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A Soldier's Passion for Order: Sherman
General William Tecumseh Sherman has come down to us as the implacable destroyer of the Civil War, notorious for his burning of Atlanta and his brutal march to the sea. A probing biography that explains Sherman's style of warfare and the threads of self-possession and insecurity that made up his character.
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First published October 23, 1992
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John F. Marszalek
36 books8 followersJohn F. Marszalek is Giles Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Mississippi State University. He has served as the Executive Director and Managing Editor of the Ulysses S. Grant Association and The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant project since 2008.
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August 20, 2016
War is cruelty and you cannot refine it.
- William Tecumseh Sherman, addressing the mayor and city council of Atlanta, 1864
There is many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory, but, boys, it is all hell.
- William Tecumseh Sherman, addressing a Grand Army of the Republic encampment at the Ohio State Fair, 1880
I’ve always found Sherman to be an appealing hero of the Civil War. For one, he fought for the good guys. He was a fierce and ardent Unionist, with the talent to match his passion. This is no small thing in a war in which all the “great” generals – from Stonewall Jackson to the godlike Robert E. Lee – seem to come from the ranks of the Confederacy. There is also Sherman’s apparent modernity. Everyone likes a prophet, and Sherman’s notions of “total war” appear to prefigure the all-encompassing conflicts of the 20th century. Finally, even though Sherman’s animating purpose was violence, and even though he made his reputation by using the cruelty of war as an expediting factor, Sherman’s best-known quotes make him sound like a reluctant, almost apologetic warrior. He made war but did not love war.
After completing John Marszalek’s Sherman: A Soldier’s Passion for Order, I recognize that my conception of the hard-eyed, red-haired general is mostly wrong.
According to my mom, I’ve been reading about the Civil War since I was four years old. This is, however, my first dedicated biography on Sherman. Thus, even though I know all about his military exploits, I knew only fragments of his interior life. Marszalek’s 499-page treatment fills in all those moments between Sherman’s epic battles with an admirably warts-and-all approach that gives Sherman his due as a general, while also exposing him as an authoritarian crypto-Caesar endowed with the worst kind of racial bigotry that the 19th century had to offer.
When Sherman was born in 1820, he came into a stable world. His father was a successful lawyer and onetime justice on the Ohio Supreme Court. Nine years later, however, his father died unexpectedly, leaving a widow, eleven children, and a legacy of debt. The Sherman family broke apart, with young Tecumseh (according to Marszalek, the forename William came later, following a religious ceremony; initially, Sherman was named after the great Shawnee chieftain) going to live in the home of prominent (and rich!) attorney Thomas Ewing, a stalwart of the Whig party. Ewing’s massive shadow loomed over Sherman all his life, even after Sherman achieved international acclaim for his martial successes.
With Ewing’s help, Sherman gained admittance to the US Military Academy at West Point, where he excelled at his studies and graduated with the class of 1840. (While his academics were excellent, his comportment left much to be desired). Sherman’s military career leading up to the Civil War was undistinguished, to say the least. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Sherman did not find glory in Mexico. He was first posted to Florida, during the Seminole War, but saw no combat. Then he went to California, where he also saw no combat. Finally, he quit the Army and became a banker in San Francisco where – as you might have guessed – combat eluded him.
This opening act of Sherman’s life stands out for its ordinariness. There is not a lot of – for lack of a better word – action. Despite this, I found this the most interesting part of the biography. With no battles to describe, Marszalek spends a lot of time boring into Sherman’s inner life. He focuses especially on Sherman’s marriage to Ellen Ewing, the daughter of foster pa Thomas. Ellen wanted to live near her dad; moreover, she wanted her husband to take up a job in one of her father’s business concerns. Sherman wanted neither; indeed he desired quite the opposite. He wanted to get away from the man who’d raised him as a son. The relationship between Sherman and Ellen, memorialized in letters that Marszalek pores over, is utterly fascinating. It is amazingly awkward to watch Sherman, a celebrated and decisive leader, struggle to clarify his basic emotions to his wife.
Marszalek’s attention to Sherman’s prewar struggles (which partially mirrors Ulysses Grant, though Grant’s marriage appeared much stronger) allows him to define his subject. To Marszalek, Sherman’s personality can be boiled down to an overriding need for order. The death of his biological father, his family’s financial disorder, the splintering of his family, and his vague career prospects after he left the Army, instilled within him a visceral aversion to disorganization and uncertainty. He wanted control; he wanted things to be just so. Without a cause, without a war, he very well might have been a minor martinet, a high-strung and average failure in business and love.
Instead, a war came. A war that – on the broadest scale possible – threatened the orderliness of Sherman’s world.
Marszalek’s presentation of Sherman’s war didn’t stand out to me. I understand this is biography, not military history, but Sherman’s fame stems from his generalship. Frankly, I found that Marszalek never answered the most fundamental question of all: What made Sherman a great general? Sherman’s participation at Bull Run rates about a paragraph. Shiloh is a page or two. For the most part, there is no discussion or analysis of Sherman’s tactics. This is the kind of book that says something like “Sherman fought brilliantly” without ever explaining what that means. Did he have an excellent grasp of the terrain? Did he issue really good orders? Had he trained his men to such a degree that they were able to execute his commands? In general, these questions do not get asked, much less answered. Also, there are no maps. To be sure, you can read this book while looking at maps on your phone; however, the absence of maps is telling. There are no maps because Marszalek’s battle descriptions are not detailed enough to require them.
The bulk of the Civil War chapters deal with Sherman’s capture of Atlanta, his march to Savannah, and his subsequent invasion of South Carolina. Marszalek does get a bit more in-depth during these campaigns. He is especially good at interpreting Sherman’s psyche regarding the concept of “total war.” To Sherman, this meant avoiding bloody pitched battles with the opposing army, while reducing the ability of the enemy to make war in the first place by destroying its supply base.
Interestingly, Marszalek argues that Sherman’s depredations have been highly inflated by memory and time. Even today, Sherman is despised in the South as a fire-bringing Satan who left a charred and blackened wake as he passed. The reality, Marszalek argues, is that Sherman carefully focused his destruction to meet military exigencies. (Of course, his “bummers” – in actuality, elite light cavalry – did do a rather thorough job of foraging).
Furthermore, and more surprising to me, is that Sherman – despite his reputation for unleashed violence – was a huge Southern sympathizer. He had a lot of Southern friends and was more than willing to forgive and forget once the war ended. (See, for instance, his notorious surrender terms to Joe Johnson). It was only the South’s breach of law and order that brought Sherman’s wrath.
I give Marszalek a lot of credit for his methodical approach to Sherman’s racism. A lot of bios about 19th century heroes try to deal with their subject’s racial views in a cursory or passing manner. That doesn’t happen here. Marszalek returns to this theme time and again as it rears up in Sherman’s life.
Sherman’s post-Civil War years were tumultuous. He oversaw the conduct of the Indian Wars, rose to become General of the Armies, tussled with politicians (including a very frightening, very Caesar-like row with Edwin Stanton), worried obsessively about his finances, and dallied with women who were not his wife (though we do not know whether those flirtations were consummated). This is a lot of ground covered in a relatively short space, so the material feels rushed. I feel like a longer book might have allowed the material to breathe a bit more. On the other hand, no life can be adequately contained within a single volume. An author has to pick and choose the parts of a life to amplify.
Our heroes are made of marble, but humanity comes up from the mud. By the end of this, I thoroughly disliked Sherman. Not simply for his casual bigotry, but for his tyrannical instincts, and his flagrant disrespect for politicians and the democratic process (which I find absolutely terrifying when embodied in an active duty soldier). Sherman helped save this country. After Lincoln and Grant, he might have the third best claim to being the Civil War’s indispensable man. He was, then, in that sense, a great man. His goodness, though, is harder to quantify.
- William Tecumseh Sherman, addressing the mayor and city council of Atlanta, 1864
There is many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory, but, boys, it is all hell.
- William Tecumseh Sherman, addressing a Grand Army of the Republic encampment at the Ohio State Fair, 1880
I’ve always found Sherman to be an appealing hero of the Civil War. For one, he fought for the good guys. He was a fierce and ardent Unionist, with the talent to match his passion. This is no small thing in a war in which all the “great” generals – from Stonewall Jackson to the godlike Robert E. Lee – seem to come from the ranks of the Confederacy. There is also Sherman’s apparent modernity. Everyone likes a prophet, and Sherman’s notions of “total war” appear to prefigure the all-encompassing conflicts of the 20th century. Finally, even though Sherman’s animating purpose was violence, and even though he made his reputation by using the cruelty of war as an expediting factor, Sherman’s best-known quotes make him sound like a reluctant, almost apologetic warrior. He made war but did not love war.
After completing John Marszalek’s Sherman: A Soldier’s Passion for Order, I recognize that my conception of the hard-eyed, red-haired general is mostly wrong.
