daniel Webster in his last days often associated Mr. Ewing with him in important cases. After Webster’s death, Ewing was the leader of the American bar. James G. Blaine said of him: “He was a grand and massive man, almost without peers. With no little familiarity and acquaintance with the leading men of the day, I can truly say I never met one who impressed me so profoundly.”

The lawyers of Lancaster, competing with him in almost every case, were kept continually on their mettle; and the bar of this little country town comprised, besides Mr. Ewing and Judge Sherman, Hocking Hunter, recognized as one of the most accurate and soundest lawyers in the State, and Henry Stanbery, whose reputation was national, who became Attorney-General of the United States, as well as others, also able, though less known. Governor Medill, who filled with distinction many important offices, both State and national, lived in Lancaster after 1832. Young Sherman was fortunate to grow up under the care of good teachers, and more fortunate in having the unconscious training of daily contact with choice spirits.

In the spring of 1836 he was appointed a cadet at West Point. Mr. Ewing being then in the Senate, young Sherman made a visit to the capital on his way to the academy. Leaving Lancaster in May, three days’ travel by day and night brought him to Cumberland, Md. Though the railroad was then running to Cumberland, he drove thence to Washington. Jackson was then President. The Senate sat in the little chamber now occupied by the Supreme Court of the United States. Martin Van Buren, Vice-President, presided. Clay, Calhoun, and Webster towered above their fellow-senators. But among them, besides Mr. Ewing, were Silas Wright, the strongest man New York has sent to Washington; Benton, the indomitable man from Missouri; Cass; Preston, of South Carolina, esteemed the most elegant orator in the Senate; Willie P. Mangum, of North Carolina; and Berrien, of Georgia. John Quincy Adams added luster to the House of Representatives. A week spent in daily contact with these leaders was a course of intellectual training.

Though fragmentary railways had quickened travel, it was still a two days’ journey from Washington to New York. The route was by railroad to Baltimore, by steamboat thence to Havre de Grace or Elkton, then by railroad across to the Delaware River, and by steamboat up the river to Philadelphia. There the traveler rested for the night. Next morning the journey was resumed by steamboat up the Delaware to Bordentown, by railroad across New Jersey to Amboy, and by steamboat to New York. Sherman traveled by this route, stopping to visit friends in Philadelphia and New York, and reached West Point June 12th. There were one hundred and forty cadets in the class, of whom only forty-two graduated. Among his classmates were George H. Thomas, Stewart Van Vliet, George W. Getty, Richard S. Ewell, William Hays, Bushrod R. Johnson, and Thomas Jordan, who survived to take active part in the civil war.

His letters written at the academy breathe the same childlike and yet manly frankness which characterized him always: “Bill is very much elated at the idea of getting free of West Point next June. He does not intend remaining in the army more than one year, then to resign, and study law probably. No doubt you admire his choice, but, to speak plainly and candidly, I would rather be a blacksmith. Indeed, the nearer we come to that dreadful epoch, graduation day, the higher opinion I conceive of the duties and life of an officer of the United States army, and the more confirmed in the wish of spending my life in the service of my country. Think of that! The church bugle has just blown, and in a moment I must put on my side arms and march to church to listen to a two-hours’ sermon, with its twenty divisions and twenty-one subdivisions;… but I believe it is a general fact that what people are compelled to do they dislike. I fear I have a difficult part to act for the next three years, because I am almost confident that your father’s wishes and intentions will clash with my inclinations. In the first place, I think he wishes me to strive and graduate in the engineer corps. This I can’t do. Next, to resign and become a civil engineer…. While I propose and intend to go into the infantry, be stationed in the far West, out of reach of what is termed civilization, and there remain as long as possible.

“You no doubt are not only firmly impressed but absolutely certain that General Harrison will be our next President. For my part, though, of course, but a ‘superficial observer,’ I do not think there is the least hope of such a change, since his friends have thought proper to envelop his name with log cabins, gingerbread, hard cider, and such humbugging, the sole object of which plainly is to deceive and mislead his ignorant and prejudiced though honest fellow-citizens, while his qualifications, his honesty, his merits and services are merely alluded to.”

He graduated in June, 1840, sixth in his class, and was appointed second lieutenant in the Third Artillery. In the autumn he reported to his regiment in Florida, where his time was mainly spent in fishing and hunting, diversified with occasional expeditions to capture parties of Seminole Indians. In November, 1841, he was promoted first lieutenant. Here he wrote: “We hear that the new Secretary of War intends proposing to the next Congress to raise two rifle regiments for the Western service. As you are at Washington, I presume you can learn whether it is so or not, for I should like to go in such a regiment if stationed in the far West; not that I am in the least displeased with my present berth, but when the regiment goes North it will, in all likelihood, be stationed in the vicinity of some city—from which God spare me!” In another letter he writes: “If you have any regard for my feelings, don’t say the word ‘insinuation’ again. You may abuse me as much as you please, but I’d prefer of the two to be accused of telling a direct falsehood than stating anything evasively or underhand, and if I have ever been guilty of such a thing, it was unintentionally.”

In March, 1842, he moved with his company to Fort Morgan, at the entrance to the Bay of Mobile, and in June the garrison sailed in a brig to Fort Moultrie, in Charleston harbor. He remained there till 1846, and became at home with the charming society of Charleston. In the summer of 1843 he made a visit to Lancaster, Ohio, and became engaged to Ellen, daughter of Mr. Ewing. Returning to his post at Fort Moultrie, he went by stage to Portsmouth, on the Ohio; thence by boat to Cincinnati; thence by boat to St. Louis; then down the Mississippi to New Orleans; by boat across Lake Pontchartrain to Mobile, and up the Alabama River to Montgomery; thence partly by stage, but mainly by rail, to Savannah, and then by sea to Charleston harbor. The journey took six weeks; two weeks and a half were spent in visits to the cities, and three and a half weeks were spent in actual travel night and day.

