Sherman Sherman's Wartime Record

Certainly not the finest American, in fact, if you composed a list of really prominent and great American leaders, where do you think you'd find Sherman's name? Down near the bottom, where he belongs. It boggles the mind how everyone (it seems) loves to villify Lee and all Confederate leaders. But the people who treated the opposition terribly; and of course we're speaking of Southern civilians and the American Indians, Grant, Sherman and Sheridan, they get a pass from the American public?
We are talking about Sherman as a military man, not as a human being. Would you want us applying the same morality plays in conversations similar to Lee, Jackson, and Forrest? Because oh boy are they despicable if you looked into what they believed about black people and the institution of slavery.
 
NOT true.
If you want to play this game:
- Jackson believed that slavery was divined by the lord and must be protected
- Lee's postwar writings shows he believed in the early tenants of scientific racism, that he believed the "Anglo-Saxon" race was inherently superior to blacks, and that freed slaves should be kept as second class citizens.
- Forrest was a principle leader of the Klan, which is by every inch of the definition a terrorist organization, which he disband after Grant neutered them in postwar raids.
Meanwhile, it is entirely true that Grant and Sherman have despicable traits. Grant during the war enacted a general order expelling Jews from his department, only countermanded by Lincoln due to outcry; he undermined capable officers like Rosecrans, McClernand and Warren more out of petty rivalry than anything, his last words to Lincoln trying to "correct" the president's thought that Stones River was a Union victory. And whatever willingness he had to help free blacks and indians during his presidency, he abandoned them when money was on the line. Sherman until late in his life saw blacks as an inferior race, and favored hard war policy against the plains Indians.
That all said, playing it out as if the north was morally inferior to the south is quite disgusting, considering the South fought for the institution of slavery, seceded from the union and started the war by firing on US troops (needlessly, I may add). In the words of a later general of similar controversy, "They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind".
Don't play the morality game, everyone loses.
 
If you want to play this game:
- Jackson believed that slavery was divined by the lord and must be protected
- Lee's postwar writings shows he believed in the early tenants of scientific racism, that he believed the "Anglo-Saxon" race was inherently superior to blacks, and that freed slaves should be kept as second class citizens.
- Forrest was a principle leader of the Klan, which is by every inch of the definition a terrorist organization, which he disband after Grant neutered them in postwar raids.
Meanwhile, it is entirely true that Grant and Sherman have despicable traits. Grant during the war enacted a general order expelling Jews from his department, only countermanded by Lincoln due to outcry; he undermined capable officers like Rosecrans, McClernand and Warren more out of petty rivalry than anything, his last words to Lincoln trying to "correct" the president's thought that Stones River was a Union victory. And whatever willingness he had to help free blacks and indians during his presidency, he abandoned them when money was on the line. Sherman until late in his life saw blacks as an inferior race, and favored hard war policy against the plains Indians.
That all said, playing it out as if the north was morally inferior to the south is quite disgusting, considering the South fought for the institution of slavery, seceded from the union and started the war by firing on US troops (needlessly, I may add). In the words of a later general of similar controversy, "They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind".
Don't play the morality game, everyone loses.
And Grant's outright hostility towards Thomas.
 
He was the brother of an important Senator from a key swing state and the son-in-law to one of the most influential former Whigs in the US. He was good at the obsessive/compulsive details of movement, in a manner no one else came close to matching. And he followed orders, and communicated. In army in which the habit of subordination waivered at times, following orders to the best of one's ability was a valuable characteristic.
 
We are talking about Sherman as a military man, not as a human being. Would you want us applying the same morality plays in conversations similar to Lee, Jackson, and Forrest? Because oh boy are they despicable if you looked into what they believed about black people and the institution of slavery.

Excuse me, I would get banned from CWT if I repeated what Sherman said, in writing, about African Americans during the War.

We are in an epoch in which the worst thing we've ever done or said defines us. Sherman's statues belong in dumpsters by this measure.
 