According to my mom, I’ve been reading about the Civil War since I was four years old. This is, however, my first dedicated biography on Sherman. Thus, even though I know all about his military exploits, I knew only fragments of his interior life. Marszalek’s 499-page treatment fills in all those moments between Sherman’s epic battles with an admirably warts-and-all approach that gives Sherman his due as a general, while also exposing him as an authoritarian crypto-Caesar endowed with the worst kind of racial bigotry that the 19th century had to offer.
When Sherman was born in 1820, he came into a stable world. His father was a successful lawyer and onetime justice on the Ohio Supreme Court. Nine years later, however, his father died unexpectedly, leaving a widow, eleven children, and a legacy of debt. The Sherman family broke apart, with young Tecumseh (according to Marszalek, the forename William came later, following a religious ceremony; initially, Sherman was named after the great Shawnee chieftain) going to live in the home of prominent (and rich!) attorney Thomas Ewing, a stalwart of the Whig party. Ewing’s massive shadow loomed over Sherman all his life, even after Sherman achieved international acclaim for his martial successes.
With Ewing’s help, Sherman gained admittance to the US Military Academy at West Point, where he excelled at his studies and graduated with the class of 1840. (While his academics were excellent, his comportment left much to be desired). Sherman’s military career leading up to the Civil War was undistinguished, to say the least. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Sherman did not find glory in Mexico. He was first posted to Florida, during the Seminole War, but saw no combat. Then he went to California, where he also saw no combat. Finally, he quit the Army and became a banker in San Francisco where – as you might have guessed – combat eluded him.
This opening act of Sherman’s life stands out for its ordinariness. There is not a lot of – for lack of a better word – action. Despite this, I found this the most interesting part of the biography. With no battles to describe, Marszalek spends a lot of time boring into Sherman’s inner life. He focuses especially on Sherman’s marriage to Ellen Ewing, the daughter of foster pa Thomas. Ellen wanted to live near her dad; moreover, she wanted her husband to take up a job in one of her father’s business concerns. Sherman wanted neither; indeed he desired quite the opposite. He wanted to get away from the man who’d raised him as a son. The relationship between Sherman and Ellen, memorialized in letters that Marszalek pores over, is utterly fascinating. It is amazingly awkward to watch Sherman, a celebrated and decisive leader, struggle to clarify his basic emotions to his wife.
Marszalek’s attention to Sherman’s prewar struggles (which partially mirrors Ulysses Grant, though Grant’s marriage appeared much stronger) allows him to define his subject. To Marszalek, Sherman’s personality can be boiled down to an overriding need for order. The death of his biological father, his family’s financial disorder, the splintering of his family, and his vague career prospects after he left the Army, instilled within him a visceral aversion to disorganization and uncertainty. He wanted control; he wanted things to be just so. Without a cause, without a war, he very well might have been a minor martinet, a high-strung and average failure in business and love.
Instead, a war came. A war that – on the broadest scale possible – threatened the orderliness of Sherman’s world.
Marszalek’s presentation of Sherman’s war didn’t stand out to me. I understand this is biography, not military history, but Sherman’s fame stems from his generalship. Frankly, I found that Marszalek never answered the most fundamental question of all: What made Sherman a great general? Sherman’s participation at Bull Run rates about a paragraph. Shiloh is a page or two. For the most part, there is no discussion or analysis of Sherman’s tactics. This is the kind of book that says something like “Sherman fought brilliantly” without ever explaining what that means. Did he have an excellent grasp of the terrain? Did he issue really good orders? Had he trained his men to such a degree that they were able to execute his commands? In general, these questions do not get asked, much less answered. Also, there are no maps. To be sure, you can read this book while looking at maps on your phone; however, the absence of maps is telling. There are no maps because Marszalek’s battle descriptions are not detailed enough to require them.
The bulk of the Civil War chapters deal with Sherman’s capture of Atlanta, his march to Savannah, and his subsequent invasion of South Carolina. Marszalek does get a bit more in-depth during these campaigns. He is especially good at interpreting Sherman’s psyche regarding the concept of “total war.” To Sherman, this meant avoiding bloody pitched battles with the opposing army, while reducing the ability of the enemy to make war in the first place by destroying its supply base.
Interestingly, Marszalek argues that Sherman’s depredations have been highly inflated by memory and time. Even today, Sherman is despised in the South as a fire-bringing Satan who left a charred and blackened wake as he passed. The reality, Marszalek argues, is that Sherman carefully focused his destruction to meet military exigencies. (Of course, his “bummers” – in actuality, elite light cavalry – did do a rather thorough job of foraging).
Furthermore, and more surprising to me, is that Sherman – despite his reputation for unleashed violence – was a huge Southern sympathizer. He had a lot of Southern friends and was more than willing to forgive and forget once the war ended. (See, for instance, his notorious surrender terms to Joe Johnson). It was only the South’s breach of law and order that brought Sherman’s wrath.
I give Marszalek a lot of credit for his methodical approach to Sherman’s racism. A lot of bios about 19th century heroes try to deal with their subject’s racial views in a cursory or passing manner. That doesn’t happen here. Marszalek returns to this theme time and again as it rears up in Sherman’s life.
Sherman’s post-Civil War years were tumultuous. He oversaw the conduct of the Indian Wars, rose to become General of the Armies, tussled with politicians (including a very frightening, very Caesar-like row with Edwin Stanton), worried obsessively about his finances, and dallied with women who were not his wife (though we do not know whether those flirtations were consummated). This is a lot of ground covered in a relatively short space, so the material feels rushed. I feel like a longer book might have allowed the material to breathe a bit more. On the other hand, no life can be adequately contained within a single volume. An author has to pick and choose the parts of a life to amplify.
Our heroes are made of marble, but humanity comes up from the mud. By the end of this, I thoroughly disliked Sherman. Not simply for his casual bigotry, but for his tyrannical instincts, and his flagrant disrespect for politicians and the democratic process (which I find absolutely terrifying when embodied in an active duty soldier). Sherman helped save this country. After Lincoln and Grant, he might have the third best claim to being the Civil War’s indispensable man. He was, then, in that sense, a great man. His goodness, though, is harder to quantify.
May 20, 2021
I have been reading a lot of American history lately, particularly focused on the southern region. After reading Battle Cry of Freedom by James McPherson, I knew I wanted to read a William Tecumseh Sherman biography, and was eager to get started right away.
John Marszalek’s “Sherman: A Soldier’s Passion for Order” chronicles the full and varied life of William Tecumseh Sherman. Sherman was born in Ohio in 1820, 6th in a family of 11. His early life was difficult, with his father often not home and then dying and leaving the family destitute. As a result of this, the Sherman children were dispersed to relatives and friends to be fostered. Luckily for “Cump”, he was taken in by Charles Sherman’s good friend Thomas Ewing, who eventually became a US Senator. Sherman adopted many of Ewing’s “Cotton Whig” views, being pro bank, anti-nullification, and anti-abolition. Ewing was able to secure Sherman a spot at West Point when he was about 16 years old, where he met almost every consequential Civil War general other than Lee. One thing that resonates in Sherman’s early life is his absolute need to make his own way (and have a stable income, something his father did not provide), and not to have to rely on the largess of Ewing. So, although Ewing’s initial plan for Sherman was to leave the army after graduation and make his life in the civilian world, Sherman decided that he was best suited as an army man. He spent much of his early years after graduation in the south, at Fort Moultrie in South Carolina, some time in Florida during the Second Seminole War (although he didn’t see any action), and in Mobile Alabama. He befriended many southerners and his pro-slavery stance strengthened. He was extremely bored as a soldier with no real assignment during peace time, so he leapt at the chance to join a new company to secure California during the Mexican American War in 1846 but again seeing no action. He stays long enough to witness the California Gold Rush, but makes no profit from it.
By 1852, due to extreme pressure from his wife Ellen and his foster father Thomas Ewing, Sherman eventually resigns his commission in the army and begins running a bank in California. He does a relatively successful job of it, having the one bank in the area that doesn’t go under due to the Panic of 1857, having prudently not overextended the bank’s commitments. However, over time, the bank does eventually close, through no fault of Sherman’s (as does a stint at another bank in NYC shortly thereafter). We find him wandering from job to job for the next couple years, as a lawyer (with no training) and as a real estate man in Kansas. Eventually he makes his way to Louisiana to teach at a military academy there, but leaves once the Civil War breaks out and he realizes Louisiana will side with the confederacy.
Sherman gets a colonel’s commission, and sees some of the war’s earliest action, leading soldiers in the First Battle of Bull Run (Manassas). It is a disaster, as the all volunteer corp he leads is disorganized, scared and runs, although Sherman’s corp holds it together better than all others. He is sent to Kentucky and is promoted to Brigadier General. Here he is labeled “insane” for his reluctance to engage what he thought was a much larger confederate force. He is put on a temporary leave by Halleck and attacked in the press. Sherman never forgot it.