While at Fort Moultrie he was not idle or given wholly to society. He wrote to a son of Mr. Ewing: “Every day I feel more and more in need of an atlas such as your father has at home, and, as a knowledge of geography in its minutest details is essential to a true military education, idle time necessarily spent here might be properly devoted to it. I wish, therefore, you would procure for me the best geography and atlas (not school) extant.” In June, 1844, he wrote: “Since my return I have not been running about in the city or the island as heretofore, but have endeavored to interest myself in Blackstone, which, with the assistance of Bouvier’s Dictionary, I find no difficulty in understanding. I have read all four volumes, Starkie on Evidence, and other books semi-legal and semi-historical, and would be obliged to you if you would give me a list of such books as you were required to read, not including your local or State law. I intend to read the second and third volumes of Blackstone again, also Kent’s Commentaries, which seem, as far as I am capable of judging, to be the basis of the common-law practice. This course of study I have adopted from feeling the want of it in the duties to which I was lately assigned.” Later he wrote: “I have no idea of making the law a profession—by no means; but, as an officer of the army, it is my duty and interest to be prepared for any situation that fortune or luck may offer. It is for this alone that I prepare, and not for professional practice.”

In February, 1844, he was relieved from duty on court-martial to report to Colonel Churchill, at Marietta, Ga., and aid in taking evidence in cases of claims against the Government. While at Marietta he made frequent visits to Kenesaw Mountain. On the same duty he traveled on horseback to the Etowah River, Alatoona, Rome, Wills Valley, Sand Mountain, and Raccoon Range to Bellefonte, Ala., and returned by Rome, Alatoona, and Marietta to Atlanta, making unconsciously a preparatory reconnoissance for his Atlanta campaign.

In 1846, when war with Mexico was impending, he received a regular recruiting detail, and reported at New York on the 1st of May. He was assigned early in May to station at Pittsburg, with a subrendezvous at Zanesville, Ohio, which was conveniently near to his friends at Lancaster. The news of General Taylor’s first battles in Texas inflamed him with desire to be ordered to the field. He received at Pittsburg at 8 P.M. an order transferring him to Company F, then under orders for California. Working all night, he made out his money accounts and property returns, and next morning left them, with the cash balance and clothing and other property and receipts to be signed by his successor, in the hands of the physician of the recruiting depot, and set out at once on his journey to New York. Company F was filled up to one hundred and thirteen enlisted men and five officers. They embarked on the storeship Lexington, with six months’ provisions and with six months’ pay drawn in advance, and set sail on the 14th of July. The soldiers did the work on deck, were drilled whenever the weather permitted, were carefully supervised in their health and cleanliness, and on arriving at Monterey, Cal., after a voyage of one hundred and ninety-eight days, every man was able to march to post with all his equipments.

California was extensive, but thinly inhabited. About a score of little towns and settlements, small aggregations of one-story adobe houses; a few remaining missions, each with a colony of Indian converts attached; and ranches sparsely scattered in spots favored with water, comprised the population. Commodore Sloat, and afterward Commodore Stockton, of the navy; General Kearny, with two companies of United States dragoons; Colonel Frémont, with a battalion of volunteers; and Colonel Cook, with a regiment of volunteers, made the conquest and suppressed an insurrection. California was quiet, while Scott and Taylor with their commands were winning glory on the borders of the Gulf of Mexico.

Company F arrived at Monterey early in January, 1847. With six months’ rations, and gristmill, sawmill, and other stores, and twenty-eight thousand dollars in money, and with Sherman for acting quartermaster and commissary, they were soon in quarters on the hill just west of the town. When appropriate staff officers arrived, Sherman was relieved of these temporary duties, and served as aid to General Kearny. In the absence of more serious occupation, a dispute had arisen as to who held supreme command in California. Commodore Stockton claimed it as successor to Commodore Sloat, who was the first to take possession for the United States. General Kearny claimed it as the senior military officer in the Territory. Colonel Frémont claimed it as protégé of Senator Benton, a prominent and influential politician. This absurd contention lasted till Kearny and Frémont went East at the end of May, and Colonel R. B. Mason, who had arrived, in undisputed command on land, while Commodore Biddle, arriving, had like undisputed authority afloat.

Colonel Mason appointed Sherman his assistant adjutant general, and soon found him useful. When Commodore Sloat took possession of California he issued a proclamation declaring the inhabitants to be American citizens, and calling upon them to elect officers. The little town of Sonora, made up mostly of immigrants from the United States, thereupon elected Mr. Nash, one of their number, alcalde. General Kearny, holding that California was simply conquered territory—Mexican still though conquered—and was held and controlled by military power until its status should be determined by competent authority, appointed Mr. Boggs alcalde, and ordered Nash to turn the office over to him. Colonel Mason, soon after succeeding to command, received a letter from Boggs stating that Nash claimed that a military commander had no right to eject him from a civil office. Colonel Mason wrote to the captain of a company stationed at Sonora, directing him to notify Nash to vacate and turn over his books, papers, and accounts to Boggs, and, in case of refusal, to compel compliance by force. The captain replied that the settlers were greatly excited, and supported Nash in his refusal, and further stated on his own account that he was an officer of volunteers soon to be mustered out, and, as he expected to remain in Sonora as a permanent settler, he asked to be excused from enforcing the order. The legitimacy of military authority was directly put in issue. Scanty as were Colonel Mason’s resources, he proposed at once to peremptorily compel obedience. Sherman requested him to put the matter into his hands, and promised success.

