- Joined
- Oct 10, 2012
- Location
- Mt. Jackson, Va
When Sherman graduated West Point in 1840, sixth in his class, he was given a very desirable commission as a lieutenant in the Third U.S. Artillery. He briefly served in Florida near the end of the Seminole War, then at Fort Morgan in Mobile Bay. He was then assigned to garrison duty at Fort Moultrie in Charleston, South Carolina in 1842. Since he was the foster son of Thomas Ewing, a prominent Whig politician from Ohio, Sherman had access to the high society of the Charleston upper class. In his letters home, he wrote of his pleasures in his spare time of fox hunting, fishing, boating, dancing, and making hundreds of visits to his new friends in Charleston and the resorts of Sullivan's Island. He found his South Carolina home "so bright and delightful, that I have almost renounced all allegiance to Ohio, although it contains all whom I love and regard as friends."
I find this something of a paradox with regards to his march through the Carolinas in 1865. With all his fond memories of South Carolina, it somewhat puzzles me that he could unleash his harshest reprisals against it.
Photo of Lieutenant W.T. Sherman's 1832 artillery coat he wore at Fort Moultrie
http://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/...vil-war-general-william-tecumseh-sherman.html
I find this something of a paradox with regards to his march through the Carolinas in 1865. With all his fond memories of South Carolina, it somewhat puzzles me that he could unleash his harshest reprisals against it.
Photo of Lieutenant W.T. Sherman's 1832 artillery coat he wore at Fort Moultrie
http://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/...vil-war-general-william-tecumseh-sherman.html