Woven throughout the biography is Sherman’s relationship with his super Catholic, daddy loving wife, which caused all sorts of strain in their marriage. No one, even at the time, seemed to think it was weird that he married his foster father’s daughter and that they both derived their self worth from Thomas Ewing until Ewing’s passing in the early 1870s. Ellen was so attached to dad that she often refused to follow Sherman on his journeys, preferring to live at her parent’s home.
We finally see Sherman’s redemption through the battles of Fort Donelson, Shiloh, and the Vicksburg campaign. In particular, his march through Mississippi helped solidify his modern “total war” approach through Atlanta, his march to the sea and through the Carolinas.
As time goes on and Sherman comes into his own (being promoted again in the process), we see his authoritarian streak come out. For instance, he uses his new found power to pull off the only court martial conviction of a member of the press! He snuffed out any press coverage of his campaigns since he felt it gave the confederates opportunities to study his movements but it also gave him a chance to exact his revenge on an institution that labeled him insane in the beginning of the war.
His capture of Atlanta, his march to the sea and through the Carolinas demonstrates his switch from engaging armies to implementing psychological warfare against the confederacy – by destroying the confederate will to continue the war. He did this through railroad destruction, burning of land, confiscation of food, freeing slaves, terrorizing the people anything of war value—this signaled the future direction of modern warfare. “Uncle Billy” has an invincible force and he used it in the most effective way possible to bring about the end of the Civil War.
After Lee’s surrender to Grant at Appomattox Courthouse, Sherman is dispatched to deal with the only remaining army in the confederacy. He quickly catches up to Johnston’s army and grants him generous surrender terms, enraging Washington DC, specifically Secretary of War Stanton and several “Black Republican” senators. This of course caused Sherman a ton of bad press, which got another shot in at him.
Post Civil War, Sherman is named Commanding General of the Army, although he continually clashed with the various Secretary of Wars over his authority limits. He oversaw the armies efforts during the Indian Wars of the 1870s and early 1880s, believing the Native Americans to be “savages” that needed to adapt to white culture. Unfortunately, Marszalek does not spend a lot of pages diving into this terrible part of Sherman’s legacy.
Marszalek does get credit for continually pointing out Sherman’s racist attitudes related to African Americans. Sherman always felt they were inferior beings, and really never saw a problem with slavery. This reprehensible stance is covered quite a bit in this volume.
Overall, this was a solid biography, although I am disappointed in the lack of maps – it really detracted from each of the campaigns and I feel Marszalek should have spent more time covering Sherman’s role in the Indian Wars.
John Marszalek’s “Sherman: A Soldier’s Passion for Order” chronicles the full and varied life of William Tecumseh Sherman. Sherman was born in Ohio in 1820, 6th in a family of 11. His early life was difficult, with his father often not home and then dying and leaving the family destitute. As a result of this, the Sherman children were dispersed to relatives and friends to be fostered. Luckily for “Cump”, he was taken in by Charles Sherman’s good friend Thomas Ewing, who eventually became a US Senator. Sherman adopted many of Ewing’s “Cotton Whig” views, being pro bank, anti-nullification, and anti-abolition. Ewing was able to secure Sherman a spot at West Point when he was about 16 years old, where he met almost every consequential Civil War general other than Lee. One thing that resonates in Sherman’s early life is his absolute need to make his own way (and have a stable income, something his father did not provide), and not to have to rely on the largess of Ewing. So, although Ewing’s initial plan for Sherman was to leave the army after graduation and make his life in the civilian world, Sherman decided that he was best suited as an army man. He spent much of his early years after graduation in the south, at Fort Moultrie in South Carolina, some time in Florida during the Second Seminole War (although he didn’t see any action), and in Mobile Alabama. He befriended many southerners and his pro-slavery stance strengthened. He was extremely bored as a soldier with no real assignment during peace time, so he leapt at the chance to join a new company to secure California during the Mexican American War in 1846 but again seeing no action. He stays long enough to witness the California Gold Rush, but makes no profit from it.
By 1852, due to extreme pressure from his wife Ellen and his foster father Thomas Ewing, Sherman eventually resigns his commission in the army and begins running a bank in California. He does a relatively successful job of it, having the one bank in the area that doesn’t go under due to the Panic of 1857, having prudently not overextended the bank’s commitments. However, over time, the bank does eventually close, through no fault of Sherman’s (as does a stint at another bank in NYC shortly thereafter). We find him wandering from job to job for the next couple years, as a lawyer (with no training) and as a real estate man in Kansas. Eventually he makes his way to Louisiana to teach at a military academy there, but leaves once the Civil War breaks out and he realizes Louisiana will side with the confederacy.
Sherman gets a colonel’s commission, and sees some of the war’s earliest action, leading soldiers in the First Battle of Bull Run (Manassas). It is a disaster, as the all volunteer corp he leads is disorganized, scared and runs, although Sherman’s corp holds it together better than all others. He is sent to Kentucky and is promoted to Brigadier General. Here he is labeled “insane” for his reluctance to engage what he thought was a much larger confederate force. He is put on a temporary leave by Halleck and attacked in the press. Sherman never forgot it.
Woven throughout the biography is Sherman’s relationship with his super Catholic, daddy loving wife, which caused all sorts of strain in their marriage. No one, even at the time, seemed to think it was weird that he married his foster father’s daughter and that they both derived their self worth from Thomas Ewing until Ewing’s passing in the early 1870s. Ellen was so attached to dad that she often refused to follow Sherman on his journeys, preferring to live at her parent’s home.
We finally see Sherman’s redemption through the battles of Fort Donelson, Shiloh, and the Vicksburg campaign. In particular, his march through Mississippi helped solidify his modern “total war” approach through Atlanta, his march to the sea and through the Carolinas.
As time goes on and Sherman comes into his own (being promoted again in the process), we see his authoritarian streak come out. For instance, he uses his new found power to pull off the only court martial conviction of a member of the press! He snuffed out any press coverage of his campaigns since he felt it gave the confederates opportunities to study his movements but it also gave him a chance to exact his revenge on an institution that labeled him insane in the beginning of the war.
His capture of Atlanta, his march to the sea and through the Carolinas demonstrates his switch from engaging armies to implementing psychological warfare against the confederacy – by destroying the confederate will to continue the war. He did this through railroad destruction, burning of land, confiscation of food, freeing slaves, terrorizing the people anything of war value—this signaled the future direction of modern warfare. “Uncle Billy” has an invincible force and he used it in the most effective way possible to bring about the end of the Civil War.
After Lee’s surrender to Grant at Appomattox Courthouse, Sherman is dispatched to deal with the only remaining army in the confederacy. He quickly catches up to Johnston’s army and grants him generous surrender terms, enraging Washington DC, specifically Secretary of War Stanton and several “Black Republican” senators. This of course caused Sherman a ton of bad press, which got another shot in at him.
Post Civil War, Sherman is named Commanding General of the Army, although he continually clashed with the various Secretary of Wars over his authority limits. He oversaw the armies efforts during the Indian Wars of the 1870s and early 1880s, believing the Native Americans to be “savages” that needed to adapt to white culture. Unfortunately, Marszalek does not spend a lot of pages diving into this terrible part of Sherman’s legacy.
Marszalek does get credit for continually pointing out Sherman’s racist attitudes related to African Americans. Sherman always felt they were inferior beings, and really never saw a problem with slavery. This reprehensible stance is covered quite a bit in this volume.
Overall, this was a solid biography, although I am disappointed in the lack of maps – it really detracted from each of the campaigns and I feel Marszalek should have spent more time covering Sherman’s role in the Indian Wars.
May 13, 2025
This was a delightful biography of William Tecumseh Sherman ... the famous Civil War general remembered for his "March to the Sea." The narrative is roughly divided into three parts: his early life in business and the military leading up to the Civil War, the war of insurrection, and the retirement years after the war including his maneuvers with the Indians and his life after the Army.
The tale was especially engaging because it didn't fall into hagiography, even though Sherman was undoubtedly the most famous Union general outside of US Grant. At the end, many tried to get Sherman to run for president, but he consistently demurred. Well-written and with extensive notes, this book is recommended for people who enjoy the Civil War stories of the characters and battles of that time.
The tale was especially engaging because it didn't fall into hagiography, even though Sherman was undoubtedly the most famous Union general outside of US Grant. At the end, many tried to get Sherman to run for president, but he consistently demurred. Well-written and with extensive notes, this book is recommended for people who enjoy the Civil War stories of the characters and battles of that time.
March 16, 2023
The story of one of the most contoversial Civil War heroes…This is my 2nd read of this Sherman bio…I was about a third of my way through, when I realized that I read this more than a decade earlier…There’s no new ground here, but provides great insights into motivations for grand strategy and individual tactics, for the Civil War, the later Indian Wars and his entire life…fulfilling read!!!
March 17, 2024
A masterful biography of Sherman, built on his fear and hatred of chaos and anarchy, which Marszalek traces to his disordered childhood. Marszalek follows Sherman's life largely chronologically through the Civil War, then shifts to a topical approach that provides full coverage but makes it somewhat difficult to follow the chronology. Overall still the best study available.