I'd love to move this back to the original topic of this thread. All discussions on Sherman's personal/political views without connection to how it affects his military decision making will be reprimanded.
I may be able to do this. I noticed that @NedBaldwin mentioned Sherman received operational command. This sparked some thoughts on other threads about the abilities of most general officers would mature up to a point. Many times, they were advanced beyond their abilities to command. But the case in point about Sherman appears to be a dichotomy to normal logic. Sherman appears to be better qualified at larger commands, and less so towards the brigade level. Do others see this as unusual too?
Lubliner.
 
I may be able to do this. I noticed that @NedBaldwin mentioned Sherman received operational command. This sparked some thoughts on other threads about the abilities of most general officers would mature up to a point. Many times, they were advanced beyond their abilities to command. But the case in point about Sherman appears to be a dichotomy to normal logic. Sherman appears to be better qualified at larger commands, and less so towards the brigade level. Do others see this as unusual too?
Lubliner.
Quite so. Like I said, there are not many occasions prior to the Atlanta Campaign that show him as a talented commander. Shiloh was actually a tactical success, though he was controversially dismissive of reports that the Confederates were massing to his front.
This said, I want to note that Sherman shares a lot of similarities to another quite obscure figure in the conflict: Stonewall Jackson. Joke aside, Jackson was fantastic at operational maneuver, and somewhat mediocre when it comes to tactics. In addition, it seems Jackson did much better when detached from Lee's direct command (The Shenandoah Campaign, Second Manassas, Chancellorsville) than when his is under Lee's direct line of communication (Seven Days, Antietam, Fredericksburg). When Sherman is given independent command in 1864, with Grant off to Virginia, that is when he shows his brilliance as an operational maneuverer, at Meridian and North Georgia onward.
To add one final connection with Jackson and Sherman, Jackson professed that the South should march into the Northern homelands and put everything to the torch, destroying the North's desire to continue the fight. He died before he was able to implement the strategy (he may have done so in Pennsylvania that June/July), but as we all know, Sherman did so in Mississippi, Georgia, and the Carolinas, helping shorten the war dramatically.
 
Certainly not the finest American, in fact, if you composed a list of really prominent and great American leaders, where do you think you'd find Sherman's name? Down near the bottom, where he belongs. It boggles the mind how everyone (it seems) loves to villify Lee and all Confederate leaders. But the people who treated the opposition terribly; and of course we're speaking of Southern civilians and the American Indians, Grant, Sherman and Sheridan, they get a pass from the American public?

A free pass for Grant, Sherman and Sheridan? Hardly. All of these men have been subjected to intense scrutiny and criticism over the years. All have been treated as villians by the numerous apologists for the Confederacy. They are also villians to the progessive/left factions in modern politics. They may be getting a free pass by a small number of writers eager to justify the War at any cost, but that's all.
 
Sherman appears to be better qualified at larger commands, and less so towards the brigade level. Do others see this as unusual to
Interesting thought. It is true that Sherman's greatest military accomplishments occurred when he gained operational control of an entire regional military division, which he attained after Grant was promoted to Lt. General and General-in-Chief. Thus, Sherman's fame is based on his masterful flanking maneuvers against Joe Johnston from Dalton to Atlanta, and his subsequent movements from Atlanta through Georgia and the Carolinas. Before then, Sherman's record was mixed at places like Shiloh, Chickasaw Bluffs, and Chattanooga. But once attaining total command, Sherman was able to implement his military thinking that targeted civilian infrastructure as much as individual fighting forces. Probably no other commander would have gotten away with his decision to stop the pursuit of Hood's AOT after that army began its retrograde movement towards Tennessee; Sherman chose instead to have Thomas and elements of the western armies deal with Hood, while he Sherman, concentrated on his much broader strategic campaign of cutting through the heartland of the south and delivering a body punch to that public's ability to see a realistic pathway to southern victory.
 
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