William T. Sherman

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
William T. Sherman William Tecumseh Sherman Signature.svg

William Tecumseh Sherman (born February 8, 1820 in Lancaster , Ohio , † February 14, 1891 in New York City , New York ) was an American officer, most recently General of the Army , banker, lawyer and writer. He fought on the side of the northern states in the Civil War . His name is closely related to the capture of Atlanta and the subsequent march to Savannah , Georgia , which went down in American history as the Sherman's March to the Sea .

biography

William T. Sherman as a young man

Sherman was born in Lancaster, Ohio to Charles Robert Sherman and his wife Mary Hoyt Sherman. He got his middle name Tecumseh from his parents because of his father's great admiration for the Shawnee Indian chief of the same name .

Sherman received his military training at the US Military Academy in West Point , New York, which he completed with outstanding success.

In California

In the war against Mexico Sherman has not been used in contrast to his West Point classmate, but was on duty in California . Here he experienced the gold rush and also participated quite successfully in land speculation. Later he was entrusted with commandos in the east of the USA and performed his service in the region, in which he was later able to record his successes in the civil war. So he toured the southern states on an inspection trip on almost the same route that he was to take with his armies on the march to the Atlantic (but in the opposite direction). In 1853 he resigned from the army and settled down as a banker and later as a lawyer again in California and St. Louis. After he was only moderately successful in both professions, he became president of the military school in Alexandria, Louisiana , now Louisiana State University , in 1859 .

In the Civil War

Regimental commander

With the beginning of the Civil War he got his officer's license back and on May 14, 1861 he was accepted into the army as commander of the 13th Infantry Regiment . He had his first mission in the first battle of Manassas (also called the first battle of Bull Run ) on July 21, 1861 under Major General Irvin McDowell , which ended in defeat for the Union troops.

Brigade, division commander and commanding general

Generals Sherman, Grant and Sheridan on 1937 postage stamp

Promoted to Brigadier General on August 7, 1861 , he took command of his own in Kentucky . Because of a misjudgment of the situation, he evaded his troops. He was then removed from his command and sharply criticized in the press. When some papers finally began to question his state of mind, Sherman fell into a deep personal crisis that manifested itself in depression, nervous breakdowns, and thoughts of suicide.

In early 1862 Sherman was given command of a division which he led in April in the Battle of Shiloh against the troops of PGT Beauregard , with whom he had been friends for years and who spent the night before the battle in his (captured) tent. Since Sherman and Grant did not expect an attack, this battle began rather leisurely, but quickly developed into one of the bloodiest encounters of the entire war year, with around 3,500 dead and 20,000 wounded, surpassing anything America had ever seen. The Union troops were on the verge of defeat; Sherman was slightly wounded and temporarily lost control of his beleaguered division. Only the addition of 25,000 men in reinforcement to the Tennessee Army and the fact that the southern commanders concentrated their troops too late made it possible for the Union troops to force the Confederate army under Beauregard to withdraw. After the Battle of Shiloh, Sherman was promoted to major general on May 1, 1862 .

From December 1862, Sherman took as commanding general of the XV. Corps, still under Grant, took part in several unsuccessful attempts to take the city of Vicksburg , Mississippi , until after a successful campaign and a six-week siege , the defenders under General Pemberton were finally able to surrender and surrender the city on July 4, 1863 to force.

Commander in chief of the western theater of war

Sherman was given command of the Tennessee Army and took part from May 23-25. November 1863 participated in the fighting of the Battle of Chattanooga .

After the Union troops had succeeded in pushing the Confederate Tennessee Army back as far as Georgia , Sherman, meanwhile as successor to Grant's Commander-in-Chief of the Western Theater of War, received the order in mid-1864 to advance to the Atlanta railroad junction and take the city.

Since Johnston's troops , keeping Confederate losses in check, largely fought a retreat in the face of fierce resistance, Sherman managed to advance step by step. After the Confederate Army, now under the command of the Southern General Hood , had been repulsed with great losses on both sides, Sherman marched into Atlanta on September 2, 1864 (see also Atlanta Campaign ).