November 2, 2022
A five star Civil War general biography is a rarity to come across, but Sherman: A Soldier's Passion For Order is a gem which achieves this distinction.
Historian John Marszalek relays the complexities of General William Tecumseh Sherman's character. Throughout the book's pages he manages to show him for the military hero, total war practicing conqueror, and instinctively traditional man he was on the issues of slavery and racial equality.
There is a heavy emphasis on Sherman’s family life, and several themes recur when this topic comes up. "Cump," as he was often referred to, desired his father-in-law Thomas Ewing’s approval in a borderline unhealthy way; this craving frequently came up during his efforts to achieve success in both the private and military spheres. During the pre-1861 portion of the book, Sherman’s separations from his wife (the former Ellen Ewing) due to her staying back in Ohio with the children and in-laws--alongside her disapproval of his choice of a career in the military and stiff arming of the Catholic faith--led to severe stress in their marriage.
The fact that Sherman spent a lot of his prewar military years stationed in the South played a major role later in the narrative. Not only was he able to familiarize himself with the terrain in Georgia, the book makes clear that he was fond of many of the individuals he befriended and was disturbed by the region’s seemingly knee jerk decision to leave the Union.
Marszalek emphasizes that Sherman also absorbed attitudes toward African-Americans and slavery that reflected Southerner’s views; he never seemed to like abolitionists and viewed slavery as “part of the natural order.” Again and again he would separate the fight to punish rebellion from any form of equality for the freed blacks, and the book is filled with quotes emphasizing Sherman’s retrograde racial views. These conservative social inclinations differed from those of his brother, Ohio U.S. Senator John Sherman.
Although he would miss out on combat in the Mexican-American War, Sherman’s time in Florida during the Second Seminole War also taught him lessons that he would carry with him later on in the Civil War years. His dealings with Chief Coacoochee are detailed, and this section provides an early look at Sherman’s formative years dealing with a hostile group inclined to guerrilla warfare on their own turf.
The “Gold Rush Soldier” chapter is a particular interesting followup to the one on the Seminoles.
Sherman was stationed in California attached to California’s territorial governor Richard Barnes Mason in the late 1840s when the Sutter’s Mill gold discovery was made. Messengers from Sutter himself arrived with samples of this newfound mineral at Mason’s headquarters, and Sherman was right on the spot to touch the stone to his teeth and test it out with tools to see if it was gold. (Indeed it was.)
Sherman would put together an expedition to leave Monterey and travel to Johann Sutter’s spot one mile from the American Fork near the Sacramento River, determined to see for himself confirmation that a massive gold rush was in its early stages.
Sherman would continue to bounce around in his military capacity, next living in St. Louis. Unlike his time in California, this time Ellen and the children joined him from Ohio. But this would only last for a short period, as Sherman would soon be stationed in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. To his chagrin, Ellen and the kids moved back to Ohio, the latter a sort of ransom kept back in Sherman’s father-in-law’s house.
This time in Missouri and Kansas coincided with the debate surrounding the Missouri Compromise of 1850 which, much to Sherman's regret, brought the debate over slavery to the forefront of national politics. He wanted this issue steered clear of in order to avoid a sectional clash.
The tension between “Cump” and Ellen only grew as she insisted he become a civilian and take a job at the family salt works in order to be nearer to the Ewing home in Ohio; she also stayed on her husband about converting to Catholicism. This would be a frequent refrain from Ellen, but Sherman evinced little interest in the Catholic faith or any organized religion. He would bounce around again, heading to New Orleans in the fall of 1852 on orders to fix issues with the local commissary service.
As if this array of postings were not enough, Sherman next went into the private sector to take on a series of tumultuous jobs.
He would find himself back in California in 1853, this time in San Francisco in charge of the new California branch of his friend Henry S. Turner’s Lucas, Turner, and Company Bank.
He arrived in the growing city of San Francisco (population 50,000 at the time) to find the bank under capitalized. His family would join him, but the city would soon be gripped by vigilante groups during an uncertain time in the recently acquired California’s existence as a territory in legal no-man’s-land. The book does nice work laying out Sherman’s struggles as both head of a bank and of the local militia in trying to stem the growing tide of extralegal violence meted out during clashes between the San Francisco business community and those unscrupulously opposing their interests. The upshot of this difficult situation was an observation by the author that “It was this experience with the vigilantes in California that helped persuade (Sherman) in 1860-1861 against Southern secessionists in order to avoid anarchy of a far greater magnitude than that which occurred in San Francisco.”
Following this tumultuous time in the Golden State, Sherman would then move to help manage the bank’s branch in New York (Ellen was thankful to leave San Francisco) just in time for the Panic of 1857 to unsettle the nation’s economy. After consecutive awful experiences, Sherman would dub himself the “Jonah of banking.”
He then gave in to his family’s demands to do business with the Ewing family, and he found himself back in Kansas doing a mixture of farming and legal work for his in-laws. He had been haunted by worries of financial instability since being adopted at the age of nine following the death of his father Charles. (Sherman had been adopted by the Ewings, meaning his wife was actually his adopted sister.) Charles Sherman’s rough financial luck also contributed to Sherman’s constant fear of falling into dire monetary straits, and these worries frequently kept him on edge.
If it sounds like his life up to this point had been largely a mess, he agreed. Sherman summed up his tough luck since graduating West Point this way: “I have been shipwrecked twice, had an arm dislocated from a horse, had some rather hard admonitions generally not sounding well in history-have heard a few Indian shots...so that on the whole my career has been more civil than military.”
After trying things his way in civilian life for a decade and facing a shaky economy, he turned back to military life. He accepted a position as superintendent of a new military school in Alexandria, Louisiana. This would give him more experience being around Southerners and would have him present in the state at the time they seceded from the Union. When grumblings of secession began due to Abraham Lincoln’s election as the sixteenth president, Sherman was consistent that he would leave Louisiana if they quit the Union but would remain so long as it stayed. He would ultimately resign in February 1861 after the state’s secession and seizure by state authorities of the U.S. Arsenal at Baton Rouge.
Sherman would have an awkward exchange with Louisiana Governor Thomas Overton Moore at his farewell ceremony from the military academy, half-jokingly telling him he hoped he would not eventually have to “catch you, for I should surely hang you.” Sherman appeared concerned that his Northern friends did not seem to be taking the South’s course seriously; from conversations he’d had, they were deadly serious about leaving the Union over the slavery issue. Even Lincoln did not seem overly concerned when he was introduced to Cump by Sherman's Senator brother John, with the new president dismissing talk that the Confederacy was anything to worry about. Sherman left that meeting convinced he was not going to put his life on the line in any potential war unless the United States was willing to make a prepared and concerted effort in the fight.
The portion on Sherman’s pre-Civil War years is a tremendous credit to Sherman: A Soldier’s Passion For Order. The final three-quarters of the book covers the war years, and these are written with the same clarity Sherman’s early years are detailed in. He was present at the disaster at Bull Run to kick off the war, chaos which only reinforced his opinion that Lincoln and the entire Union command structure were not remotely taking the level of threat seriously. It is evident that he had an in with President Lincoln courtesy of John and a politically well-connected father-in-law (Thomas Ewing).
Following Bull Run, Sherman was present in the border states of Kentucky and Missouri and frequently worked under General Henry Halleck. While in Kentucky, he faced accusations of insanity after what apparently was a breakdown from the stress he was under. While Halleck sought to downplay these smears, questions about his sanity during his time in Kentucky would grate on Sherman throughout the rest of his military career.
If First Bull Run and his post in Kentucky were low points early on in the war, Sherman began to taste success at the Battle of Shiloh in 1862. This bloody clash with the Confederates in Tennessee would see Sherman linked with General Ulysses S. Grant for the first time. Alongside General William Prentiss, Sherman would help the Americans to victory in a battle that left many casualties along the banks of the Tennessee River.
Marszalek noted that this clash served not just "wiped away the stigma of Kentucky, but it had also provided the occasion for Thomas Ewing to express the approval that Sherman had always craved.” Although he would not be accused of insanity, General Grant would face slanders of his own in the press in the form of accusations of drunkenness. Sherman’s contempt for the press were repeatedly documented, with numerous instances recounted of his desire to suppress negative stories that might hurt the Union cause during wartime.
After Shiloh, Halleck would appoint Sherman military governor of Memphis. Here he is shown as trying to have both a tough and yet open demeanor toward the defeated people of that city in southwestern Tennessee.
From Memphis, Sherman would begin a long slog to taking the city of Vicksburg and gaining full control of the Mississippi River for the North. This task takes up an entire chapter as Sherman and his men push through awful terrain and an embarrassing setback at Chickasaw Bayou. Admiral David Dixon Porter’s flotilla and General John McClernand and E.O.C. Ord’s Union troops would join in Sherman and Grant’s attempts to take Vicksburg; strenuous campaigning would ensue at Arkansas Post, Bruinsburg, and the capital city of Jackson would fall as the seven month long war of attrition wound toward its ultimate goal.