Receiving permission, he left Monterey, accompanied by a single private soldier, and traveled on horseback to Yerba Buena, where San Francisco now stands. Commodore Biddle listened with great interest to Sherman’s statement of the matter, and gave him a boat, manned by a midshipman and eight men, and allowed one of his lieutenants to go in company. They sailed up the bay, reached the mouth of Sonora Creek by dark, and a landing on the creek near the town by midnight. Next evening Nash was seized while at supper, hurried into the boat, taken down the bay to the flagship, and put into the hands of the commodore. Sherman returned overland to Monterey, while Nash was sent around by water. Nash was released by Colonel Mason upon his promise to make no attempt to regain his office. Boggs entered upon his duties without opposition, and there was no further attempt to dispute the authority of the military in the enemy’s country in time of war.

In the spring of 1848 workmen putting up a sawmill for Captain Sutter at Coloma, on the American fork of the Sacramento River, found particles of gold in the earth. The discovery could not be kept secret. People, dropping other pursuits, thronged to the valley of American fork. The gravel beds by the river teemed with their camps and resounded with the ceaseless rattle of their rockers. Sherman’s restless activity persuaded Colonel Mason that it was his duty to make a personal inspection of the “diggings” before sending a report of the discovery of gold to the Government at Washington.

News came in the early summer of the termination of the war. The only remaining volunteer regiment was mustered out, and swarmed to the gold fields. The only troops left were a company of dragoons and one battery. Colonel Mason prevented their desertion in mass by giving liberal furloughs, and thus giving every soldier in turn a chance at the mines. Men at the placers gathered in gold sometimes a hundred dollars in a day; sometimes more. Prices of labor and commodities became extravagant. Day laborers received sixteen dollars per day; domestics could not be hired for less than three hundred dollars per month. Colonel Mason authorized officers to draw rations in kind, and by clubbing together and waiting on themselves they could live. In the autumn Sherman, with two other officers, camped out near Coloma, and contributed the capital to a store. Each received a profit of fifteen hundred dollars, which enabled them to live through the winter.

On the 23d of February, 1849, General Persifor F. Smith arrived. Two regiments and a battalion came to re-enforce the two companies. The Pacific coast was made a military division, comprising the two departments of California and Oregon. Colonel Mason was relieved, and Sherman was appointed acting adjutant general of the division, and served as such until Major Joseph Hooker, the regularly assigned adjutant general of the division, arrived. Sherman was then appointed by General Smith aid-de-camp.

The news of the discovery of gold spread, and grew in magnitude as it spread. Immigrants poured in by land and by sea from all quarters of the globe. Some halted to build up towns and thrive by trade. The little village by the mission of Yerba Buena expanded into the city of San Francisco, and on Sutter’s ranch by the river sprang up the city of Sacramento. In the rush to the mines all other employments were abandoned and all engagements broken. General Sherman says in his Memoirs that six hundred abandoned vessels lay and rotted at their moorings in front of San Francisco, and that the regular steam packets on arriving anchored alongside of a man-of-war to retain their crews till the time for their return. In the excessive throng some were unable to find employment in mining, and others were unable to do the work. Under the stress of circumstances, men who had been merchants and capitalists earned their bread as laborers and hostlers, and Harvard graduates eked out a living by serving as hotel waiters and cooks for miners’ messes. The camps of Americans organized communities, adopted laws, and established tribunals to enforce them. The rules defining mining rights evolved by them, and supplemented later by the miners in Colorado, were adopted substantially by Congress and enacted into a statute.

General Smith and some of his staff had brought their families to California, with a retinue of servants. The attendants, white and colored, vanished as soon as the ship touched land. After a vain effort to keep house without any assistance and a hopeless struggle to live there upon officers’ pay, the families returned to their old homes. Army officers were in request as surveyors and engineers, and General Smith encouraged them to accept employment. Sherman obtained a two months’ leave, and used the time so profitably in laying out town sites and surveying and platting ranches that he records he returned to duty with a net profit of six thousand dollars from his two months’ work. On the 1st of January, 1850, he sailed with dispatches from General Smith to General Scott, and delivered them in person to the general in New York at the end of the month.

Lieutenant Sherman reported to General Scott, who then had his headquarters in New York, and was warmly received. After a few days he proceeded to Washington, where he was very cordially received by General Zachary Taylor, then President. Mr. Ewing was Secretary of the Interior, and lived in the house across the avenue from the War Department, afterward occupied by Montgomery Blair. Lieutenant Sherman obtained a six months’ leave of absence, and, after a visit to his friends in Ohio, returned to Washington, and on May 1st married Miss Ellen Boyle Ewing, to whom he had become engaged in his visit to Ohio in the autumn of 1843. Miss Ewing was a notable figure in Washington. She inherited from, her father a stately presence, vigorous intellect, and resolute character; from her mother, benignity and devout religious faith. She was admired by men and loved by friends of her own sex. Some lamented that she bestowed her hand upon an unknown lieutenant—unknown to them. All that was distinguished in Washington gathered at the wedding—the President and Cabinet, the diplomatic corps, the army and navy; Clay, Webster, and Corwin, and their compeers, and the justices of the Supreme Court. They little dreamed that the unknown lieutenant was to achieve a fame that would outshine the most noted of their number.

The President, General Taylor, was taken ill on the 4th of July, and died a few days after. His indomitable courage, simple ways, and purity of character had endeared him to the people, and his direct honesty, good sense, firmness, and patriotism had inspired confidence in his administration in the troubles which were already making themselves felt. His death was a shock to the nation. Lieutenant Sherman acted as an aid-de-camp at the funeral. He reported for duty at St Louis in September, and found among the officers there Swords and Van Vliet, who were afterward prominent quartermasters in the war of the rebellion, and Buell, Hancock, Andrew J. Smith, and Bragg.

