James B. Sherman

“ With this force he is to commence operations against Mobile as soon as he can. It will be impossible for him to commence too early.
Gillmore joins Butler with ten thousand men, and the two operate against Richmond from the south aide of James River. This will give Butler thirty-three thousand men to operate with, W. F. Smith commanding the right wing of his forces, and Gillmore the left wing. I will stay with the Army of the Potomac, increased by Burnside's corps of not less than twenty-five thousand effective men, and operate directly against Lee's army, wherever it may be found. ”

“ He is a rich man.
A dispatch was sent from the department to Gen. Lee this morning, at his headquarters, supposed to be near Petersburg. Gold was selling at $60 for $1 yesterday. This may be a “dodge” of the brokers, who want to purchase; or it may be the government selling specie.
A gentleman from South Carolina reports that the Georgians (militia and reserves, I suppose) refused to enter South. Carolina in obedience to Gen. Beauregard’s orders, and that Gen. B. has not exceeding 10,000 reliable men. If this be so, Sherman may march whither he chooses! ”

“ As may be believed, our friend of the subscription paper beat a hasty retreat and here ended also our evening.
A few days later there was an evening with Sumner and others, who talked of affairs in Washington. Mr. and Mrs. James were of the company. “These men,” wrote Mrs. Fields, “despond with regard to the civil government. They have more faith that our military affairs are doing well. Chiefly they look to Sherman as the great man. Mr. James was silent; he believes in Lincoln.” ”

“ A good many men were banished and forced to leave the country, but they were of that class we could well spare. Yankee Sullivan, a prisoner in their custody, committed suicide, and a feeling of general insecurity pervaded the city. Business was deranged; and the Bulletin, then under control of Tom King, a brother of James, poured out its abuse on some of our best men, as well as the worst. Governor Johnson, being again appealed to, concluded to go to work regularly, and telegraphed me about the 1st of June to meet him at General Wool's headquarters at Benicia that night. ”

“ For several days the Shermans saw little of their guest. He had friends everywhere to turn into enemies and acquaintances to turn into friends. His days passed in visiting, visiting, visiting. Then there were theatres and churches to see, and new clothes to be bought, over which he was as anxious as a woman. Finally he settled down.
He passed his mornings in the smoking-room. He asked Sherman’s leave to hang on the walls one or two religious pictures, without which he was not happy, and to place over the mantlepiece, under the pipe-rack, an ebony crucifix. ”

“ There was a slight resentment in Sherman’s voice. The other noticed it, and said, changing his manner from the insolent air of a young beauty to a self-depreciatory one, which was wont to give him at times a very genuine charm: ‘It is really a great pity, for you Shermans are a deep people, much deeper than we Howards. We are like moths or butterflies, or rather rapid rivulets, while you and yours are deep pools in the forest where the beasts go to drink. No! I have a better metaphor. Your mind and mine are two arrows. Yours has got no feathers, and mine has no metal on the point. ”

“ Below in the street passed by country people, townspeople, travellers, women with baskets, boys driving donkeys, old men with sticks; sometimes he recognized a face or was recognized himself, and welcomed by some familiar voice.
“You have come home a handsomer gentleman than your father, Misther John, and he was a neat figure of a man, God bless him!” said the waiter, bringing him his lunch; and in truth Sherman had grown handsomer for these years away. His face and gesture had more of dignity, for on the centre of his nature life had dropped a pinch of experience. ”

“ Resolved, That the Memorial Committee of the Grand Army of the Republic of the city of New York, sharing the grief of the American people at the National bereavement, offers its sympathy to the children of General William T. Sherman, and trusts that they may find consolation for the loss of their illustrious father in the thought that the world is better for his having lived in it. His fame has filled the earth, his achievements having placed him in the front of strategists, and his services in the war for the Union were525 second only to those of the matchless Grant. ”

