Who is William Tecumseh Sherman?

Answer 1

One of the most interesting figures of the American Civil War, sometimes credited as the first modern General.

At the outbreak of the war, he suffered from a big disadvantage - he was one of the few regular army officers of his age-group who had been posted away from the action during the Mexican War. He was also a grim, awkward individual, believed to be somewhat mad, and hard to socialise with.

With hindsight, he can be seen as one of the very few officers who correctly predicted the course of the forthcoming war. He wrote to Southern friends, forecasting some early Confederate victories, followed by a slow road to defeat, as their weaknesses increasingly tilted against them.

At the war's first pitched battle (Bull Run), he performed well, but declared himself insane, and had to be sent away for a rest. By chance, he was then posted to Kentucky, where he was assigned to Ulysses Grant's army, and the two North-westerners worked well together and made firm friends.

He played a big role in the liberation of Vicksburg, and was rewarded with the command of an army when Grant became General-in-Chief.

His decision to reverse Grant's plans, and cross Georgia, burning farms and wrecking railroads, living off the land as he went, is now seen as one of the great creative breakthroughs of military history. It shortened the war by months, at almost nil casualties.