William Tecumseh Sherman

General Sherman redirects here. For information on the tree named after this person, see General_Sherman_tree.

Postbellum service

In 1866, Sherman was promoted to Grant's rank of lieutenant general and when Grant became president in 1869, Sherman was promoted to full general and served as commander-in-chief of the U.S. Army until his retirement in 1884. For one month in 1869 he served as the interim Secretary of War, following the death of John A. Rawlins. His tenure as the commanding general was marred by political difficulties and from 1874 to 1876 he moved his headquarters to St. Louis to attempt to escape from them. One of his significant contributions as head of the Army was the establishment of the Command School (now the Command and General Staff College) at Fort Leavenworth. In his various Army campaigns against the Native American ("Indian") tribes, Sherman repeated his Civil War strategy by seeking not only to defeat the enemy's soldiers, but also to destroy the resources that allowed the enemy to sustain its warfare. Despite his harsh treatment of the warring Indian tribes, Sherman spoke out against government agents who treated the natives unfairly within the reservations.

Related Topics:
1866 - Lieutenant general - President - 1869 - General - 1884 - Secretary of War - John A. Rawlins - 1874 - 1876 - Command and General Staff College - Fort Leavenworth - Native American - Reservations

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In 1875 Sherman published his two-volume memoirs, a minor classic, marked by a forceful, lucid style, and the strong opinions for which Sherman has become famous. This was only one work in his prolific writing career, which include:

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• General Sherman's Official Account of His Great March to Georgia and the Carolinas, from His Departure from Chattanooga to the Surrender of General Joseph E. Johnston and Confederate Forces under His Command (1865)
• Memoirs of General William T. Sherman, Written by Himself (1875)
• Home Letters of General Sherman (posthumous, 1909)
• General W. T. Sherman as College President: A Collection of Letters, Documents, and Other Material, Chiefly from Private Sources, Relating to the Life and Activities of General William Tecumseh Sherman, to the Early Years of Louisiana State University, and the Stirring Conditions Existing in the South on the Eve of the Civil War (posthumous, 1912)
• Sherman at War (posthumous, 1992)
• Sherman's Civil War: Selected Correspondence of William T. Sherman, 1860 – 1865 (posthumous, 1999)
• Reports of Inspection Made in the Summer of 1877 by Generals P. H. Sheridan and W. T. Sherman of Country North of the Union Pacific Railroad (co-author, 1878)
• The Sherman Letters: Correspondence between General and Senator Sherman from 1837 to 1891 (posthumous, 1894)
• The William Tecumseh Sherman Family Letters (posthumous, 1967)

After retiring from the army in 1884, Sherman lived most of the rest of his life in New York City. He was devoted to the theater and was much in demand as a colorful speaker at dinners and banquets. He was proposed by some Democrats as a possible presidential candidate for the election of 1884, but declined as emphatically as possible, saying, "If nominated I will not run; if elected I will not serve." Such a categorical rejection of a candidacy is now referred to as a "Sherman Statement."

Related Topics:
1884 - New York City - Democrats - Presidential

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