William tecumseh sherman strengths and weaknesses quotes
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He doesn't give a damn about what the enemy does out of his sight, but it scares me like hell."
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"You might as well appeal against the thunder-storm as against these terrible hardships of war."
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"I want peace, and believe it can only be reached through union and war, and I will ever conduct war with a view to perfect an early success."
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"Grant stood by me when I was crazy, and I stood by him when he was drunk, and now we stand by each other."
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"I think I know what military fame is; to be killed on the field of battle and have your name misspelled in the newspapers."
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"I make up my opinions from facts and reasoning, and not to suit any body but myself.
But this punishment was to come only upon his command, and then only when he had appropriate orders from “the heads” in Washington. Despite misgivings over Grant’s unorthodox campaign and siege, which earned Grant more criticism (this time over his drinking), Sherman provided key logistical support.
When the city finally fell on July 4, 1863, the Union gained control of the Mississippi River, a key turning point in the war.
President Lincoln recognized the value of both men: Grant was put in charge of all troops in the West, and Sherman received an additional commission as brigadier general of the regular army.
At the head of the Army of the Tennessee, Sherman was criticized for his performance at the Battle of Chattanooga, although the Union eventually prevailed.
Reid’s analysis rests on three military arts. I know more about supply, administration, and everything else than he does.
Civil war–era biographies that can double as doorstops seem to be in vogue again. Feel free to share your favorite William Tecumseh Sherman quotes in the comments section below...
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Instead, Sherman would have to adapt and learn how to control an “armed mob” filled, as he confessed, with a large proportion of “stragglers and venturesome pillagers” balanced by a select minority who admittedly were “fast becoming soldiers from experience.” That process of learning, growth, and co-evolution is the topic of my new book, Soldiers from Experience: The Forging of Sherman’s Fifteenth Army Corps, 1862–1863.
Quotations are taken from The Memoirs of General William T.
Sherman (New York: Viking, 1990), Sherman’s Civil War: Selected Correspondence of William T. Sherman, 1860–65 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999), and John Marszalek, Sherman: A Soldier’s Passion for Order (New York: Free Press, 1993).
Eric Michael Burke is a historian at the US Army Combined Arms Center in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
This, even in the face of so many who seemed to him bent on transforming what he interpreted as a war exclusively to preserve the “old Constitutional” government into an “unnatural Conflict” that “would not stop till the whole country is convulsed—and slavery abolished everywhere.”
By December of 1862, Sherman was forced to admit that times were changing, and that some of these radicals might very well have been on the right side of history all along.
I want him to hold what he has earned and got. Twisted railroad lines along the way became known as “Sherman’s neckties.”
Georgia’s citizens lived in fear of advancing troops, but the rest of the country had no news of Sherman’s March to the Sea. His distrust of the press led Sherman to ban reporters, and many Americans had no clue where the army went after leaving Atlanta.
William Tecumseh Sherman Quotes
This is a brief selection of William Tecumseh Sherman quotes.
“We cannot afford to feed such hordes,” he cried as he calculated the tremendous volume of food and other provisions necessary to support millions of freedmen and women. “The year 1864,” Reid maintains, “allowed Sherman to step forward and mount the steps of the podium of greatness.” Exercising command at the operational level, Sherman entered, according to Reid, “a very small and select group of military individuals who succeeded both as commanders in the field and as thinkers, who combined talents wielding both the sword and the pen.”
Reid carefully connects Sherman’s personality traits to his military strengths and weaknesses.
But when Grant was tapped as commander of all the Union armies and headed east in March 1864, he turned command of the Western Theater over to Sherman. it is only those who have never heard a shot, never heard the shriek and groans of the wounded and lacerated ... If people don't like my opinions, it makes little difference as I don't solicit their opinions or votes."
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"Courage - a perfect sensibility of the measure of danger, and a mental willingness to endure it."
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"I regard the death and mangling of a couple thousand men as a small affair, a kind of morning dash — and it may be well that we become so hardened."
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"War is the remedy that our enemies have chosen, and I say let us give them all they want."
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"Let it be known that if a farmer wishes to burn his cotton, his house, his family, and himself, he may do so.
We want that."
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"If you don’t have my army supplied, and keep it supplied, we’ll eat your mules up, sir – eat your mules up."
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"I tell you, war is Hell! "
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"I can make this march, and I will make Georgia howl! "
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"Atlanta is ours, and fairly won."
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"I will not accept if nominated, and will not serve if elected."
(Response to speculation that he would run for President after Grant.)
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"If forced to choose between the penitentiary and the White House for four years, I would say the penitentiary, thank you."
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"In our Country...
The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.”
Sherman’s March to the Sea
With the full support of both Lincoln and Grant, Sherman devised an unusual plan. But not his corn.
Available Now
Winner of the Civil War Books and Authors Book of the Year Award
In Soldiers from Experience, Eric Michael Burke examines the tactical behavior and operational performance of Major General William T.
Sherman’s Fifteenth US Army Corps during its first year fighting in the Western Theater of the American Civil War. Burke analyzes how specific experiences and patterns of meaning-making within the ranks led to the emergence of what he characterizes as a distinctive corps-level tactical culture.
For the most part, despite the proclamations and edicts of an apparently radical Republican administration, Sherman remained a stalwart opponent of the immediate emancipation of the enslaved in the South. Fittingly, Reid’s concluding chapter is subtitled “Weighed in the Balance and Not Found Wanting.” At his funeral in February 1891, former President Rutherford B.
Hayes opined that Sherman was, quite simply, “the most interesting and original character in the world.” Sherman would have smiled at that.
By Eric Michael Burke
In this post, Eric Michael Burke recounts the circumstances that led William Tecumseh Sherman to confess, “I have not the confidence of a Leader in this war,” as he struggled to command and control tens of thousands of volunteer troops with no battleground experience.
He always wished “we had more Regulars to tie to,” convinced as he was that the hardened and disciplined soldiers of the frontier outposts he had known from his Old Army days were the only definite hope for the future of the republic. First, he seeks to explain Sherman’s reaction to forces over which he had little or no control, showcasing Sherman’s ability to pivot and adapt to changing conditions on the battlefield or on the home front.