Why was William T Sherman named after Tecumseh?

Answer 1

His father highly respected the great Native American leader, Tecumseh, so they made that his middle name. In General William Tecumseh Sherman's own words (from his 1875 Memoirs), " ... Hardly was [my] family established there when the War of 1812 caused great alarm and distress in all Ohio. The English captured Detroit and the shores of Lake Erie down to the Maumee River; while the Indians still occupied the greater part of the State. Nearly every man had to be somewhat of a soldier, but I think my father was only a commissary; still, he seems to have caught a fancy for the great chief of the Shawnees, 'Tecumseh.'" "... When, in 1816, my brother James was born, he insisted on engrafting the Indian name 'Tecumseh' on the usual family list. My mother had already named her first son after her own brother Charles; and insisted on the second son taking the name of her other brother James, and when I came along, on the 8th of February, 1820, mother having no more brothers, my father succeeded in his original purpose, and named me William Tecumseh." The following link is to Memoirs of General William T. Sherman at Project Gutenberg.