An act was passed by Congress providing for the appointment of four additional captains in the commissary department, and Sherman was appointed one of the four. There being some irregularity in the office of the commissary stationed at New Orleans, he was relieved and Sherman was appointed in his place. He went to New Orleans in September, 1852, and in the following winter the house of Lucas and Symonds, of St. Louis, proposed to establish a bank in San Francisco under the name of Lucas, Turner and Company, in which Sherman was to be a partner. He obtained a six months’ leave of absence and embarked for San Francisco in March, 1853. Competent assistants were employed to have charge of the details and routine business, and Major Turner, of St. Louis, remained as manager. Sherman showed such aptitude for the business that he resigned from the army, and in November Turner returned to the Last, leaving Sherman the responsible manager of the bank. In mastering and managing this new occupation he displayed his characteristic traits of character. He was quick and clear in his grasp of facts and principles, prompt in judgment, resolute and energetic in action, and cool in emergencies. With all his nervous and vivacious temperament, he was a prudent, conservative, and safe man of business.

The speculator Meigs, who enjoyed unlimited credit and was a large borrower, was indebted in a considerable sum. Sherman conceived a distrust of him, and, against the opinion of his cashier and the judgment of other bankers, insisted upon the settlement of two thirds of his debt and additional security for the remainder. When the crash came and Meigs fled, leaving unsettled debts to the amount of nearly one million dollars, many of his creditors were ruined, while Sherman’s loss was trifling. In February, 1855, a run upon the bank of Page, Bacon and Company, by far the largest house in San Francisco, caused the bank to close its doors and fail. The people in a panic rushed to all the banks, drawing out their deposits till nearly all closed. Sherman, apprehending trouble, had strengthened his funds, and when the crash came acted with such prompt vigor that the run upon his bank spent its force without causing any disturbance or delay in paying over his counter every demand made upon it. While the city was strewn with financial wrecks, the bank of Lucas, Turner and Company weathered the storm without injury, and gained increased credit by the ordeal.

The abundance of gold, the recklessness of the miners, and the absence of established government drew many gamblers and desperadoes to California. When regular government was established, corruption in elections was believed to result in putting into office men who were in league with the criminal class, and who screened them from punishment. In May, 1856, James King, an editor who advocated law and order, and fearlessly assailed the gamblers and their allies, and who was one of the most popular men in San Francisco, was deliberately murdered in broad day in a public street in the heart of the city. The murderer at once gave himself up to the sheriff. This last straw aroused the people. A large number, embracing many of the best men in the city, organized themselves into a Vigilance Committee, a secret organization, to purge the community independently of the officers of the law. The first step proposed was to rescue the murderer of King from the friendly custody of the sheriff and dispose of him.

Sherman had no hesitation as to his course. He was clear that it was the duty of every citizen to aid in having the law enforced by the officers of the law, and that the assumption of citizens to form themselves into an unauthorized body for the punishment of criminals independent of the law and its officers was a menace to the State. The governor, who was earnest in having Casey, the murderer, punished by due course of law, consulted freely with Sherman, and appointed him major general of militia for the district embracing San Francisco. Sherman found enough citizens of his way of thinking to form several companies, and was promised by General Wool, the commander of the military department, a supply of arms and ammunition. This preparation was at the point of success when General Wool withdrew his promise, and, all other arms being already in the possession of the Vigilance Committee, Sherman’s movement fell to the ground, and the State was powerless. Casey was taken from the jail and hanged. Some other dangerous characters were made away with, and the rest were banished. The city was purged, order established, and a feeling of security restored. The Vigilance Committee became a permanent institution, and still exists. It has several times since been called into action, but only in great emergencies, and has always restricted its activity to the occasion which called it out.

Sherman held that, great as the immediate benefit was, the same good would have been obtained if the same combined energy had been used to stimulate and strengthen the constituted machinery of government, without sapping its authority. And who can tell how much the success of the California Vigilance Committee and the approbation that it received has encouraged and stimulated the Kuklux of the South, the White Caps of the North, and lynching parties and insurrectionary labor unions throughout the land.

The feverish prosperity of California had passed its climax. The influx of population, with the attendant competition in all branches of business and employment, put an end to inordinate profits. The shrinkage and readjustment which ensued was accompanied by failures, bankruptcies, and withdrawal of foreign capital. Acting on the suggestion of Sherman, the home office determined to close out their San Francisco business and withdraw the means employed in it. In May, 1857, the San Francisco house ceased business, and transferred undrawn deposits to other banks. Sherman returned to the East, leaving one of the firm to collect outstanding credits and dispose of real estate.

Lucas and Company (as the house was called) still availed themselves of his services, and gave him employment. He and a partner were appointed agents in New York of the St. Louis firm. He had been in business barely a month when, on the 21st of August, the Ohio Life and Trust Company, in Cincinnati, failed. It was the most important financial corporation in the West, and was esteemed safe as the Bank of England. The shock to credit spread in waves that soon covered the West, and then extended to the Eastern States. It spread to and over Europe, and through Persia and India to China and Japan. The world was girdled with financial wrecks. Sherman’s firm had not contracted debts, but Lucas and Company, in St. Louis, unable to turn securities into money fast enough, failed. The business of the New York agency was wound up, and Sherman took the moneys and assets to St. Louis.