Sherman's March to the Sea
William T. Sherman in 1865

Sherman's next destination was the port city of Savannah , Georgia at the mouth of the river of the same name, which he reached after a march with 62,000 men from Atlanta on November 15, 1864, on December 21, 1864 and captured without a fight. According to the military historian David J. Eicher, this campaign, also known as Sherman's March to the Sea , broke with traditional military principles, with Sherman operating deep in enemy territory without his own supplies and cut off from news. Sherman pursued a "scorched earth" strategy. He ordered that his troops get food from the food they captured and destroy what they did not need themselves. He also had the entire infrastructure destroyed on the way. After taking Savannah, he sent a famous telegram to President Lincoln in which he brought Savannah to him as a "Christmas present".

Sherman's "March to Sea" had dire consequences for Georgia and the Confederacy's war effort. Sherman himself estimated the destruction at $ 100 million. His warfare was always controversial and his name was hated, especially among white southerners. It is undisputed that the march through Georgia weakened the southern states decisively and brought about the end of the civil war in favor of the northern states. In the song Marching through Georgia by Henry Clay Work, Sherman's military success was glorified, although Sherman himself did not appreciate the rather cheerful melody and the lyrics.

Campaign in South and North Carolina

Sherman managed to convince Grant that after spending six weeks in Savannah, it would be best to continue his destructive march through South and North Carolina . Sherman was particularly drawn to the fact that South Carolina was the first state to fall away from the Union. He therefore hoped to deal a particularly severe blow to the morale of the southern states through any military success. Faced with little military resistance from the southern states, he took Columbia , the capital of South Carolina, on February 17, 1865 . Fires broke out that same night and by morning had destroyed most of the city. The circumstances surrounding the destruction of Colombia are controversial. While some claim the fires were started as an act of revenge, others argue that it was essentially a chain of unfortunate circumstances, while still others blame Confederate forces for setting fire to bundles of cotton as they withdrew.

During their march through North Carolina, Sherman's soldiers caused far less destruction, probably because this state, which was the last to join the confederation, was viewed by the soldiers as less secessionist. Sherman's march ended in Goldsboro, North Carolina , where he encountered Union forces who had been waiting for him since the capture of Fort Fisher and Wilmington. He intended to turn with Grant against Lee's Northern Virginia Army in Petersburg , Virginia, but that was not to come.

On the one hand, Sherman's campaigns aimed to deprive the southern states of the economic resources to wage war. On the other hand, he wanted to show the hostile population of the southern states the cruelty of the war:

“We are not only fighting armies, but a hostile people, and must make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war, as well as their organized armies. I know that this recent movement of mine through Georgia has had a wonderful effect in this respect. Thousands who had been deceived by their lying papers into the belief that we were being whipped all the time, realized the truth, and have no appetite for a repetition of the same experience. "

“We fight not only against armies, but also against a hostile people, and we must let the old and the young, the rich and the poor, feel the hard hand of war as much as their armies. I know my recent march through Georgia worked wonders in that regard. Thousands of people who were seduced by their lying sheets into believing that we would be beaten all the time saw the truth and have no appetite to repeat the experience. "

- William T. Sherman : Letter to Henry W. Halleck , December 24, 1864.

Because of this warfare, which had a devastating effect on the morale of the civilian population and destroyed their livelihoods, Sherman is considered one of the first "modern" generals. The writer EL Doctorow made Sherman's devastating campaign the subject of his 2005 novel The March .

US General William T. Sherman negotiating with Indians at Fort Laramie
Surrender negotiations

After Lee's surrender in Appomattox and Lincoln's assassination, Sherman arbitrarily granted generous surrender conditions in negotiations with Southern General Joseph E. Johnston , but these were withdrawn by Defense Secretary Edwin M. Stanton . Ultimately, the terms as negotiated with Robert E. Lee were adopted. Sherman marched with 60,000 of his soldiers in Washington DC on the Victory Parade on May 24, 1865, after which the soldiers were released.

Commander in Chief of the Army

After the war, Sherman was promoted to lieutenant general (three-star general) on July 25, 1866 and took part in some Indian wars. On June 1, 1868, as a representative of the United States, he concluded a treaty with the Diné (Navajo) that enabled them to return to their home country and formed the legal basis for the Navajo Nation Reservation .