Changes of plans came frequently as the Confederates dug in and endured a siege at Vicksburg, with Confederate John Pemberton holding out until July 1863.
It was in the midst of and immediately after the Vicksburg campaign in 1863 that Marszalek shows Sherman warming up to the foraging and total war strategy he would later employ during the March to the Sea in Georgia.
“In order to destroy the anarchy that the Confederacy had loosed,” Marszalek explains, “he believed counter war was inevitable. He would impose his own brand of barbarism to destroy that of the Confederate war effort.”
According to Sherman, burning and laying waste to Confederate land “may seem cruel, but it is sharp and short. Procrastination in war is a greater evil than cruelty. We fight for success. Everything that tends to that is legitimate.” (Needless to say, his tactics were quite controversial in the South). He would order railroads destroyed in Meridian, Mississippi, in a precursor to what would happen in Georgia in late 1864.
After Mississippi, Sherman would see more combat in the Tennessee theater. The Union situation in Chattanooga, Nashville, and Knoxville all received a boost from his martial efforts. Readers are likely to be exhausted just hearing about Sherman’s restless campaigning recounted in this richly detailed narrative.
Fighting with Confederate General Joseph Johnston and, to a lesser extent, John Bell Hood would consume Grant during the last years of the war. This would climax with the fall of Atlanta to Sherman’s men in time for Lincoln’s 1864 reelection. The book points out that this campaign “would long be studied in military history courses as a model of logistics and movement.” Sherman’s policies toward conquered Atlanta would leave that city’s residents with much worse feelings than the citizens of Memphis had felt toward his rule; his depopulation order for ordering women and children to leave Atlanta received a lot of what was, in his mind, unnecessary blow back. The blame for the city's burning is not all laid at Sherman's feet, as General Hood also has the finger pointed at him during the city's defense and evacuation.
Like the Vicksburg campaign, Sherman's March to the Sea receives a chapter of its own. The trek to Savannah and the Atlantic coast, during which the Union Army cut their supply lines and lived off the land, left a wide swath of destruction across Georgia. Sherman, embracing the total war concept he had to deem justified, argued that he "never felt disposed to apologize for or excuse anything." To hear him tell it, "Those people made war on us, defied and dared us to come south to their country, where the boasted they would kill us and do all manner of horrible things. We accepted their challenge, and now for them to wine and complain of the natural and necessary results is beneath contempt."
The South was finished off as Sherman headed north through South Carolina and North Carolina to link up with Grant's men fighting in Virginia. According to the book, Sherman's men went much tougher on the former state (the cradle of secession) than they did on the defeated peoples of the Tar Heel State.
Interestingly, Sherman was criticized for the peace terms he offered General Joseph Johnston in April 1865. Many Union men accused him, of all things, of going too soft on the Confederates. His anti-African American prejudice and frequent refrain that he saw little wrong the institution of slavery made many Northerners, particularly Radical Republicans, suspicious of Sherman's motives toward the end of the war and during Reconstruction.
For his part, Sherman defended his offer to Johnston by saying "Now that the war is over...I am as willing to risk my person and reputation as heretofore to heal the wounds made by the past war, and I think my feeling is shared by the whole army." Marszalek viewed these proferred terms as a mistake. "In his passion for order and peace, Sherman miscalculated. He believed that he could lead and other would follow, in peace as well as war. They did not. Most Southerners considered him a brutal destroyer; many Northerners saw his generous peace terms as offensive at best, treasonable at worst."
The parades in the aftermath of the war would bring Sherman delight, but the fights over presidential and then congressional Reconstruction would leave him sickened. He requested posts out West to avoid the squabbling between Radicals and the Johnson administration, opting to play a role in the Indian Wars rather than occupy the South or fight political battles in Washington. He even had Joseph Johnston as a pallbearer at his funeral; Sherman’s time spent with Army of the Tennessee veterans would bring him pleasure alongside visits with former Confederates. His push for leniency toward the defeated South only led to further suspicion of the Union hero, and both parties would unsuccessfully jostle to recruit him as their nominee for president.
Sherman: A Soldier's Passion for Order is a tremendous nonfiction book. It produces a richly layered version of William T. Sherman that leaves the impression the author did ample work in getting at what made him tick. It is not uncritical, but neither does it go out of its way to smear the Union general.
The book is historical writing at its best, and this is an eminently recommendable work for those who enjoy reading about the martial exploits and layered personalities of those who helped bring about the Union victory in the Civil War.
-Andrew Canfield Denver, Colorado
Historian John Marszalek relays the complexities of General William Tecumseh Sherman's character. Throughout the book's pages he manages to show him for the military hero, total war practicing conqueror, and instinctively traditional man he was on the issues of slavery and racial equality.
There is a heavy emphasis on Sherman’s family life, and several themes recur when this topic comes up. "Cump," as he was often referred to, desired his father-in-law Thomas Ewing’s approval in a borderline unhealthy way; this craving frequently came up during his efforts to achieve success in both the private and military spheres. During the pre-1861 portion of the book, Sherman’s separations from his wife (the former Ellen Ewing) due to her staying back in Ohio with the children and in-laws--alongside her disapproval of his choice of a career in the military and stiff arming of the Catholic faith--led to severe stress in their marriage.
The fact that Sherman spent a lot of his prewar military years stationed in the South played a major role later in the narrative. Not only was he able to familiarize himself with the terrain in Georgia, the book makes clear that he was fond of many of the individuals he befriended and was disturbed by the region’s seemingly knee jerk decision to leave the Union.
Marszalek emphasizes that Sherman also absorbed attitudes toward African-Americans and slavery that reflected Southerner’s views; he never seemed to like abolitionists and viewed slavery as “part of the natural order.” Again and again he would separate the fight to punish rebellion from any form of equality for the freed blacks, and the book is filled with quotes emphasizing Sherman’s retrograde racial views. These conservative social inclinations differed from those of his brother, Ohio U.S. Senator John Sherman.
Although he would miss out on combat in the Mexican-American War, Sherman’s time in Florida during the Second Seminole War also taught him lessons that he would carry with him later on in the Civil War years. His dealings with Chief Coacoochee are detailed, and this section provides an early look at Sherman’s formative years dealing with a hostile group inclined to guerrilla warfare on their own turf.
The “Gold Rush Soldier” chapter is a particular interesting followup to the one on the Seminoles.
Sherman was stationed in California attached to California’s territorial governor Richard Barnes Mason in the late 1840s when the Sutter’s Mill gold discovery was made. Messengers from Sutter himself arrived with samples of this newfound mineral at Mason’s headquarters, and Sherman was right on the spot to touch the stone to his teeth and test it out with tools to see if it was gold. (Indeed it was.)
Sherman would put together an expedition to leave Monterey and travel to Johann Sutter’s spot one mile from the American Fork near the Sacramento River, determined to see for himself confirmation that a massive gold rush was in its early stages.
Sherman would continue to bounce around in his military capacity, next living in St. Louis. Unlike his time in California, this time Ellen and the children joined him from Ohio. But this would only last for a short period, as Sherman would soon be stationed in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. To his chagrin, Ellen and the kids moved back to Ohio, the latter a sort of ransom kept back in Sherman’s father-in-law’s house.
This time in Missouri and Kansas coincided with the debate surrounding the Missouri Compromise of 1850 which, much to Sherman's regret, brought the debate over slavery to the forefront of national politics. He wanted this issue steered clear of in order to avoid a sectional clash.
The tension between “Cump” and Ellen only grew as she insisted he become a civilian and take a job at the family salt works in order to be nearer to the Ewing home in Ohio; she also stayed on her husband about converting to Catholicism. This would be a frequent refrain from Ellen, but Sherman evinced little interest in the Catholic faith or any organized religion. He would bounce around again, heading to New Orleans in the fall of 1852 on orders to fix issues with the local commissary service.
As if this array of postings were not enough, Sherman next went into the private sector to take on a series of tumultuous jobs.
He would find himself back in California in 1853, this time in San Francisco in charge of the new California branch of his friend Henry S. Turner’s Lucas, Turner, and Company Bank.
He arrived in the growing city of San Francisco (population 50,000 at the time) to find the bank under capitalized. His family would join him, but the city would soon be gripped by vigilante groups during an uncertain time in the recently acquired California’s existence as a territory in legal no-man’s-land. The book does nice work laying out Sherman’s struggles as both head of a bank and of the local militia in trying to stem the growing tide of extralegal violence meted out during clashes between the San Francisco business community and those unscrupulously opposing their interests. The upshot of this difficult situation was an observation by the author that “It was this experience with the vigilantes in California that helped persuade (Sherman) in 1860-1861 against Southern secessionists in order to avoid anarchy of a far greater magnitude than that which occurred in San Francisco.”