Declining to make another venture in business, he entered into partnership with his brother-in-law, Thomas Ewing, Jr., afterward chief justice of the Supreme Court of Kansas, and conspicuous in the war of the rebellion, but then practicing law at Leavenworth, Kas. In the spring of 1859 he left the firm to open and improve a farm upon a tract of land in Kansas owned by Thomas Ewing, Sr. But the yearning for military life, probably never extinguished, returned. He wrote in June to his friend Don Carlos Buell, then on duty with Secretary-of-War Floyd, asking if there was any chance of his being appointed a paymaster in the army. Buell replied, advising him to apply for the place of superintendent of a military school which was about to be opened in Louisiana. He made application by letter, receiving prompt notice in July that he had been elected superintendent, with request to report in Louisiana as soon as possible.

In the autumn he reported to the Governor of Louisiana, and was cordially welcomed by him and by all who were interested in the undertaking. He found on the grounds of the institution, near Alexandria, a large building, but not so much as a chair or table in it. Setting energetically to work, he succeeded in having the building furnished and equipped, a full corps of professors appointed, courses of study and rules of government adopted, and on the 1st of January the academy opened with a good attendance of cadets. The Legislature made liberal appropriations. The governor took personal interest in the institution, and the first term closed at the end of July with general approbation. In the summer vacation Sherman went to Washington to solicit from the War Department arms for his academy. Louisiana had already received more than its quota from the General Government, but Secretary Floyd approved with alacrity a requisition for two hundred muskets and accouterments, and promptly forwarded them.

The school opened on the 1st of November with a largely increased number of cadets. Abraham Lincoln was elected President the same month. The whole country was seething with the discussion of slavery, and the secession of the Southern States from the Union was openly advocated. Sherman did not vote at the election, and avoided political discussion. But when it was necessary to speak he gave his opinion frankly, and did not hesitate to say that secession was treason and was war. President Buchanan, in his message to Congress in December, said that no State had the right under the Constitution or otherwise to secede from the Union; but that if a State should wrongfully determine to secede, neither the President nor Congress could interfere by force to prevent the accomplishment of the purpose and stay the dissolution of the Union. In the same month South Carolina seceded. Other States followed. In December the Governor of Louisiana seized the unguarded forts on the Mississippi, and on the 10th of January, by an overwhelming force, compelled the surrender of the arsenal at Baton Rouge. The time had arrived when every one had to take his side. Sherman wrote to the governor on the 10th of January, 1860:

Sir: As I occupy a quasi military position under the laws of the State, I deem it proper to acquaint you that I accepted such position when Louisiana was a State in the Union, and when the motto of this seminary was inserted in marble over the main door: “By the liberality of the General Government of the United States. The Union—esto perpetua.” Recent events foreshadow a great change, and it becomes all men to choose. If Louisiana withdraw from the Federal Union, I prefer to maintain my allegiance to the Constitution as long as a fragment of it survives, and my stay here would be wrong in every sense of the word. In that event, I beg you will send or appoint some authorized agent to take charge of the arms and munitions of war belonging to the State, or advise me what disposition to make of them. And furthermore, as president of the Board of Supervisors, I beg you to take immediate steps to relieve me as superintendent the moment the State determines to secede, for on no earthly account will I do any act or think any thought hostile to or in defiance of the old Government of the United States.

With great respect, your obedient servant

W. T. SHERMAN, Superintendent.

The governor accepted the resignation with regret and with warm expressions of friendship and esteem. The Board of Supervisors passed resolutions of regret at his leaving and thanks for his past service. Every one spoke kindly and regretfully. While he was settling his accounts and turning over property, Bragg, Beauregard, and other officers of the army were abandoning the service of the United States, and General Twiggs, on duty in Texas, surrendered all the troops in the State, comprising a large part of the regular army, together with all the military posts, their armament, and all Government stores to an improvised colonel of militia.

CHAPTER II.THE BEGINNING OF THE WAR.

Sherman, while disapproving of the institution of slavery, opposing its spread, and objecting to some of its features, was not excited over its continuance within existing limits, and objected to interference with it within those limits. But he was intensely loyal to the United States and the maintenance of the Union; was shocked and pained at the desertion of his brother officers from their flag; was outraged at the seizure of Government forts and buildings and stores; and was bewildered by the apparent acquiescence of the Government at Washington. While the South was seething with excitement, breaking away from the Union, seizing the forts and other public buildings and property of the United States, forming a new nation, erecting a new government, and preparing for war, Sherman was arranging his affairs, settling up his accounts, and turning over the property belonging to the seminary. He was again adrift, without employment, and left New Orleans about the 1st of March to rejoin his family and find means of supporting them. He thankfully accepted the office of president of a street railway company at St. Louis, offered to him through the influence of his friends in that city.

The people of the North were slow in attaining to a realizing sense of the state of affairs in the South. They knew little of war, and were incredulous of its near presence. To Sherman this seemed the apathy of indifference. Upon the request of his brother, then in the House of Representatives, he went to Washington, and with him called on the President. When in the conversation Sherman said that the people of the South were preparing for war, Lincoln replied, “I guess we’ll manage to keep house.” Sherman said no more, and soon left. The two men, who did not yet know each other, parted—Lincoln, troubled undoubtedly by the statement, but veiling his feeling with a flash of levity; Sherman, disappointed, disheartened, depressed, angry.

He entered upon his duty as president of the railway company on the 1st of April. A few days later he was asked to accept the office of chief clerk of the War Department, with promise of early promotion to assistant secretary of war. He had just entered upon his new engagement, and had not yet recovered from the effect of what he considered a rebuff in Washington, and declined.