In 1869 he was promoted - again as the successor to Grant, who became President - to General of the Army of the United States and appointed Commander in Chief of the Army . In 1875 Sherman published his memoir. His most famous saying is: " War is hell " ("The war is hell"). On February 8, 1884, he took his leave of the army and retired to New York City in 1886, where he died on February 14, 1891.

In his funeral procession, his former opponent General Joseph E. Johnston marched with him, despite poor health without head covering, to pay his last respects - and died five weeks later of pneumonia.

health

Sherman was considered an irascible, impulsive and extremely nervous personality. The American historian and psychiatrist Nassir Ghaemi tried to prove that Sherman suffered from manic-depressive illness , which explains not only his repeated physical and psychological breakdowns, his unsteady nature and his low success in civil life, but also his innovative and creative strategy the warfare that made him the "father of total war ". Ghaemi sees Sherman's success as proof of his thesis, according to which leaders who suffer from an affective disorder can be superior to healthy people in crisis situations . For comparison, he cites the failure of the calm and even-tempered General George B. McClellan in the same war.

Quotes

“There is many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory, but boys, it is all hell. You can bear this warning voice to generations yet to come. I look upon war with horror. "

“There are a lot of guys here today who only see glory in war, but guys, it's hell. You can carry these warning words into generations to come. I look at the war with horror. "

- William T. Sherman : Speech, Grand Army of the Republic convention, Columbus, Ohio, August 11, 1880

Honors

literature

  • Robert G. Athearn: William Tecumseh Sherman and the Settlement of the West. Norman, OK 1956.
  • Edgar Laurence Doctorow: The March. Abacus paperback, London 2006, ISBN 0-349-11959-7 (first published 2005); German edition: The march. Novel. 1st edition, Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2007, ISBN 978-3-462-03917-7 .
  • Michael Fellman : Citizen Sherman: A Life of William Tecumseh Sherman. New York 1995.
  • Michael Fellman (Ed.): Memoirs of General WT Sherman. Penguin Classics, New York 2000, ISBN 0-14-043798-3 .
  • Stanley P. Hirshson: The White Tecumseh: A Biography of William T. Sherman. New York 1997.
  • Lee B. Kennett: Sherman: A Soldier's Life. New York 2002.
  • John F. Marszalek: Sherman: A Soldier's Passion for Order. New York 1993.
  • James Lee McDonough: William Tecumseh Sherman. In the Service of My Country. A life. WW Norton & Company, Inc., New York and London 2016, ISBN 978-0-393-24157-0 .
  • Ferdinand von Meerheimb : Sherman's campaign in Georgia: Lecture given on October 30, 1868 in the Military Society in Berlin. Mittler, Berlin 1869 digitized

Web links

Commons : William Tecumseh Sherman  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Eicher, David J. The Longest Night: A Military History of the Civil War . New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001. ISBN 0-684-84944-5 , p. 768.
  2. ↑ Bruce Catton: The Centennial History of the Civil War. Volume 3: Never Call Retreat. Doubleday, Garden City, NY 1965, ISBN 0-671-46990-8 , pp. 415 f.
  3. Jump up ↑ March through Georgia, according to The Economist , accessed April 22, 2017
  4. ^ Marching through Georgia, according to New York Times, March 8, 2017, accessed April 22, 2017
  5. ^ Marszalek: Sherman: A Soldier's Passion for Order. P. 320 f.
  6. ^ Marszalek: Sherman: A Soldier's Passion for Order. Pp. 322-325.
  7. ^ Rodney P. Carlisle: Civil War and Reconstruction. NY 2008, p. 356.
  8. ↑ Nassir Ghaemi: A First-Rate Madness. Uncovering the Links between Leadership and Mental Illness. Penguin Press, New York 2011 ISBN 978-1-59420-295-7 , p. 23 ff.
personal data
SURNAME Sherman, William T.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sherman, William Tecumseh
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American soldier, banker, lawyer, writer and general of the Civil War
DATE OF BIRTH February 8, 1820
PLACE OF BIRTH Lancaster , Ohio
DATE OF DEATH February 14, 1891
Place of death New York City