William Tecumseh Sherman Biography Quotes 36 Report mistakes

Early Life and Education
William Tecumseh Sherman was born in 1820 in Lancaster, Ohio, into a large family whose fortunes shifted sharply when his father, Charles Robert Sherman, an Ohio Supreme Court justice, died in 1829. The boy known as "Cump" was taken into the household of Thomas Ewing, a prominent Ohio lawyer and politician who later served in the U.S. Senate and in cabinets at Washington. In the Ewing home he absorbed disciplined habits, a taste for public service, and an early familiarity with national affairs. He attended the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he graduated near the top of the class of 1840. Although not a starry-eyed romantic about soldiering, he mastered engineering, topography, and the administration of troops, tools that would shape his conduct in later campaigns.

Early Army Service and Marriage
Commissioned in the artillery, Sherman served in the Second Seminole War in Florida and at various southern postings. During the Mexican-American War he was sent to California, where he performed staff and administrative duties and observed the logistical complexity of long-distance campaigning. His paths crossed with officers who later figured in the Civil War, including Henry W. Halleck. In 1850 he married Ellen Ewing, Thomas Ewing's daughter. Their marriage linked him to one of the era's influential political families and produced several children. The union, affectionate yet sometimes strained by religious differences and the demands of military life, endured through years of separation and grief, including the death of their son Willie during the Civil War.

Leaving the Army and Searching for a Vocation
After the war with Mexico, the peacetime army offered limited prospects. Sherman resigned his commission in 1853 to try civilian life. He worked for a banking firm in San Francisco during a period of rapid, volatile growth, then for a time in New York. The financial panic of 1857 damaged that career. He studied law in Kansas and found modest success, but not a true calling. In 1859 he accepted the post of superintendent of the Louisiana State Seminary of Learning and Military Academy (later Louisiana State University). He proved an able administrator and educator, but as secession gathered force, he resigned in early 1861, writing that he would not take arms against the United States.

Early Civil War Challenges
Returning north, Sherman offered his services to the Lincoln administration. Commissioned a colonel of the new 13th U.S. Infantry and soon a brigadier general of volunteers, he fought at the First Battle of Bull Run, an early lesson in the chaos of mass volunteer warfare. Assigned to command in Kentucky that autumn, he overestimated Confederate strength and pressed Washington for reinforcements so insistently that newspapers and politicians questioned his judgment. Supported by Halleck, he took a period of leave, then returned to duty in the Western Theater under Ulysses S. Grant. The episode, often caricatured, became part of his public image, but it also revealed a trait that would recur: a sober, even grim, appreciation for the scale of resources required to win modern war.

Rise in the Western Theater
At Shiloh in April 1862 Sherman was wounded and had multiple horses shot from under him, but he rallied broken lines and supported Grant in a bloody two-day struggle that steadied Union fortunes in the West. Over the following year he played a central role in the Vicksburg Campaign, conducting hard marches, river crossings, and feints that helped close the last major Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi. In the autumn of 1863 he helped reinforce the beleaguered Army of the Cumberland at Chattanooga; his troops joined the operations that broke the siege and opened the gateway to the Deep South. These operations cemented his partnership with Grant, who valued Sherman's candor, organizational vigor, and capacity to coordinate large movements over difficult terrain.

Atlanta, the March to the Sea, and Hard War
When Grant went east in 1864 to assume general-in-chief, Sherman took command in the West as head of the Military Division of the Mississippi. He directed a campaign through north Georgia against Joseph E. Johnston and later John Bell Hood, using maneuver and persistent pressure to force Confederate withdrawals from one defensive line to the next. After months of fighting and steady logistical effort, his forces took Atlanta in September 1864, a victory that had major political ramifications in the North.

That autumn, Sherman cut loose from his supply lines and led a large army from Atlanta to Savannah. The March to the Sea targeted railroads, depots, factories, and public property that sustained the Confederate war effort. The devastation, while largely aimed at infrastructure, also inflicted deep hardship on civilians and left a controversial legacy that still frames debate about the boundaries of "hard war". In early 1865 he turned north through the Carolinas, dismantling what remained of Confederate logistics and shattering resistance by mobility and concentration of force. The burning of parts of Columbia, South Carolina, became one of the war's most contentious episodes, with blame fiercely disputed at the time and since.