Beauregard opened fire upon Fort Sumter on the 12th of April. This was act of open war upon the United States, and the loyal nation, roused like a strong man from his slumber, sprang to its feet. On the 15th the President called for seventy-five thousand volunteers to serve three months, and then added ten regiments to the regular army. A force of Virginia troops seized upon Harper’s Ferry. A Massachusetts regiment, responding promptly to the President’s call, was attacked while passing through Baltimore. Travel upon both the roads leading to Washington was stopped, and the capital was cut off from all communication with the North and West. The blockade lasted till General Butler landed at Annapolis and opened the way to the city.

Sherman, notwithstanding his signal proof of loyalty, found his friends becoming troubled about him, and undoubtedly became dissatisfied with his position. On the 8th of May he wrote to the Secretary of War: “I hold myself now, as always, prepared to serve my country in the capacity for which I was trained. I did not and will not volunteer for three months, because I can not throw my family upon the cold charity of the world. But for the three years’ call made by the President an officer can prepare his command and do good service. I will not volunteer as a soldier, because, rightfully or wrongfully, I feel unwilling to take a mere private’s place, and, having for many years lived in Louisiana and California, the men are not well enough acquainted with me to elect me to my appropriate place. Should my services be needed, the records of the War Department will enable you to designate the station in which I can render most service.”

On the 14th of May Sherman was appointed colonel of the Thirteenth Infantry in the regular army, and, on reporting at Washington, was assigned to duty with Lieutenant-General Scott. Ai soon as the road to Washington was opened troops from the North and West poured in. Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania sent organized and drilled regiments. Most of the troops were men who enlisted full of ardor, but wholly without military instruction. They came to march to victory and return home in triumph before the end of their enlistment. The Governor of Rhode Island came as colonel of one of his regiments. The Seventh New York camped on Mr. Stone’s place, with wall tents for privates as well as officers, and comforted by a shipload of special supplies. When the troops with their multifarious baggage were moved across the river and organized into brigades and divisions, Sherman was assigned to command a brigade of four New York and one Wisconsin regiments, with a regular battery attached, being the Third Brigade of Tyler’s division.

It is an easy matter to make paper organizations, but it is slow work to make actual soldiers. The people, thoughtless of the want of preparation, ignorant of the need of preparation, persisted in the demand for an onward movement, till General Scott, in July, ordered General McDowell, with the force about Washington, to advance and attack General Beauregard in his position on Bull Run, while General Patterson, of Pennsylvania, with a large command in the Shenandoah Valley, should watch and hold there General Joseph E. Johnston, and prevent his marching to aid Beauregard.

Sherman went up to visit his brother, John Sherman, who was a volunteer aid-de-camp to General Patterson. George H. Thomas was there, commanding a brigade in Patterson’s army. The Shermans and Thomas, being in a room together, discussed the possibilities of the war. W. T. Sherman and Thomas spread a map of the United States upon the floor, and, kneeling down, tracing campaigns, designated Richmond, Nashville, Vicksburg, Chattanooga, and Atlanta as vital points to be taken. In their service it so happened that they, one or both, were immediately concerned in the capture of all of these but Richmond, and in repulsing attempted recapture of two of them.

McDowell moved out from the camps on the 16th of July, and on the 17th had his force in hand at Centerville. On the 18th, in a reconnoissance in force to Blackburn’s Ford, on Bull Run, Sherman for the first time heard artillery in actual conflict. At 2 A.M. the army marched out to battle. General McDowell, with the great part of his command, made a detour to the right to gain the left of Beauregard before crossing Bull Run. He crossed easily, and was successful at first in driving the enemy. But Johnston had succeeded in eluding Patterson, and had already joined Beauregard. The Confederate left, which had gradually fallen back, was largely re-enforced, and made a stand in a favorable position on the edge of a commanding plateau. Successive portions of the national line made successive assaults, but failed to drive the enemy from his position. No longer incited by success, and not held together by the cohesion of discipline, the irregular line broke in places, and streams of fugitives poured to the rear. By 3 P.M. the battle was lost.

Tyler’s division was left near Bull Run, in the neighborhood of the Stone Bridge, to guard against any attempt of the enemy to cross there and deliver a counter-attack. The sound of McDowell’s attack could be heard advancing till about noon. The roar of battle then became stationary. General Tyler then sent Sherman with his brigade to support. Crossing by a ford which he had discovered, he marched toward the sound of the guns, and reported to General McDowell on the field. It was his place to march to attack over ground swept by artillery and musketry. He put in his regiments successively, one at a time, and each in turn, after a gallant advance, broke and retired. About half past three the brigade crumbled. Many men had left the field. The loss in killed and wounded was severe. Sherman formed what was left into as good a square against cavalry as could be formed under the circumstances, and retreated across the Stone Bridge, and followed the panic rout to Centerville. There he gathered enough of each regiment to put them into bivouac in regimental lines. In obedience to an order given by General Tyler, he resumed the retreat at midnight, and reached his camp near the defenses of Washington about noon next day. Here he at once rendered the important service of making the guards at the aqueduct and neighboring ferries strong enough to stem the multitudinous rout and turn the demoralized fugitives back to their camps. Of General McDowell’s total loss of 481 killed and 1,111 wounded, Sherman’s brigade lost III killed and 205 wounded.

