Maj.-Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman (USA)

Major General William Tecumseh Sherman, (USA)

• [https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Tecumseh-Sherman]
• Find A Grave Memorial ID # 951

Sherman achieved the rank of Major General during the Civil War. Afterwards the rank of Commander, Military Division of the Mississippi, 1864–1866; Commander, Military Division of the Missouri, 1866–1869. He was Promoted to general (lieutenant general), 4 Mar 1869. He held the position of General of the Army (United States) Sherman stepped down as commanding general on November 1, 1883

He Believed in Total Warfare.

Sherman's advance through Georgia and South Carolina was characterized by widespread destruction of civilian supplies and infrastructure. Although looting was officially forbidden, historians disagree on how well this regulation was enforced. The speed and efficiency of the destruction by Sherman's army was remarkable. The practice of bending rails around trees, leaving behind what came to be known as Sherman's neckties, made repairs difficult. Accusations that civilians were targeted and war crimes were committed on the march have made Sherman a controversial figure to this day, particularly in the South.

After George Armstrong Custer's defeat at the Battle of Little Bighorn, Sherman wrote that "hostile savages like Sitting Bull and his band of outlaw Sioux ... must feel the superior power of the Government."

Sherman stepped down as commanding general on November 1, 1883, and retired from the army on February 8, 1884. He lived most of the rest of his life in New York City. He was devoted to the theater and to amateur painting and was much in demand as a colorful speaker at dinners and banquets, in which he indulged a fondness for quoting Shakespeare.

During this period, he stayed in contact with war veterans, and through them accepted honorary membership into the Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity and the Irving Literary Society. Sherman was proposed as a Republican candidate for the presidential election of 1884, but declined as emphatically as possible, saying, "I will not accept if nominated and will not serve if elected." Such a categorical rejection of a candidacy is now referred to as a "Shermanesque statement".

The General Sherman Tree located in Sequoia National Park in the "Giant Forest" bears his name and is reputed to be the largest tree in the world. The M4 Sherman tank which was the mainstay of the western allies between 1942 and 1945 was named after the famous Civil War General. He has been honored four times by the Postal Service...in 1893 and again in 1895 with a definitive 8 cent stamp. He shared a 3-cent commemorative stamp with General Grant and Phil Sheridan in 1937 and then in 1995 was depicted in a set of twenty 32-cent commemorative stamps focusing on famous individuals and battles in the civil war.

Information from Wikipedia follows

William Tecumseh Sherman (February 8, 1820 – February 14, 1891) was an American soldier, businessman, educator and author. He served as a General in the Union Army during the American Civil War (1861–65), for which he received recognition for his outstanding command of military strategy as well as criticism for the harshness of the "scorched earth" policies that he implemented in conducting total war against the Confederate States. Military historian B. H. Liddell Hart famously declared that Sherman was "the first modern general."

Sherman served under General Ulysses S. Grant in 1862 and 1863 during the campaigns that led to the fall of the Confederate stronghold of Vicksburg on the Mississippi River and culminated with the routing of the Confederate armies in the state of Tennessee. In 1864, Sherman succeeded Grant as the Union commander in the western theater of the war. He proceeded to lead his troops to the capture of the city of Atlanta, a military success that contributed to the re-election of President Abraham Lincoln. Sherman's subsequent march through Georgia and the Carolinas further undermined the Confederacy's ability to continue fighting. He accepted the surrender of all the Confederate armies in the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida in April 1865.

When Grant assumed the U.S. presidency in 1869, Sherman succeeded him as Commanding General of the Army (1869–83). As such, he was responsible for the U.S. Army's conduct of the Indian Wars in the western United States over the next 15 years.

Sherman was proposed as a Republican candidate for the presidential election of 1884, but declined as emphatically as possible, saying, "I will not accept if nominated and will not serve if elected." Such a categorical rejection of a candidacy is now referred to as a "Shermanesque statement".

In 1875, he published his Memoirs, one of the best-known firsthand accounts of the Civil War.