“ It is not to be denied that as this love grew serious it grew mercenary. Now active, now latent, the notion had long been in Sherman’s mind, as we know, that he should marry money. A born lounger, riches tempted him greatly. When those eyes haunted him from the fourteen flies on the ceiling, he would say, “I should be rich; I should have a house in the country; I should hunt and shoot, and have a garden and three gardeners; I should leave this abominable office.” Then the eyes became even more beautiful. It was a new kind of belladonna. ”

“ In the three years of fighting, from 1862 to 1865, these events stand prominently out in Sherman's military record—the tenacity with which he held the right of the line at Shiloh, the faithful service he rendered as commander of the left before Vicksburg, his rapid relief of Knoxville, his brilliant capture of Atlanta, his daring and famous march to the sea and the capture of Savannah, his equally daring march through the Carolinas to the help of Grant, and his final capture of Johnston's army, which was the real close of the war. ”

“ Sherman was more perfectly happy than he had been for many a day, and more ardently thinking. All nature seemed full of a Divine fulfilment. Everything fulfilled its law—fulfilment that is peace, whether it be for good or for evil, for evil also has its peace, the peace of the birds of prey. Sherman looked from the sea to the ship and grew sad. Upon this thing, crawling slowly along the sea, moved to and fro many mournful and slouching figures. ”

“ Sherman felt strongly that the war had to be carried to the Southern people themselves before the Confederacy would collapse. He therefore laid plans to slash through the very heart of the South. The campaign that followed is known as the “March to the Sea.”
29
Sherman first sent part of his army under Gen. Thomas back to Tennessee to watch Hood, whose Confederates had moved northward in an effort to force Sherman from Georgia. With Thomas blocking Hood, Sherman on November 16 left Atlanta in flames and started toward the Georgia coast with 68,000 veteran fighters. ”

“ She never knew what went on inside her son’s mind, she [271] had always her own fish to fry. Blessed are the unsympathetic. They preserve their characters in an iron bottle while the most of us poor mortals are going about the planet vainly searching for any kind of a shell to contain us, and evaporating the while.
Sherman began to mount the hill to the vicarage. He was happy. Because he was happy he began to run. Soon the steepness of the hill made him walk. He thought about his love for Mary Carton. ”

“ A despatch just received tells us that Sherman has captured 150 guns, 250,000 dols. worth of cotton at Savannah, that Forrest is killed and routed by Rousseau, and that Thomas has walked into Hood and given him the worst kind of fits. I imagine the poor Rebel outposts in our front feel pretty blue to-night, for what with that and the thermometer at about zero I guess the night won't pass without robbing their army of some of its best and bravest. We suffer a good deal from the cold, but are now sitting round our camp fire in as good spirits as men could possibly be. ”

“ If Sherman marches his army to Richmond, as General Beauregard reports it is his intention to do, and General Schofield is able to unite with him, we shall have to abandon our position on the James River, as lamentable as it is on every account. The want of supplies alone would force us to withdraw when the enemy reaches the Roanoke. Our line is so long, extending nearly from the Chickahominy to the Nottoway, and the enemy is so close upon us, that if we are obliged to withdraw we cannot concentrate all our troops nearer than some point on the line of railroad between Richmond and Danville. ”

“ Sherman had been eager for battle ever since the beginning of his advance, an eagerness shared by his men. Johnston’s continual avoidance of it, the proffered gage, increased their confidence, which had been high from the outset, and they went forward sure of victory, enduring with patience the privations and hardships of the march. All this while news of the operations in Virginia was furnished to both armies, the one hearing of Union victories in the Wilderness and at Spottsylvania, the other that “Lee has whipped Grant” and “General Lee beat Grant again.” ”

“ Sherman came from Vicksburg to New Orleans on the 1st of March, and within a few hours reached a distinct agreement with Banks as to the aid expected from the Army of the Tennessee. Admiral Porter had already arranged to be at the mouth of the Red River with a large fleet of gunboats in time for the rising of the waters; and now Sherman promised to send with the fleet ten thousand picked men of his army, to be at Alexandria on the 17th of March. Banks, on his part, agreed that his troops, marching north by the Teche, should meet Sherman's at Alexandria. ”