When the news spread through the land that, instead of the expected victory, the National troops were defeated and had returned to Washington in disorder, the first feeling was bitter disappointment and mortification. Then came a general recognition of the fact that war was a more serious matter than had been supposed, and then came the fixed resolve to carry the war through to successful issue, whatever might be the cost in toil or money or sacrifice. The soldiers were roused from their dream of easy conquest. Excepting men who had served in the Mexican War and some members of uniformed regiments in the older States, we were so profoundly ignorant of military matters that we were not aware that we were ignorant. It was commonly supposed that a knowledge of company drill made a man a soldier. It was now perceived that men who would carry on war must learn the business of war, as a man must learn any business if he would succeed in it. They set to work to learn through instruction and by practice the ways of marching, camping, picket duty, reconnoitering, skirmishing, and fighting battles; the repair and building of roads and bridges; the collection, transportation, and distribution of supplies; the function and conduct of courts-martial; the multifarious paper business of reports, returns, and correspondence; and, above all, the necessity for discipline and prompt, unquestioning obedience of orders. It was not easy for citizens of a republic, who know no superior but the law, to constrain themselves to obey a man without asking why. But when they discovered that military law is part of the law of the land; that military officers are officers of the law, and obedience to their authority is obedience to the law, it became easy to obey without lowering their self-respect. And as the war continued they found that their own safety depended upon the enforcement of discipline, and that an unorganized mob of men differs from the same men transformed into a disciplined army, just as a pile of iron ore differs from the same ore smelted and wrought into a working engine.

Immediately after Bull Run Sherman found his command scattered, restless, disorderly, and, to some extent, mutinous. He had made considerable progress in the training of his men when, on the 17th of May, he was appointed brigadier general of volunteers, and was, August 24th, assigned to duty under Brigadier-General Robert Anderson, commander of the Department of the Cumberland. George H. Thomas, by the same order, received the same appointment and assignment.

All the States south of Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri were in open insurrection and war against the United States. Maryland was safe; Missouri was reasonably safe; Kentucky was quivering between insurrection and loyalty. Sympathy with the South was common, especially among men having property and among the young men. But among the men of stanch loyalty were the names of Clay, Crittenden, Breckenridge, Anderson, Hamilton Pope, Guthrie, Speed, Harlan, Rousseau, Goodloe, Woolford, Landrum, and other well-known families. Among mechanics and men of moderate means loyalty to the National Government prevailed. Affinity of institutions allied Kentucky to the South, but the spirit of Henry Clay and John J. Crittenden bound a large part of the population by stronger tie to the United States.

Governor Beriah McGoffin called the Legislature into extra session in January, 1861, and recommended to it the convening of a sovereignty State convention, the purchase of arms, and the mobilization of the State militia. He did not succeed in having any of these measures adopted. When the governor issued his call, a great meeting of laboring men was held in Louisville, which declared, without qualification, in favor of remaining in the Union and of sustaining the Government, and issued an address to the workingmen of the country as the class particularly concerned in the preservation of the Union. At an election held shortly afterward in Louisville to fill a vacancy in the Legislature, the new party secured the election of an uncompromising Union man, and in April elected another such mayor of the city.

When President Lincoln issued his call for troops after the firing upon Fort Sumter, Governor McGoffin called the Legislature again into session to force the State out of the Union and into the Confederacy. Thereupon the Union Club, a secret society, was formed in Louisville to bring earnest Unionists together, and numbered six thousand members. This society was instrumental in the raising of two regiments and a battery of municipal troops, or home guards, which under the law were subject, not to the governor, but only to the mayor. The object of the society being secured before the summer was over, and its existence being no longer necessary, it died out in the autumn.

When the Legislature, convened in April by the governor, met, it passed a joint resolution declaring Kentucky neutral in the war. This was not a surrender, and was not a compromise, so much as a truce. It prevented secession for the present, and enabled parties to ripen their plans. Subsequently, at the same session, laws were passed providing for the purchase of arms to be distributed to the militia, not by the governor, but by a board of Union men; to provide for the raising of home guards for local defense; and requiring the enlisted men, as well as the officers of the militia, to take an oath of allegiance to the United States as well as to the State of Kentucky.

The Legislature adjourned about the close of May. A special election of members of Congress was held in June, and nine of the ten members elected were pronounced Union men. A new Legislature was elected in August, and three fourths of the members elected were Union men. Recruiting soldiers for the National Government became open through the State, and General Buckner moved his Confederate recruiting camp across the State line into Tennessee. Squads of recruits united and were formed into regiments, which rendezvoused at Camp Dick Robinson, south of the Kentucky River, forming a brigade under the command of General William Nelson.

General Sherman and General Thomas reported to General Anderson in Cincinnati on the 1st of September at the house of Lars Anderson, where they met a group of trusty Kentucky gentlemen assembled for advice and consultation. A Confederate force under General Zollicoffer, near Cumberland Gap, another under General Buckner, near Clarksville, and a third under General Pillow, on the Mississippi River, were just beyond the State line in Tennessee waiting for the decision of Kentucky, while General Anderson had under his command Nelson’s brigade and a recruiting force under General Rousseau in Indiana, across the river from Louisville. Sherman was sent to solicit re-enforcements. He found Governor Morton, of Indiana, busy raising regiments, which as fast as they were mustered in were assigned to the Army of the Potomac, then commanded by General McClellan. At Springfield he found the Governor of Illinois equally busy raising regiments, which were ordered from Washington to report to McClellan or else to General Frémont, who commanded in Missouri. He went to St. Louis, and succeeded in obtaining audience of General Frémont through the intervention of an old California friend, who was in some capacity on General Frémont’s staff. Here again he met refusal, General Frémont saying he must first drive the enemy out of Missouri, and he could not give aid to other fields until this should be accomplished. Sherman returned to Louisville.

On the 3d of September General Pillow advanced into Kentucky by an order of General Polk, and seized Hickman and Columbus. On the 6th General Grant entered Kentucky and occupied Paducah. There was much correspondence by telegraph and otherwise between the Confederate authorities, civil and military, as to whether or not General Polk’s breach of the neutrality of Kentucky was a justifiable act of necessity. Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy, acquiesced, and the troops remained in possession of Columbus. On the 12th of September the Legislature of Kentucky passed a joint resolution requiring the governor to order the Confederate troops to leave the State. President Davis appointed General A. S. Johnston to the command of all the forces in Tennessee. General Johnston assumed command, and on the 17th sent General Buckner to Bowling Green, Ky. General Zollicoffer advanced his force to Cumberland Ford a few days earlier. The dream of neutrality was ended.