Following this tumultuous time in the Golden State, Sherman would then move to help manage the bank’s branch in New York (Ellen was thankful to leave San Francisco) just in time for the Panic of 1857 to unsettle the nation’s economy. After consecutive awful experiences, Sherman would dub himself the “Jonah of banking.”
He then gave in to his family’s demands to do business with the Ewing family, and he found himself back in Kansas doing a mixture of farming and legal work for his in-laws. He had been haunted by worries of financial instability since being adopted at the age of nine following the death of his father Charles. (Sherman had been adopted by the Ewings, meaning his wife was actually his adopted sister.) Charles Sherman’s rough financial luck also contributed to Sherman’s constant fear of falling into dire monetary straits, and these worries frequently kept him on edge.
If it sounds like his life up to this point had been largely a mess, he agreed. Sherman summed up his tough luck since graduating West Point this way: “I have been shipwrecked twice, had an arm dislocated from a horse, had some rather hard admonitions generally not sounding well in history-have heard a few Indian shots...so that on the whole my career has been more civil than military.”
After trying things his way in civilian life for a decade and facing a shaky economy, he turned back to military life. He accepted a position as superintendent of a new military school in Alexandria, Louisiana. This would give him more experience being around Southerners and would have him present in the state at the time they seceded from the Union. When grumblings of secession began due to Abraham Lincoln’s election as the sixteenth president, Sherman was consistent that he would leave Louisiana if they quit the Union but would remain so long as it stayed. He would ultimately resign in February 1861 after the state’s secession and seizure by state authorities of the U.S. Arsenal at Baton Rouge.
Sherman would have an awkward exchange with Louisiana Governor Thomas Overton Moore at his farewell ceremony from the military academy, half-jokingly telling him he hoped he would not eventually have to “catch you, for I should surely hang you.” Sherman appeared concerned that his Northern friends did not seem to be taking the South’s course seriously; from conversations he’d had, they were deadly serious about leaving the Union over the slavery issue. Even Lincoln did not seem overly concerned when he was introduced to Cump by Sherman's Senator brother John, with the new president dismissing talk that the Confederacy was anything to worry about. Sherman left that meeting convinced he was not going to put his life on the line in any potential war unless the United States was willing to make a prepared and concerted effort in the fight.
The portion on Sherman’s pre-Civil War years is a tremendous credit to Sherman: A Soldier’s Passion For Order. The final three-quarters of the book covers the war years, and these are written with the same clarity Sherman’s early years are detailed in. He was present at the disaster at Bull Run to kick off the war, chaos which only reinforced his opinion that Lincoln and the entire Union command structure were not remotely taking the level of threat seriously. It is evident that he had an in with President Lincoln courtesy of John and a politically well-connected father-in-law (Thomas Ewing).
Following Bull Run, Sherman was present in the border states of Kentucky and Missouri and frequently worked under General Henry Halleck. While in Kentucky, he faced accusations of insanity after what apparently was a breakdown from the stress he was under. While Halleck sought to downplay these smears, questions about his sanity during his time in Kentucky would grate on Sherman throughout the rest of his military career.
If First Bull Run and his post in Kentucky were low points early on in the war, Sherman began to taste success at the Battle of Shiloh in 1862. This bloody clash with the Confederates in Tennessee would see Sherman linked with General Ulysses S. Grant for the first time. Alongside General William Prentiss, Sherman would help the Americans to victory in a battle that left many casualties along the banks of the Tennessee River.
Marszalek noted that this clash served not just "wiped away the stigma of Kentucky, but it had also provided the occasion for Thomas Ewing to express the approval that Sherman had always craved.” Although he would not be accused of insanity, General Grant would face slanders of his own in the press in the form of accusations of drunkenness. Sherman’s contempt for the press were repeatedly documented, with numerous instances recounted of his desire to suppress negative stories that might hurt the Union cause during wartime.
After Shiloh, Halleck would appoint Sherman military governor of Memphis. Here he is shown as trying to have both a tough and yet open demeanor toward the defeated people of that city in southwestern Tennessee.
From Memphis, Sherman would begin a long slog to taking the city of Vicksburg and gaining full control of the Mississippi River for the North. This task takes up an entire chapter as Sherman and his men push through awful terrain and an embarrassing setback at Chickasaw Bayou. Admiral David Dixon Porter’s flotilla and General John McClernand and E.O.C. Ord’s Union troops would join in Sherman and Grant’s attempts to take Vicksburg; strenuous campaigning would ensue at Arkansas Post, Bruinsburg, and the capital city of Jackson would fall as the seven month long war of attrition wound toward its ultimate goal.
Changes of plans came frequently as the Confederates dug in and endured a siege at Vicksburg, with Confederate John Pemberton holding out until July 1863.
It was in the midst of and immediately after the Vicksburg campaign in 1863 that Marszalek shows Sherman warming up to the foraging and total war strategy he would later employ during the March to the Sea in Georgia.
“In order to destroy the anarchy that the Confederacy had loosed,” Marszalek explains, “he believed counter war was inevitable. He would impose his own brand of barbarism to destroy that of the Confederate war effort.”
According to Sherman, burning and laying waste to Confederate land “may seem cruel, but it is sharp and short. Procrastination in war is a greater evil than cruelty. We fight for success. Everything that tends to that is legitimate.” (Needless to say, his tactics were quite controversial in the South). He would order railroads destroyed in Meridian, Mississippi, in a precursor to what would happen in Georgia in late 1864.
After Mississippi, Sherman would see more combat in the Tennessee theater. The Union situation in Chattanooga, Nashville, and Knoxville all received a boost from his martial efforts. Readers are likely to be exhausted just hearing about Sherman’s restless campaigning recounted in this richly detailed narrative.
Fighting with Confederate General Joseph Johnston and, to a lesser extent, John Bell Hood would consume Grant during the last years of the war. This would climax with the fall of Atlanta to Sherman’s men in time for Lincoln’s 1864 reelection. The book points out that this campaign “would long be studied in military history courses as a model of logistics and movement.” Sherman’s policies toward conquered Atlanta would leave that city’s residents with much worse feelings than the citizens of Memphis had felt toward his rule; his depopulation order for ordering women and children to leave Atlanta received a lot of what was, in his mind, unnecessary blow back. The blame for the city's burning is not all laid at Sherman's feet, as General Hood also has the finger pointed at him during the city's defense and evacuation.
Like the Vicksburg campaign, Sherman's March to the Sea receives a chapter of its own. The trek to Savannah and the Atlantic coast, during which the Union Army cut their supply lines and lived off the land, left a wide swath of destruction across Georgia. Sherman, embracing the total war concept he had to deem justified, argued that he "never felt disposed to apologize for or excuse anything." To hear him tell it, "Those people made war on us, defied and dared us to come south to their country, where the boasted they would kill us and do all manner of horrible things. We accepted their challenge, and now for them to wine and complain of the natural and necessary results is beneath contempt."
The South was finished off as Sherman headed north through South Carolina and North Carolina to link up with Grant's men fighting in Virginia. According to the book, Sherman's men went much tougher on the former state (the cradle of secession) than they did on the defeated peoples of the Tar Heel State.
Interestingly, Sherman was criticized for the peace terms he offered General Joseph Johnston in April 1865. Many Union men accused him, of all things, of going too soft on the Confederates. His anti-African American prejudice and frequent refrain that he saw little wrong the institution of slavery made many Northerners, particularly Radical Republicans, suspicious of Sherman's motives toward the end of the war and during Reconstruction.
For his part, Sherman defended his offer to Johnston by saying "Now that the war is over...I am as willing to risk my person and reputation as heretofore to heal the wounds made by the past war, and I think my feeling is shared by the whole army." Marszalek viewed these proferred terms as a mistake. "In his passion for order and peace, Sherman miscalculated. He believed that he could lead and other would follow, in peace as well as war. They did not. Most Southerners considered him a brutal destroyer; many Northerners saw his generous peace terms as offensive at best, treasonable at worst."
The parades in the aftermath of the war would bring Sherman delight, but the fights over presidential and then congressional Reconstruction would leave him sickened. He requested posts out West to avoid the squabbling between Radicals and the Johnson administration, opting to play a role in the Indian Wars rather than occupy the South or fight political battles in Washington. He even had Joseph Johnston as a pallbearer at his funeral; Sherman’s time spent with Army of the Tennessee veterans would bring him pleasure alongside visits with former Confederates. His push for leniency toward the defeated South only led to further suspicion of the Union hero, and both parties would unsuccessfully jostle to recruit him as their nominee for president.
Sherman: A Soldier's Passion for Order is a tremendous nonfiction book. It produces a richly layered version of William T. Sherman that leaves the impression the author did ample work in getting at what made him tick. It is not uncritical, but neither does it go out of its way to smear the Union general.
The book is historical writing at its best, and this is an eminently recommendable work for those who enjoy reading about the martial exploits and layered personalities of those who helped bring about the Union victory in the Civil War.
