February, 1864–The General and His Demons

By Gary Far­row, Danville His­tor­i­cal Society

A com­pli­cat­ed fam­i­ly and men­tal ill­ness pushed and pulled a man who became one of the most accom­plished gen­er­als in the Civ­il War.

The news was slow in Feb­ru­ary ’64: Lincoln’s Eman­ci­pa­tion Procla­ma­tion decree, free­ing slaves only in rebel states, had become law Jan­u­ary 1, but its true con­se­quences had yet to be deter­mined; the win­ter months had closed down the war in Vir­ginia and reports from the east­ern-cen­tric press about events in the low­er South, absent some epic bat­tle, con­tin­ued to be spot­ty. How­ev­er, there was a minor cam­paign in mid-Feb­ru­ary against a town in Mis­sis­sip­pi that helped cement the improb­a­ble rise of a Union com­man­der. His rela­tion­ship with U.S. Grant would cat­a­pult him to become the Gen­er­al and Chief’s co-archi­tect and col­lab­o­ra­tor in a new mil­i­tary strat­e­gy that was waged against the South.

William Tecum­seh Sherman’s father died when the boy was nine years old. Although an Ohio Supreme Court jus­tice, Charles Robert Sher­man left his wife and eleven chil­dren pen­ni­less and debt-rid­den. The kids were divvied among fam­i­ly and friends with William mov­ing down the street into the home of Thomas Ewing and his wife, who had four chil­dren of their own, plus two nieces and a nephew that they had already tak­en in. Fast for­ward 21 years. William mar­ried one of the Ewing sis­ters, Ellen, while William mar­ried one of the Ewing sis­ters, Ellen, while Sherman’s step­fa­ther, who, as a state sen­a­tor and now Sec­re­tary of the Inte­ri­or, had become a lead­ing light with­in the Wash­ing­ton polit­i­cal scene.

Now a West Point grad and promis­ing army offi­cer, William Tecum­seh car­ried a lot of demons which fueled his fears and frus­trat­ed his aspi­ra­tions. In his mind, the world could come crum­bling apart in an instant: fam­i­ly mem­bers could die, finan­cial ruin was lurk­ing around the cor­ner, and a his­to­ry men­tal ill­ness in his fam­i­ly could come home to roost. Often, with thoughts rac­ing from one to anoth­er, he want­ed the world to be a well-ordered, pre­dictable place. Sher­man dis­liked being depen­dent on oth­ers and very much want­ed to be his own man.

This was a source of his ambiva­lent feel­ings about Thomas Ewing, the man who had tak­en him in, father of his wife, and fam­i­ly patri­arch who now want­ed him to over­see some of his fam­i­ly busi­ness inter­ests. Ellen want­ed to live near her fam­i­ly and expect­ed that Sher­man would have a bril­liant civil­ian career. Dur­ing a good deal of their mar­riage, they would spend months apart as Sher­man pur­sued his next oppor­tu­ni­ty while Ellen chose to live near her kin. Her fam­i­ly was both a nur­tur­ing pres­ence and suf­fo­cat­ing albatross.

Soon after they were mar­ried, Sher­man left Ellen in Ohio, took a leave of absence from the army, and went out to seek his for­tune as a San Fran­cis­co banker. She would join him for extend­ed peri­ods but then return with their two daugh­ters to her home state. Tecumseh’s vision was that he would achieve suc­cess in the finan­cial world, be his own man, and sup­port his wife in the style that she had become accus­tomed. Although he was a very accom­plished bank pres­i­dent, there were two prob­lems: he was not mak­ing enough mon­ey to sup­port their lifestyle and the con­stant boom and bust erup­tions in San Francisco’s wild 1850’s gold rush econ­o­my were dri­ving him mad.

The city’s banks were con­stant­ly at risk of being “run on” because of finan­cial overex­ten­sion or cor­rup­tion, real or imag­ined. Sher­man was sail­ing his finan­cial ship through trou­bled waters. On top of that, he, prob­a­bly against his bet­ter judg­ment but cap­i­tal­iz­ing on his pri­or army expe­ri­ence, accept­ed a com­mis­sion as head of the local state mili­tia while remain­ing pres­i­dent of the bank.

San Fran­cis­co was for all intents and pur­pos­es with­out a police force. One high pro­file crime led to anoth­er and before long, a citizen’s Vig­i­lante Com­mit­tee spon­ta­neous­ly arose to bring law and order to the streets of the city. The Com­mit­tee was an odd com­bi­na­tion of social elites and mis­cre­ants. San Francisco’s busi­ness and gov­ern­ing glit­terati ran it and those among the city’s most unsa­vory did the extrale­gal dirty work. Sher­man had put him­self in a no-win sit­u­a­tion. If he looked the oth­er way and the Vig­i­lante Com­mit­tee con­tin­ued to reign, the state gov­er­nor who appoint­ed him would be breath­ing down his throat; if he brought the Com­mit­tee to heal, he alien­at­ed the busi­ness asso­ciates upon whom he depend­ed for his liveli­hood. Even­tu­al­ly, he resigned his appoint­ment and was duly chas­tised by the governor.