When Buckner moved to Bowling Green a detachment pushed forward and burned a railroad bridge within thirty miles of Louisville. The news reached Louisville at night. General Anderson sent General Sherman across the river, and in an hour Rousseau had his men, one thousand, in line. The Home Guard of Louisville, under command of Hamilton Pope, volunteered, and at midnight, on a train secured by Mr. James Guthrie, General Sherman moved to the front with his extemporized command. It was ascertained that Buckner was not advancing. Sherman placed his troops upon Muldraugh’s Hill. Troops began to arrive, and by the 1st of October Sherman had there the equivalent of two brigades.

General Anderson, worn out in his enfeebled health by the anxieties of the situation, relinquished command on the 8th of October, and Sherman, by seniority, assumed command. But in assuming command he wrote to the War Department, as he had stated orally to the President in Washington, that he wished to hold a subordinate command, and was assured that General Buell, then on his way from California, would, on arriving, relieve him. General Thomas superseded General Nelson at Camp Dick Robinson. General A. McD. McCook was put in command of the force pushed forward from Muldraugh’s Hill to Nolin Creek. The entire force under Sherman’s command was eighteen thousand men. He was confronted by more than double that number, and Johnston could at any time force his way to the Ohio River. Sherman was anxious, and with his impetuous frankness did not fail to express his anxiety.

On the evening of the 16th of October Secretary-of-War Simon Cameron, with Adjutant-General Lorenzo Thomas, accompanied by some friends, arrived at Louisville on their return to Washington from St. Louis, and had an interview with General Sherman. General T. J. Wood and Mr. Guthrie were present. Sherman gave to the Secretary a full statement of the political condition of Kentucky, the probability of recruiting troops from the inhabitants, the force already in the field and its distribution, the numbers and position of the enemy, and pointed out the scanty means at hand to defend a line extending from the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, and the ease with which the enemy could select his route and penetrate to the Ohio before any adequate force could be concentrated to oppose him. According to Adjutant-General Thomas, “on being asked the question what force he deemed necessary, he promptly replied two hundred thousand men.” According to the statement of General T. J. Wood, written August 24, 1866: “For the purpose of expelling the rebels from Kentucky, General Sherman said that at least sixty thousand soldiers were necessary…. General Sherman expressed the opinion that to carry on the war to the Gulf of Mexico and destroy all armed opposition to the Government in the entire Mississippi Valley at least two hundred thousand troops were absolutely requisite.” General Sherman says his remark was: “I argued that for the purpose of defense we should have sixty thousand men at once, and for offense would need two hundred thousand before we were done.” While this estimate was largely in excess of what was commonly supposed to be sufficient, subsequent experience showed that his judgment was correct. But newspapers getting news of it, spoke of his insane demand, and then called him insane, and demanded his release from command. It was the fate of Cassandra, treated with contumely by the people for giving true but unwelcome warning.

Secretary Cameron ordered by telegraph re-enforcements and arms, and Sherman diligently organized his command, watched the enemy, and made dispositions to resist any advance. General McClellan required from him daily reports, and such as are published are model reports, full of information, succinct and clear in statement, and sagacious in suggestion. General Buell arrived and assumed command on the 15th of November, and General Sherman was ordered to report for duty to General H. W. Halleck, commanding the Department of the Missouri.

General Sherman, on reporting at St. Louis, was ordered on the 23d of November to visit the different stations and inspect troops, camps, equipment, supplies, and transportation and routes for supplies. He reported on the 27th that he had ordered the whole force from Lexington forward to check the advancing enemy. This order was countermanded by General Halleck on the same day. Sherman telegraphed on the 28th that he had ordered Pope’s and Turner’s divisions to advance. On the same day General Halleck telegraphed that Mrs. Sherman was in St. Louis, and directed Sherman to return to the city at once. On the 2d of December Halleck wrote to General McClellan: “As stated in a former communication. General W. T. Sherman, on reporting here for duty, was ordered to inspect troops (three divisions at Sedalia and vicinity), and if, in the absence of General Pope, he deemed there was danger of an immediate attack, he was authorized to assume command. He did so, and commenced the movement of the troops in a manner which I did not approve and countermanded. I also received information from officers there that General Sherman was completely ‘stampeded,’ and was stampeding the army. I therefore yesterday gave him a leave of absence for twenty days to visit his family in Ohio. I am satisfied that General Sherman’s physical and mental system is so completely broken by labor and care as to render him for the present entirely unfit for duty. Perhaps a few weeks’ rest may restore him. I am satisfied that in his present condition it would be dangerous to give him a command here.”

General Sherman being greatly annoyed and Mrs. Sherman distressed at the newspaper discussion of his alleged insanity, he asked for a twenty days’ leave of absence, and made a visit to Lancaster. He wrote from Lancaster to General Halleck on December 12th: “I believe you will be frank enough to answer me if you deem the steps I took at Sedalia as evidence of a want of mind. They may have been the result of an excess of caution on my part, but I do think the troops were too much strung out, and should be concentrated, with more men left along to guard the track. The animals, cattle especially, will be much exposed this winter. I set a much higher danger on the acts of unfriendly inhabitants than most officers do, because I have lived in Missouri and the South, and know that in their individual characters they will do more acts of hostility than Northern farmers or people could bring themselves to perpetrate. In my judgment, Price’s army in the aggregate is less to be feared than when in scattered bands.