General William Tecumseh Sherman The leader of 100,000 troops, became the most hated man in Georgia but honored in Lancaster, Ohio. William Tecumseh Sherman was known as a major architect of modern war. William Sherman was a strong military leader who changed the course of the Civil War. William Tecumseh Sherman was born in a family in Lancaster, Ohio, on February, 8, 1820, one of 11 children. When William was 9 years old, his father died suddenly. Because his mother was now widowed, she sent William to be raised by his father’s friend Thomas Ewing, who was an Ohio senator.1 Later on, William married Ewing’s daughter Ellen. After West Point, and graduated in 1840, He resigned from his position. William Tecumseh Sherman was a superintendent …show more content…
Only after this did he begin association with Ulysses Grant. Sherman’s influence, for example, he helped stop Grant from resigning when he was tied up orders from Washington.4 “In the battles before Atlanta, Sherman’s opponent was Joseph Johnston. But Johnston’s ideas on how things should work, started to worry the president, who replaced Johnston with John B. Hood. Sherman defeated Hood during several occasions and occupied Atlanta early in September 1864.”5 On November 15, Sherman led an army of sixty-two thousand men, horses and wagons, on a march to Savannah,” The utter destruction of Georgia’s roads, houses and people,” he had written, “will cripple their military resources… I can make Georgia howl!” On December 21, Sherman took Savanna 1864, and later turned north for the Carolinas. The results of this march proved Sherman’s expectations and destroyed the Confederacy’s ability to carry on the war. “It is still disputed, however, whether the burning of Atlanta, the later burning of Columbia, South Carolina, were either necessary or unpreventable.”2 General William Tecumseh Sherman is honored in Lancaster, Ohio. His house (built in 1811) has been turned into a museum, where locals may walk through his
General Richard Sherman’s march to the sea has just finished. After successful capturing Atlanta, Georgia, General Sherman directed his Union army to Savannah, Georgia. Along the way, northerners wreaked havoc on Southern cotton mills and destroy train tracks while completely uprooting 20 percent of Georgian plantations. This effectively halted the Confederate’s means of transportation and economic structure subsequently w...
At the end of his “March to the Sea”, MG William T. Sherman led Union forces from Georgia to the north through the Carolinas to unite with LTG Ulysses S. Grant in Virginia. By doing so, he believed he would be able to cut Confederate forces General Robert E. Lee’s supply lines. In February 1865, MG Sherman captured Columbia, the state capital of South Carolina. The commander of Confederate forces was LTG Wade Hampton who led the force under the command of General P.G.T Beauregard. MG Sherman succeeded in defeating Confederate on the basis of the principles of mission command.
General Sherman had several objectives in mind when setting out from Atlanta aside from reaching and taking Savannah. Important objectives included destroying any buildings that could assist the Confederacy. Other valuable targets to the Union included excess livestock, railroad tracks and depots, and cotton and tobacco fields. Perhaps most critical to General Sherman was to defeat the Confederate spirit. “When requesting permission to proceed with his campaign Sherman wrote to General Grant ‘I can make this march and make Georgia howl.’” (Woodworth) Sherman’s presence in the heart of the South was an insult to the pride of local residents, and the fact the Confederate Army could do little to stop it severely belittled national unity.
In, “Apostles of Disunion: Southern Secession Commissioners and the Causes of the Civil War,” Charles B. Dew analyzes the public letters and speeches of white, southern commissioners in order to successfully prove that the Civil War was fought over slavery. By analyzing the public letters and speeches, Dew offers a compelling argument proving that slavery along with the ideology of white supremacy were primary causes of the Civil War. Dew is not only the Ephraim Williams Professor of American History at Williams College, but he is also a successful author who has received various awards including the Elloit Rudwick Prize and the Fletcher Pratt Award. In fact, two of Dew’s books, Tredegar Iron Works and Apostles of Disunion and Ironmaker to
Lee was born in Stratford, Virginia. Lee was the fourth child of General Henry Lee III, Governor of Virginia, and his mother, Anne Hill Carter, Lee was raised by his mother who taught him about authority, tolerance, and order. Lee was exposed to Christianity at an early age and devoted his life to god. In 1825, Lee was accepted into West Point. There he learned about warfare and how to fight. In 1829, Lee graduated 2nd of 46 in his class, but even more surprising is that he didn’t get a single demerit while attending West Point. Afterward, Lee was appointed as Superintendent of West Point from 1852 to 1855. After he served his term, Lee left West Point to become a Lieutenant Colonel in the 2nd Cavalry of Texas.