But all of it was too much for Sher­man. He wrote a let­ter to his bank pres­i­dent in the St Louis home office, plead­ing to be replaced. He then wrote a fol­low-up let­ter apol­o­giz­ing for his hys­te­ria and “depres­sion” explain­ing that it was caused by “the effects of a dis­ease which I can­not con­trol.” His wife, Ellen, would lat­er write of the inci­dent “know­ing insan­i­ty to be in the fam­i­ly and hav­ing seen Cump in [sic] the verge of it once in Cal­i­for­nia…” Sherman’s west coast bank­ing exper­i­ment last­ed four years. St Louis closed the San Fran­cis­co branch, and he was out of a job.

Thomas Ewing offered him a posi­tion work­ing for the fam­i­ly in Ohio, but Sher­man declined and decid­ed to rejoin the Army. He went back to Wash­ing­ton with his father-in-law, who pulled a few strings, and tried to reen­list. But the army’s peace time sta­tus could not absorb all of its new­ly-mint­ed West Point grad­u­ates, let alone take back those who had left the service.

In Novem­ber of ’59, Sher­man land­ed as the head­mas­ter of the Louisiana State Sem­i­nary of Learn­ing and Mil­i­tary Acad­e­my, which would lat­er go on to become Louisiana State Uni­ver­si­ty. His tenure there was short-lived as the drums of war grew loud­er. In Jan­u­ary, the state’s mili­tia seized the US arse­nal at Baton Rouge and stored the weapons at the acad­e­my. Sher­man resigned and went to Wash­ing­ton where his fam­i­ly was again lob­by­ing to secure him a posi­tion in the now des­per­ate Union Army.

The West Point grad­u­ate, ex-banker, ex-head­mas­ter secured a colonel­cy to com­mand a reg­i­ment and was soon made respon­si­ble over­see­ing the defens­es for the nation’s cap­i­tal. He acquit­ted him­self well in the Union deba­cle at Bull Run out­side Wash­ing­ton, the first major bat­tle of the war. Sher­man was then offered com­mand of the army’s Depart­ment of the Cum­ber­land, which includ­ed troops in Ken­tucky and Ten­nessee among oth­ers. Lack­ing self con­fi­dence, he lob­bied hard with Lin­coln to be sec­ond in com­mand with­in the depart­ment. His pleas were suc­cess­ful and Gen­er­al Robert Ander­son, who had sur­ren­dered Fort Sumpter, was appoint­ed head of the Cum­ber­land. How­ev­er a change in cir­cum­stances and Sherman’s pre­dis­po­si­tion would cause him problems.

Although sec­ond in com­mand, mil­i­tary oper­a­tions in Bor­der States was fraught with prob­lems with both Union and seces­sion­ist extrem­ists mixed with­in the gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion. Sher­man found it dif­fi­cult to tell who was friend or foe. Mil­i­tary intel­li­gence was also in its ear­ly stages, leav­ing a dearth of infor­ma­tion regard­ing the size of ene­my troops. It was from this ground that Sherman’s demons rose again. He made wild esti­mates about the num­ber of rebel forces who opposed him and the num­ber of forces he in turn need­ed to meet the phan­tom threat. The psy­cho­log­i­cal pres­sure ratch­eted up when Ander­son had to leave for med­ical rea­sons putting Sher­man in command.

Both the head of the army, Gen­er­al George McClel­lan, and the White House were alarmed by Sherman’s troop esti­mates and reports; Sec­re­tary of War Simon Cameron was sent down to talk with their fran­tic gen­er­al. The Sec­re­tary came back to Wash­ing­ton and pro­claimed that Sher­man was “absolute­ly crazy.” McClel­lan relieved him and sent some­one to watch over him until his replace­ment could arrive. Major Gen­er­al Hen­ry Hal­leck, head of all Union troops in the West­ern the­atre, gave Sher­man respon­si­bil­i­ty for review­ing troops in all areas where there was lit­tle mil­i­tary action going on. How­ev­er, Hal­leck also autho­rized Sher­man author­i­ty, if nec­es­sary, to take com­mand of the troops under his review. The long and lanky gen­er­al from Ohio decid­ed to do so. This brought vehe­ment protests from his pre­de­ces­sor, who had a genius for bureau­crat­ic infight­ing and orches­trat­ed a review of Sherman’s health by a doc­tor who con­clud­ed that his men­tal state was “of such ner­vous­ness that he was unfit for command.”

Hal­leck ordered Sher­man back to head­quar­ters and ordered him to take a four-week leave of absence. He seemed to recoup, but the mud­dy world of military/civilian pol­i­tics led to the con­va­les­cent being sav­aged by the New York Times and labeled as insane by the press in his home state. Sher­man was heart sick and wrote to Thomas Ewing, who had tak­en in this nine-year-old father­less child, “Among the keen­est feel­ings of my life is…you will be mor­ti­fied beyond mea­sure at the dis­grace which has befall­en me – by the announce­ment in the Cincin­nati Com­mer­cial that I am insane.”