-Andrew Canfield Denver, Colorado
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December 7, 2022still reading. Pretty well done
December 18, 2025
One of, if not the first modern biography of Sherman. It was fine, but I feel it's been eclipsed by later works. This biography did focus on some interesting topics in regards to Sherman's life that are not often examined in great detail, his contentious relationship with religion and his horrendous racism.
Religion is a theme throughout this book and Sherman's disregard for Catholicism despite his wife and family embracing the faith made for an interesting contrast in his life. Sherman's views on race, a view that would have been much more welcome in the Confederate Army than the Union Army, were reprehensible and this book really drills down on it. He had no problem with slavery and was not an advocate for the African American during and after the war. It was interesting to learn more about this aspect of Sherman's life.
Overall this bio comes of fairly critical of Sherman's shortcomings and doesn't seem to offer the same level of praise when it was due (his military achievements during the war were often coupled with several criticism in this narrative). So it was interesting at points, but like I said above, there have been better Sherman biographies that have come since. I particularly recommend The Scourge of War: The Life of William Tecumseh Sherman.
Religion is a theme throughout this book and Sherman's disregard for Catholicism despite his wife and family embracing the faith made for an interesting contrast in his life. Sherman's views on race, a view that would have been much more welcome in the Confederate Army than the Union Army, were reprehensible and this book really drills down on it. He had no problem with slavery and was not an advocate for the African American during and after the war. It was interesting to learn more about this aspect of Sherman's life.
Overall this bio comes of fairly critical of Sherman's shortcomings and doesn't seem to offer the same level of praise when it was due (his military achievements during the war were often coupled with several criticism in this narrative). So it was interesting at points, but like I said above, there have been better Sherman biographies that have come since. I particularly recommend The Scourge of War: The Life of William Tecumseh Sherman.
February 14, 2023
A thorough and engaging biography of Sherman, focused on his military career and familial relations. In an exhaustive fashion, Marszalek examines Sherman’s personality, and the book is heavy on psychoanalysis as a result. The author argues that Sherman’s personal and tactical decisions can all be traced to a need for order; if this sounds like unbearable psychobabble, it’s because it is; there is little real documentary evidence the author can draw upon, and his speculation is often unconvincing.
While this stuff can get heavy-handed at times, the author does succeed in bringing Sherman to life in a matter-of-fact style. The book is still balanced and intriguing, although the author pays more attention to his relationships with his family than with other officers (even with Grant). While it does seem like Marszalek often over-emphasizes his theme, he does a fine job illuminating Sherman’s career, character, and motivations. Those interested in Sherman’s generalship may be disappointed, since the Civil War takes up about two hundred or so pages, and the section on Sherman’s postwar life comes off as rambling, unorganized, and unfocused. Marszalek also refers to Chickasaw Bluffs as a “fiasco, ” which seems too harsh; maybe the odds were against its success, but was failure inevitable?
Still, a balanced, well-written biography overall.
While this stuff can get heavy-handed at times, the author does succeed in bringing Sherman to life in a matter-of-fact style. The book is still balanced and intriguing, although the author pays more attention to his relationships with his family than with other officers (even with Grant). While it does seem like Marszalek often over-emphasizes his theme, he does a fine job illuminating Sherman’s career, character, and motivations. Those interested in Sherman’s generalship may be disappointed, since the Civil War takes up about two hundred or so pages, and the section on Sherman’s postwar life comes off as rambling, unorganized, and unfocused. Marszalek also refers to Chickasaw Bluffs as a “fiasco, ” which seems too harsh; maybe the odds were against its success, but was failure inevitable?
Still, a balanced, well-written biography overall.
July 17, 2013
An enjoyable biography of Sherman. The first half of the book is superior to the second. Once the Civil War ends, the book's discussion of later events feels longer than necessary. My minor complaints are that the author is prone to injecting his analysis of Sherman's motivations and mindset too frequently and that he often repeats himself, including use of the same Sherman quote within the space of a few pages (or so it seemed on several occasions). Still, well worth the read for the Civil War buff. The book helped me see Sherman as more than just the "March to the Sea" Civil War general, but at the same time it gave me more insight and a better appreciation for all of his Civil War exploits.
July 2, 2020
The complete history of General William Tecumseh Sherman, one of the leading generals in the American Civil War (1861-1865). The book told his story from his early days in Lancaster, Ohio. With sudden death of his father, his immediate family shattered, and he brought in as a foster child Thomas Ewing, a family neighbor and later a Ohio Senator.
He then studied in West Point, and found he enjoyed in the company of his men, the cadet and later army. After graduation, he refused offers to work as civilian and continued to serve as military man in military post in the South and California during the Gold Rush.
When his economy as soldier didn't improve, he tried civilian lives. Working as a banker in San Francisco and later in New York. But he found he wasn't suited as a banker, so he moved on to work as the first superintendent of the newly found Louisiana State Seminary of Learning & Military Academy (which later became Louisiana State University).
He enjoyed his job as military college superintendent, but then only one year at his post, Abraham Lincoln elected as the President of the United States, and South Carolina seceded followed by 7 other Southern states. He then resigned as superintendent and return to serve as a Union soldier.
Sherman first tasted the war as commander of a brigade of volunteers. He rejected the idea of volunteers in the war as they only there to get paid but without any experience and discipline, compared to regular army. His first battle was First Battle of Bull Run. He was defeated and suffered breakdown that lasted several months, exaggerated by press grilling him as insane.
He found his confidence and companion after he served under Ulysses S. Grant in Battle of Shiloh. When they were caught off-guard by the enemy and counterattacked the Confederates the next day. He was defeated at the Battle of Chickasaw Bayou, but with General Grant, they later were able to capture city of Vicksburg.
After the Chattanooga Campaign completed, President Lincoln called General Grant East to take command of all the Union armies. Grant then appointed Sherman as the head of military leader of Western Theater of the war replacing him. He proved to be an adept leader in the battle after captured Atlanta, Georgia thus giving President Lincoln a secured winning ticket to his re-election.
His next move was considered as the example of first modern warfare philosophy, Sherman's March to the Sea and Carolinas campaign. He operated deep in enemy territory without any supplies and only relied on liberal foraging to destroy Confederates military targets and civilian properties and morale, thus became an example of modern total war concept. This proved substantial as Confederates morale depleted and in April 1865, they surrendered at Appomattox.
Sherman was a national hero and his life post-war focused to secured his legacy during the Civil War. He viewed the war necessary to prove the Confederates reason to secede was wrong, and all the hardship and destruction suffered by the civilian in the war were the result of their stubbornness. But after they surrendered and the war over, the animosity must end.
He then studied in West Point, and found he enjoyed in the company of his men, the cadet and later army. After graduation, he refused offers to work as civilian and continued to serve as military man in military post in the South and California during the Gold Rush.
When his economy as soldier didn't improve, he tried civilian lives. Working as a banker in San Francisco and later in New York. But he found he wasn't suited as a banker, so he moved on to work as the first superintendent of the newly found Louisiana State Seminary of Learning & Military Academy (which later became Louisiana State University).
He enjoyed his job as military college superintendent, but then only one year at his post, Abraham Lincoln elected as the President of the United States, and South Carolina seceded followed by 7 other Southern states. He then resigned as superintendent and return to serve as a Union soldier.
Sherman first tasted the war as commander of a brigade of volunteers. He rejected the idea of volunteers in the war as they only there to get paid but without any experience and discipline, compared to regular army. His first battle was First Battle of Bull Run. He was defeated and suffered breakdown that lasted several months, exaggerated by press grilling him as insane.
He found his confidence and companion after he served under Ulysses S. Grant in Battle of Shiloh. When they were caught off-guard by the enemy and counterattacked the Confederates the next day. He was defeated at the Battle of Chickasaw Bayou, but with General Grant, they later were able to capture city of Vicksburg.
After the Chattanooga Campaign completed, President Lincoln called General Grant East to take command of all the Union armies. Grant then appointed Sherman as the head of military leader of Western Theater of the war replacing him. He proved to be an adept leader in the battle after captured Atlanta, Georgia thus giving President Lincoln a secured winning ticket to his re-election.
His next move was considered as the example of first modern warfare philosophy, Sherman's March to the Sea and Carolinas campaign. He operated deep in enemy territory without any supplies and only relied on liberal foraging to destroy Confederates military targets and civilian properties and morale, thus became an example of modern total war concept. This proved substantial as Confederates morale depleted and in April 1865, they surrendered at Appomattox.
Sherman was a national hero and his life post-war focused to secured his legacy during the Civil War. He viewed the war necessary to prove the Confederates reason to secede was wrong, and all the hardship and destruction suffered by the civilian in the war were the result of their stubbornness. But after they surrendered and the war over, the animosity must end.
December 19, 2019
William T. Sherman was the second part of the one-two military punch, that combination military
command along with Ulysses S. Grant that Abraham Lincoln needed to win the Civil War. His
scorched earth policies in the South had a lot to do with winning the war as his western army moved
inexorably east.