“ Sherman, holding out both hands. Sherman, who knew all his mother’s peculiarities, noticed on her side a slight coldness; perhaps she did not altogether like this beautiful dragon-fly.
‘I have come,’ said Miss Leland, ‘to tell John that he must learn to paint. Music and society are not enough. There is nothing like art to give refinement.’ Then turning to John Sherman—‘My dear, I will make you quite different. You are a dreadful barbarian, you know.’
‘What ails me, Margaret?’
‘Just look at that necktie! Nothing shows a man’s cultivation like his necktie! ”

“ It is only while it keeps moving that an army can “live on the country.” It is like a swarm of locusts, consuming everything within reach; and if it be compelled to halt, whether for battle or from other cause, it must be supplied from bases in the rear, or it will speedily disintegrate from hunger alone. This fact was fully appreciated by General Sherman, when he left Atlanta in his famous “march291 to the sea;” for though he expected to, and did, live upon the country, he nevertheless took the precaution to carry with him a wagon train containing twenty days’ rations for his entire army. ”

“ I hate Sherman. He is an egotist. He is a beast. He is selfish and foolish.’ Releasing one of her arms she struck the seat with her hand, excitedly, and went on, ‘How angry he will be! But it serves him right! ”

“ D. H. Hill was hurried to Augusta, Hardee took position at Branchville, while Beauregard remained at Charleston. This scattering of the Rebel forces made Sherman's task comparatively easy, as their combined army would hardly have been a match for Sherman in a pitched battle on a fair field. His troops had entire confidence in themselves and in their commander. Having fought their way from Chattanooga (p. 438) to Atlanta, having marched to the sea and taken Fort McAllister and Savannah, they believed there was no obstacle which they could not overcome in marching or fighting. ”

“ A pile of books lent for Sherman’s improvement went home one by one.
‘Look here,’ said Howard’s voice in the doorway, ‘I have been watching you for some time. You are cheating the red men most villainously. You are forcing them to make mistakes that the white men may win. Why, a few such games would ruin any man’s moral nature.’
He was leaning against the doorway, looking, to Sherman’s not too critical eyes, an embodiment of all that was self-possessed and brilliant. ”

“ I am tired; my heart is sick, and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more against the white man forever."
"Thus," says General Sherman, "has terminated one of the most extraordinary Indian wars of which there is any record."
The Indians throughout displayed a courage and skill that elicited universal praise; they abstained from scalping, let captive women go free, did not commit indiscriminate murder of peaceful families, which is usual, and fought with almost scientific skill, using advance and rear guards, skirmish lines and field fortifications. ”

“ Even news of victory was sometimes withheld from an eager people lest the enemy should derive the first intelligence of their disaster from Confederate papers. [32] Sherman at various times testified to Confederate success in guarding military information, and declared at one time that while everything his own army attempted to do was paraded, yet he looked in vain for scraps in Southern papers from which to guess at the disposition of the enemy's forces. ”

“ Wheeler, Jonesborough, November 14th, says Sherman has three corps at Atlanta, and is destroying railroads between him and Marietta, probably intending to move forward—farther South.
[Pg 333] Another dispatch from Gen. W., dated 14th inst., Lovejoy’s, Georgia, says scouts from enemy’s rear report that Sherman left Atlanta yesterday morning, with 15th, 17th, and 21st corps, in two columns, one on the Jonesborough, and one on the McDonough Roads—cavalry on his flanks. Many houses have been burned in Rome, Marietta, and Atlanta, and the railroad bridge over Chattanooga River (in his rear) ! ”

“ Started at 6 A.M., intending to go to Blue Pond, but left the road and marched across to the Rome and Gadsden road, thence to Gadsden. Crossed Little River. Encamped near the Jacksonville and Gadsden roads. Cheatham's Corps near by. I hear various rumors in regard to Sherman's movements. The main question is, has he transportation with him to enable his command to move far away from the railroad? I am sure he will find all he wants in the country as he proceeds. I think we do not leave much in the way of rations behind us. ”