Lesser known historic bad-asses: Sherman

Here he is at the end of the Civil War. A grizzled son of bitch, Crazy Billy Sherman sits for his portrait. He wears a black ribbon on his left arm, mourning the recently assassinated president he helped reelect. A president who was key in passing the 13th amendment (ending slavery for good in The United States) in his short second term. Sherman was considered crazy by many, a genius by some, and a blood thirsty demon by many southerners, Around this time he said of war... “Its glory is all moonshine. Even success, the most brilliant is over dead and mangled bodies... It is only those who have not heard a shot, nor heard the shrills and groans of the wounded and lacerated friend and foe that cry aloud for more blood and more vengeance, more desolation and so help me God as a man and soldier I will not strike a foe who stands unarmed and submissive before me but will say 'Go sin no more.' War is Hell”

Sherman was a career soldier that fought in the first Battle of Mannasses (Bull Run) in what was the old US army. The Union was defeated in it's first battle and the army retreated back across the Potomac. Here Sherman showed one of his best strengths, the ability to retreat. This doesn't sound too difficult but in pre-20th century asymmetrical warfare it was an art form. Retreating was important in keeping an army alive, but also dangerous in that an army could simply fall apart and disintegrate with desertions and collapse of morale.

'It was not however an easy job. To restore a sense of discipline, Sherman drilled his men hard. To stem desertion he held three musters a day to ascertain how many men, if any were missing. The men were not docile; so many wanted to leave camp that at one point Sherman unlimbered an artillery battery with a threat to blast some would-be deserters if they really tried to leave.'
-American General by General John S. Eisenhower

He gained the attention of top military commanders and at one point President Lincoln met him and his unit. Sherman was not one for parades and grandiose military gestures. From his own Memoirs he wrote about Lincoln's visit.

'I asked if he would like to speak to them, and he said he would like to. I asked him then to please discourage all cheering, noise, or any sort of confusion; that we had had enough of it before Bull Run to ruin any set of men, and that what we needed were cool, thoughtful hard fighting soldiers no more hurrahing...” Chapter 7 'Memoirs of General William T. Sherman.'

Sherman's Painting in Smithsonian Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Sherman's no bull shit attitude impressed Lincoln enough to place him in charge of the Kentucky front. This ended up being a disaster for Sherman. Sherman suffered a mental breakdown. Until very recently mental illness has been a fairly taboo subject worldwide and though Sherman's breakdown is well documented by reporters of the time (Probably the reason he said, “If I had my choice I would kill every reporter in the world, but I am sure we would be getting reports from Hell before breakfast.”) But it always seems like all the historical writers gloss over it. Usually there's a lot more excuses written about why he had the breakdown.

'Colonel Thomas M. Key spent Several days with Sherman and decided he was on the verge of nervous exhaustion... Sherman acted withdrawn and frustrated, and his wife and brother were unable to break into the shell of anxiety and depression he had constructed around himself.'

-Sherman: A soldiers passion for Order by John F. Marszalek PHD
He was relieved of command with wire service proclaiming GENERAL WILLIAM T. SHERMAN INSANE!

“...but his mental collapse and his recovery, unusually well documented present a riveting example of the understanding of depressive illness in the Victorian world, and the relationship of bipolar illness to creativity and inspired leadership during difficult times...
...she (his wife) began to nurse him back to health with a rest cure, the frequently effective 19th century therapy: favorite foods, books, especially Shakespeare, and calming him sufficiently so that he could sleep. The real cure, as in all bipolar illness, is nature: the average mood episode rarely lasts longer than six months before it goes into remission by itself.”
-Sherman's Demons (New York Times article) by Michael Fellman, professor of history at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada.

Personally this is my favorite part of Sherman's life. It shows how people can overcome adversity and rise up to do great things. History is difficult to teach and learn. Often we forget the humanity behind it, and it's easy to lose track of the real human beings behind the Great Men/ Women of history. Because of the press releases that so haunted him, we get a peak of real humanity in him.