Surrender and Civil-Military Controversy
With Confederate armies collapsing after Appomattox, Sherman negotiated terms with General Joseph E. Johnston at Bennett Place in April 1865. His first agreement included political provisions on Reconstruction that exceeded his authority. Washington rejected those terms, and Sherman and Johnston then concluded a purely military capitulation. The episode brought him into sharp conflict with Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton and inflamed press criticism. In the Grand Review of the Armies that May, a public coolness between Sherman and Stanton dramatized their rift. Nonetheless, the surrender ended major operations in the Carolinas with minimal further bloodshed, and Sherman retained the trust of Grant, who understood both his intent and his value.

Reconstruction, the Plains, and Commanding General
After the war Sherman led the Military Division of the Mississippi and then succeeded Grant as Commanding General of the U.S. Army in 1869. In that post, which he held until 1883, he managed the downsized peacetime force, supported the enforcement of Reconstruction laws at varying levels as federal policy shifted, and oversaw operations on the western frontier. Working closely with Philip Sheridan and other subordinates, he organized campaigns and garrisons in the Plains that sought to compel Native nations to submit to federal authority and to protect expanding rail and settlement networks. His approach reflected the era's hard-edged assumptions about pacification and national development, and it remains a source of criticism for the suffering inflicted on Native communities.

Personality, Family, and Public Presence
Sherman cultivated a reputation for plain speech and professional rigor. He distrusted partisanship and resisted efforts to draw him into electoral politics, famously refusing presidential ambitions even when admirers pressed him. He was a voluble correspondent, a commanding presence in camp and headquarters, and, as his subordinates like James B. McPherson and Oliver O. Howard attested, a meticulous planner who demanded energy and precision. At home, the marriage to Ellen Ewing endured absences and grief, including the death of their son Willie in 1863. Their son Thomas entered the priesthood, a decision that highlighted the family's strong Catholic ties on Ellen's side, a faith Sherman himself did not share.

Memoirs and Historical Reputation
In retirement Sherman published his Memoirs in 1875, revising them in later editions. The work defended his strategic choices, praised the professional partnership with Grant, and offered sharp sketches of allies and adversaries, from George H. Thomas to John Bell Hood. The volumes became a classic of American military literature, noted for their directness, reflective analysis, and willingness to court controversy. Over time, scholars have debated his doctrine of "hard war", distinguishing it from indiscriminate brutality while acknowledging the scale of destruction his campaigns imposed. He is widely credited with mastering the operational art of coordinating large armies over vast distances, integrating rail and river transport, engineering, intelligence, and psychological pressure to break an enemy's will.

Final Years and Legacy
After stepping down as Commanding General, Sherman lived in St. Louis, Washington, and New York. He remained a public figure, speaking often and corresponding with former comrades, including Ulysses S. Grant until Grant's death in 1885, and maintaining a respectful exchange with former opponents such as Joseph E. Johnston. Sherman died in 1891 in New York. His funeral drew veterans from both sides, and he was laid to rest in St. Louis. Johnston, who served as a pallbearer, symbolized the begrudging admiration that crossed lines of former enmity.

William Tecumseh Sherman's life traced the arc of nineteenth-century America: the making of a national soldiery at West Point; the testing of institutions in civil war; and the consolidation of a continental power. His campaigns helped end the Confederacy by dismantling its capacity to wage war, and his administrative leadership shaped the postwar army. Celebrated, criticized, and rarely ignored, he stands as one of the most consequential American soldiers of his century, a man who fused relentless operational resolve with a cold-eyed understanding of what modern conflict would demand.

Our collection contains 36 quotes who is written by William, under the main topics: Witty One-Liners - Dark Humor - Military & Soldier - Reason & Logic - Resilience.

Other people realated to William: E. L. Doctorow (Author), Shelby Foote (Author), B. H. Liddell Hart (Historian), Benjamin Harrison (President), Henry Timrod (Poet)