Union officer William Tecumseh Sherman observed to a Southern friend that, "In all history, no nation of mere agriculturists ever made successful war against a nation of mechanics. . . .You are bound to fail." While Sherman's statement proved to be correct, its flaw is in its assumption of a decided victory for the North and failure to account for the long years of difficult fighting it took the Union to secure victory. Unquestionably, the war was won and lost on the battlefield, but there were many factors that swayed the war effort in favor of the North and impeded the South's ability to stage a successful campaign.
In the next pages I will explain why Fredericksburg was such a tragedy. Why it was a big morale booster for the South, but a disappointment for the North?
At the outbreak of the American Civil War, Grant was appointed colonel, and soon afterward brigadier general, of the Illinois Volunteers, and in September 1861 he seized Paducah, Kentucky. After an indecisive raid on Belmont, Missouri, he gained fame when in February 1862, in conjunction with the navy; he succeeded in reducing Forts Henry and Donelson, Tennessee, forcing General Simon B. Buckner to accept unconditional surrender. The Confederates surprised Grant at Shiloh, but he held his ground and then moved on to Corinth. In 1863 he established his reputation as a strategist in the brilliant campaign against Vicksburg, Mississippi, which took place on July 4. After being appointed commander in the West, he defeated Braxton Bragg at Chattanooga. Grant's victories made him so prominent that he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant general and in February 1864 was given command of all Union armies.
Henry Steele Commager’s essay “The Defeat of the Confederacy: An Overview” is more summary than argument. Commager is more concerned with highlighting the complex causality of the war’s end rather than attempting to give a definitive answer. Commager briefly muses over both the South’s strengths
This is just one of many of the reasons why Ulysses s. Grant is influential.
Sometime during the evening of February 17th, 1865, a fire broke out in the city of Columbia, South Carolina, causing the destruction of a third of its infrastructure and residence, leaving thousands homeless and penniless. One might ask, what was the cause of this massive inferno, which produced such great devastation? That resolve is neither easy nor straightforward, but a few theories do exist. Perhaps, none greater than the suggestion that General William T. Sherman and his occupying forces deliberately burned “it” to the ground. This topic has been debated time and time again with no clear “order” given. If such an order were given, it would show that Sherman’s plan all along was to destroy the birthplace of succession and teach southerners
To this day, John Bell Hood can be recognized as the youngest man to ever achieve the full rank of a Confederate general and to independently lead an army in the Civil War. It is suggested that his true bravery, fierce passion, and relentless desire for southern independence it what set him apart from the rest during his services in the military. In “John Bell Hood and the War for Southern Independence” Richard McMurry states that “In position and grade… [Hood] belonged with the older generation- men such as Robert E. Lee and Joseph E. Johnson… whose military responsibilities included much more than simple fighting (pg. ix).” The particular methods and strategies that Hood used when executing plans of war are what made him stand
Lee is an excellent general for our newly created Confederacy. He is not only a national hero and in a very positive public light, he is also brilliant and valiant, knowing when to strict vital blows on the enemy. Even considering Lee’s weaknesses, he is still the General we need to lead the Confederacy to victory.
Sears’ thesis is the Union could have won the war faster. McClellan was an incompetent commander and to take the initiative to attack an defeat the Confederate army. The Army of Northern Virginia, under...
The American Civil war is considered to be one of the most defining moments in American history. It is the war that shaped the social, political and economic structure with a broader prospect of unifying the states and hence leading to this ideal nation of unified states as it is today. In the book “Confederates in the Attic”, the author Tony Horwitz gives an account of his year long exploration through the places where the U.S. Civil War was fought. He took his childhood interest in the Civil War to a new level by traveling around the South in search of Civil War relics, battle fields, and most importantly stories. The title “Confederates in the Attic”: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War carries two meanings in Tony Horwitz’s thoughtful and entertaining exploration of the role of the American Civil War in the modern world of the South. The first meaning alludes to Horwitz’s personal interest in the war. As the grandson of a Russian Jew, Horwitz was raised in the North but early in his childhood developed a fascination with the South’s myth and history. He tells readers that as a child he wrote about the war and even constructed a mural of significant battles in the attic of his own home. The second meaning refers to regional memory, the importance or lack thereof yet attached to this momentous national event. As Horwitz visits the sites throughout the South, he encounters unreconstructed rebels who still hold to outdated beliefs. He also meets groups of “re-enactors,” devotees who attempt to relive the experience of the soldier’s life and death. One of his most disheartening and yet unsurprising realizations is that attitudes towards the war divide along racial lines. Too many whites wrap the memory in nostalgia, refusing...