Sherman was back and at the Battle of Shiloh regained his reputation. For anyone who doesn't know, a brief summery of the battle. The confederates launched a major attack that pushed the Union forces back to their Pittsburgh landing. There they rallied and repulsed the confederate forces then defeated them. Sherman's ability to maintain order in a retreat was demonstrated and he was a key figure turning a major Union Defeat into a Union victory.

Battle of Vicksburg

Over the next few years Sherman continued to rise through the ranks supporting Grant in major victories in Confederate territory. Tecumseh was a Native American name given to him by his father. When asked why he gave “a savage Indian,” name to his son he responded with, “Tecumseh was a great warrior.”

Democratic Election 1864

This is where the history making comes in, the big picture of history and where Sherman, who was a mental patient only a few years before leaves his mark. The election of 1864 was up in the air and going against Lincoln. George B. McClellan known by historians as Ratty McFuckface was running on a peace platform. McClellan had been in command of the Army of the Potomac and through ineptitude and pussy-footedness had helped prolong the conflict and now wanted to make peace with the South, and in the process recognize the Confederacy's right to exist. People in the Union were tired of a war that had been (and still is) the most costly in American history and had if anything become worse since Gettysburg. The North was winning, but it was a slow progress, and the siege of Petersberg had become a kind of mini sudo WW1 trench battle.

Cover for sheet music of the song, "Sherman's March to the Sea."

The last part of his civil war career is his march to the sea and his supposed inventing of modern “Total War.” The same strategy the US government would later implement against plains tribes {Not condoning that}. The best description I found of this was from historian Robert L. Connell's book Fierce Patriot: The Tangled Lives of William Tecumseh Sherman.

'Obviously Sherman had a great deal less available in terms of destructive capability, no bombers, no tanks. But he had something better; he had come to understand that defeat was ultimately a state of mind and he was in a position to utterly demoralize the Confederacy by making it look helpless...
'But not revealed would be the rape, mass murder, and population displacement that became so much a part of war in the twentieth century. These were his fellow citizens...
'What he had in mind was a super realistic horror show, one that didn't leave a dry eye in the house, scored and directed by Crazy Billy Sherman, the modern day Attila.'

Essentially Sherman fought the most humane total war in modern history. He broke the back of the south in his march and was forever demonized by the ancestors of those southerners.
'A T-shirt at the 96 Olympics featuring Sherman's image emblazoned on a peneumbra of flames along with the motto “Atlanta's Original Torchbearer.”

-Robert L. Connel PHD

House used by Confederate Sharpshooters.

Then in September before the election Sherman took Atlanta showing a victory to the public and even McClellan (Ratty McFuckface) flip-flopped and stated the war needed to end in Confederate defeat.

'The capture of Altanta was just the sort of tangible accomplishment the Northern public needed in order to grasp that the war was not, as the Democratic Party orators were telling them, a failure... victory was on its way...
'Licoln might perhaps have won reelection without Sherman's victory at Atlanta though Lincoln himself thought it unlikely...
'Throughout the campaign, Sherman had practiced maneuver warfare more skillfully and on a wider stage than any other Civil War general had done.'
Sherman by Steven E. Woodworth PHD.

Sheet music from the song, "Sherman's March to the Sea."

The last part of his civil war career is his march to the sea and his supposed inventing of modern “Total War.” The same strategy the US government would later implement against plains tribes {Not condoning that}. The best description I found of this was from historian Robert L. Connell's book Fierce Patriot: The Tangled Lives of William Tecumseh Sherman.

'Obviously Sherman had a great deal less available in terms of destructive capability, no bombers, no tanks. But he had something better; he had come to understand that defeat was ultimately a state of mind and he was in a position to utterly demoralize the Confederacy by making it look helpless...
'But not revealed would be the rape, mass murder, and population displacement that became so much a part of war in the twentieth century. These were his fellow citizens...
'What he had in mind was a super realistic horror show, one that didn't leave a dry eye in the house, scored and directed by Crazy Billy Sherman, the modern day Attila.'

Essentially Sherman fought the most humane total war in modern history. He broke the back of the south in his march and was forever demonized by the ancestors of those southerners.
'A T-shirt at the 96 Olympics featuring Sherman's image emblazoned on a peneumbra of flames along with the motto “Atlanta's Original Torchbearer.”

-Robert L. Connel PHD