Upon his return to active duty, Hal­leck put Sher­man in charge of train­ing new troops where he right­ed him­self. Hal­leck then fate­ful­ly made the assign­ment that became one of the most impor­tant in the Civ­il War. Sher­man was now under Grant, respon­si­ble for the for­ward­ing of both troops and sup­plies to the Gen­er­al. Against a back­ground of total frus­tra­tion regard­ing Union efforts against Lee in Vir­ginia, Grant began to rollup vic­to­ries in the West: Bel­mont, Fort Hen­ry and Fort Donel­son. Then came Shiloh.

This bat­tle in Ten­nessee, also known as Pitts­burg Land­ing, was on the scale unknown on the Amer­i­can con­ti­nent. The bat­tle raged over a num­ber of days with the South ini­tial­ly plac­ing the Union in dire straits. How­ev­er both Grant and Sher­man were able to ral­ly their troops and even­tu­al­ly turn the tide. Union and Con­fed­er­ate casu­al­ties totaled 23,000. The nation was aghast, but Grant learned that he could place his trust in Sherman.

Even though he had won, it was now Grant’s turn to be pil­lo­ried in the press. No doubt aid­ed and abet­ted by the peo­ple with­in the gov­ern­ment and mil­i­tary hier­ar­chy, Grant was labeled a drunk. There was an ele­ment of truth to it. The Gen­er­al would some­times drink to excess when bored, but he nev­er allowed his prob­lem to com­pro­mise his per­for­mance in the field. A series of mis­com­mu­ni­ca­tions between Hal­leck and Grant ensued, and the head of the West­ern Depart­ment brought his rival back to head­quar­ters. Grant was giv­en a staff job with no troops under his command.

Grant was mis­er­able and had writ­ten his let­ter resign­ing from the army. In what can only be described as his­tor­i­cal serendip­i­ty, Sher­man paid his friend a vis­it and talked him out of it. Mean­while, the army’s game of musi­cal chairs was in full swing back east, and Hal­leck was soon pro­mot­ed to Gen­er­al and Chief of the entire Union army. Lin­coln, who was a friend and sup­port­er of Grant, now saw to it that he was giv­en com­mand of all the troops in the West­ern Department.

Grant and Sher­man were back togeth­er again with the offi­cer, who was giv­en to bouts of depres­sion and mania, was instru­men­tal in his friend’s suc­cess­ful siege at Vicks­burg. This strate­gic vic­to­ry in July ‘63, was the cul­mi­na­tion of the Union’s effort to con­trol the Mis­sis­sip­pi Riv­er. The South was cut in half.

By time that 1864 rolled around, the roulette wheel that was the Union Army com­mand struc­ture was spin­ning again. That Feb­ru­ary, unre­port­ed by the Danville North Star, Sher­man, after leav­ing Vicks­burg, waged a cam­paign against the city of Merid­i­an, Mis­sis­sip­pi, a strate­gic choke point for the South. It was the home of a key rail­road depot, an arse­nal, a mil­i­tary hos­pi­tal, a P.O.W. stock­ade, and head­quar­ters for state offices. In a coor­di­nat­ed attack, Sher­man ordered his troops “to wipe the appoint­ed meet­ing place off the map.” Sher­man summed up the results, “Meridian…no longer exists.” This type of war­fare was to become part of the tem­plate that the Union would use to wage total war in the deep South.

In March, the white roulette ball land­ed on Grant’s spot; he was called back east to become the head of the Union army. Lat­er that month, Grant brought Sher­man to a hotel in Cincin­nati where they spent two days craft­ing the mil­i­tary strat­e­gy that would be used to pros­e­cute and close out the war.

At the time, the cat­e­chism that passed for mil­i­tary strat­e­gy saw war as a chess match. Each com­man­der would mass their pieces togeth­er, go at it and who­ev­er wasn’t forced to leave the field of bat­tle was declared the win­ner. Then the adver­saries would find them­selves con­fronting each oth­er in a dif­fer­ent place and they’d repeat the same process.

For bet­ter or worse, Grant and Sher­man evolved the con­cept of mod­ern “total war­fare.” They con­cen­trat­ed their focus on not only destroy­ing their ene­my but also their adversary’s eco­nom­ic means to wage war and the polit­i­cal will of their cit­i­zens to con­tin­ue the con­flict. They wor­ried less about con­trol­ling geog­ra­phy and more about killing their oppo­nents and destroy­ing key pop­u­la­tion cen­ters. Sher­man boiled it down and said of Grant, “He was to go for Lee [Vir­ginia] and I was to go for Joe John­ston [the rest].” As he charged through the South, his demons in check, Sher­man would refine the prac­tice of cut­ting loose from his sup­ply lines and “liv­ing off the land.”

As Grant and Sher­man left the hotel in Cincin­nati, the South had no clue about the dev­as­ta­tion that awaited.