Oddly enough he was in sympathy in many ways with the people he conquered. His last pre-war post
was as superintendent of a southern military academy in Louisiana. He had no moral qualms about
slavery, but thought secession was wrong. He returned runaway slaves to their owners and refused
the use of black troops.
Sherman was born in 1820 in Ohio and whose father died when he was 8. The family split up and
young Sherman went to live with Thomas Ewing a prominent Whig politician who secured him a
West Point appointment. He also married Ellen Ewing, Thomas's daughter. His whole life he felt
smothered by the Ewings though grateful.
After Mexican War service in California Sherman eventually resigned the peacetime army and tried
his hand at a number of professions. Like his collaborator Grant, Sherman returned to the army in
1861. His first campaigns in the Kentucky/West Virginia theater were a bust. But he was transferred south and his performance under Grant at Shiloh established him. He further distinguished himself at the siege of Vicksburg.
After Vicksburg, Lincoln brought Grant east and Sherman was in overall charge of the western armies. His opposite number was Joseph Johnston who was a master at delaying tactics never
quite bringing decisive battle. Johnston did not get along with President Jefferson Davis who
replaced Johnston with John Bell Hood. Hood gave battle and Sherman beat him decisively. Johnston was recalled and Sherman went all the way to the sea and up through the Carolinas. It
was there that he heard of Lee's surrender to Grant.
He offered generous surrender terms to Johnston, but in the wake of the Lincoln assassination they
were repudiated. Throughout the Andrew Johnson presidency Sherman stayed very clear of all the
controversy over Congressional southern Reconstruction and Johnson's impeachment.
He wasn't that happy with his old friend Grant while he was president, feeling Grant had become
too political. Sherman was commanding general of the army, a post he held until he retired in
1886. In 1884 he squelched quite firmly efforts to draft him for president with that famous quotable statement "if nominated,I will not run, if elected I will not serve". He died in 1891.
If not his tactics for specific battles are studied, Sherman's overall strategic sense concerning total
war is considered sadly a forerunner of 20th century war. The man who said "war is hell" was one
man who did everything he could to make it so.
command along with Ulysses S. Grant that Abraham Lincoln needed to win the Civil War. His
scorched earth policies in the South had a lot to do with winning the war as his western army moved
inexorably east.
Oddly enough he was in sympathy in many ways with the people he conquered. His last pre-war post
was as superintendent of a southern military academy in Louisiana. He had no moral qualms about
slavery, but thought secession was wrong. He returned runaway slaves to their owners and refused
the use of black troops.
Sherman was born in 1820 in Ohio and whose father died when he was 8. The family split up and
young Sherman went to live with Thomas Ewing a prominent Whig politician who secured him a
West Point appointment. He also married Ellen Ewing, Thomas's daughter. His whole life he felt
smothered by the Ewings though grateful.
After Mexican War service in California Sherman eventually resigned the peacetime army and tried
his hand at a number of professions. Like his collaborator Grant, Sherman returned to the army in
1861. His first campaigns in the Kentucky/West Virginia theater were a bust. But he was transferred south and his performance under Grant at Shiloh established him. He further distinguished himself at the siege of Vicksburg.
After Vicksburg, Lincoln brought Grant east and Sherman was in overall charge of the western armies. His opposite number was Joseph Johnston who was a master at delaying tactics never
quite bringing decisive battle. Johnston did not get along with President Jefferson Davis who
replaced Johnston with John Bell Hood. Hood gave battle and Sherman beat him decisively. Johnston was recalled and Sherman went all the way to the sea and up through the Carolinas. It
was there that he heard of Lee's surrender to Grant.
He offered generous surrender terms to Johnston, but in the wake of the Lincoln assassination they
were repudiated. Throughout the Andrew Johnson presidency Sherman stayed very clear of all the
controversy over Congressional southern Reconstruction and Johnson's impeachment.
He wasn't that happy with his old friend Grant while he was president, feeling Grant had become
too political. Sherman was commanding general of the army, a post he held until he retired in
1886. In 1884 he squelched quite firmly efforts to draft him for president with that famous quotable statement "if nominated,I will not run, if elected I will not serve". He died in 1891.
If not his tactics for specific battles are studied, Sherman's overall strategic sense concerning total
war is considered sadly a forerunner of 20th century war. The man who said "war is hell" was one
man who did everything he could to make it so.
Read
April 22, 2020General William Techumseh Sherman is a person who outlived his mortal life and has become an icon of his time. A brilliant strategist, family man, charismatic person, Sherman's entire life was influenced by his first 10 years; the death of his father, split up of his family and their massive debt left Sherman determined not to repeat his father's mistakes - this was to influence every decision he made in his lifetime.
Mr. Marszalek has written a fully researched and enjoyable biography of General Sherman. His words make Sherman relatable and human. While it is throughly researched this is not one of those scholarly books that is a dry read - this book is very interesting and full of the drama of life. A wonderful read of an incredible person who was a man of the times he lived in.
Mr. Marszalek has written a fully researched and enjoyable biography of General Sherman. His words make Sherman relatable and human. While it is throughly researched this is not one of those scholarly books that is a dry read - this book is very interesting and full of the drama of life. A wonderful read of an incredible person who was a man of the times he lived in.
June 3, 2025
This is a good book, especially in an academic context. I used it for a college class paper, and it was clear, concise, and very well written and supported. However, I would likely not recommend it for leisurely reading. It is quite long, repetitive, and frankly boring in some regards. The author is a fantastic writer, but given the goal of this book is to advocate for an academic argument, it is not intended for leisure, and thus falls flat. That said, the book is fantastic if you approach it as such, and is a monolith of academic writing on the Civil War and its personalities.
January 21, 2020
An interesting biography that takes a somewhat psychological approach to a commander many people thought was mentally ill at one time. "Cump" Sherman is shown here to be in search of order not only on the battlefield but in his personal life as well.
August 23, 2017
Someone gave me this ages ago and eventually I read it. Sherman is a fascinating figure, down to his refusal to run for president after the war despite a certainty he could win it.
June 6, 2020
Although the author belabors ad nauseam the “passion for order” leitmotif, the book is a thorough biography of this complex man.
April 30, 2023
Too soon after completing to be objective re: a complex man, and a seemingly exhaustedly researched and well written.
August 25, 2014
or, the General Psychoanalyzed. The author maintains that Sherman's thoughts and deeds stem from a deep-seated need for order in his life, and that chaos (such as in Southern succession) and even anarchy would result without it. There is also a need to bring order into his own life; his father died in debt and his mother had to "farm out" her large brood to ensure their support. Cump was taken in by his father's neighbor and good friend, Sen. Thomas Ewing. Sherman was also proud and felt the need to escape the Senator's shadow and make it on his own, as he finally did. We are presented this analysis as established fact without substantiation. It makes sense, to be sure, but other authors may present different views (Fellman, Hirshson, and Kennett are waiting their turns). The General's campaigns are covered but not in great detail (I want more). I appreciated this book's coverage of Sherman's post-war career, more detail than in older works. His relations with his missus get quite a bit of detail: frequently a contentious marriage, but it worked, somehow. There are two questions this book (nor do Liddell-Hart and Lloyd Lewis) does not answer. One is the "so what?" question on just what the march to the sea accomplished. Sure, many Georgia and South Carolina boys may have deserted Lee's army (not that winter in the Petersburg lines was a barrel of fun in the first place); but what was its actual impact on the war besides good press? The other was how did Sherman wind up as the #2 guy in the Western Theater so early? He had left the Army and there were other officers who had not, so was Anderson's influence really all it took (perhaps Sherman's adoptive father's influence helped)? Overall, a good read, if not the in-depth Civil War look one may want.
July 24, 2007
Well researched, and a fair amount of detail. Adequately covers Sherman's role after the Civil War in the western Indian Wars as Commanding General of the Army.
Sherman is interesting in that he evokes such strong emotions and opinions among people who are very interested in the Civil War, just as Longstreet does on the Confederate side. Overall, I think this book is a fair treatment of Sherman.
Sherman is interesting in that he evokes such strong emotions and opinions among people who are very interested in the Civil War, just as Longstreet does on the Confederate side. Overall, I think this book is a fair treatment of Sherman.
January 30, 2016
This book holds attention until after the Civil War. Once Sherman's great march to the sea and then to Virginia are complete the zest of the book noticeably dies. His passion for order, I would contend, may be seen, but only in as much as any soldier's desired or rank and file. This is more of a biography with the author's singular inkling sprinkled throughout.
September 5, 2010
I have noticed this book cited when reading articles about the Civil War. It presents the man, good and bad.
July 27, 2011
Good but a little tedious in parts... I don't hate Sherman anymore. Don't need him as a friend, either, though. I should probably give this a 4, but.... right now I feel like a 3.
May 29, 2014
Very good - interesting to read his thoughts on slavery and the writing of history.
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