William Tecumseh Sherman: In the Service of My Country: A Life - James Lee McDonough
William Tecumseh Sherman: In the Service of My Country: A Life - James Lee McDonough
Non-Fiction
Pages: 832
A perennial problem with biographies of military figures is that they tend to skate over all the before and after material in order to focus on what the war or military campaign that made that person famous. Thankfully, in this biography of Sherman, it is very much 'a life' as the title says - McDonough devotes as much attention to Sherman's life before and after the Civil War as the four years of its duration. After all, whilst it may have the formative experience of his life, four years out of seventy-odd is too few to sustain the weight of an entire 'life'.
It is curious how many of the major generals of the Civil War struggled in their pre-war lives - Grant and Sherman being only the two most prominent examples. Perhaps it is a classic example of the difficulties military men experience in peacetime - what do men bred for war do when there is no war? Sherman struggled throughout his life with debt, with a family constantly urging him to leave the army, to turn his plentiful talents to other more profitable paths. Yet when he finally did, pursuing a career as a bank, he found no fortune, although through no lack of his own and his bank's troubles would have been far far worse in the various crashes and troubles of the era had it not been for Sherman's cool head in a crisis, determination, integrity and commitment to duty - all traits that would serve him well in the War.
The Civil War made Sherman, as it made Grant - and together they must surely go down in history as one of, if not the most successful military partnership in history. There was no ego between them, and they trusted one another implicitly. It was this bond that allowed them to operate in tandem to finally defeat the South, and allowed Sherman to set off on his famous 'March to the Sea', cutting loose from all supply lines and operating independently and in isolation in enemy territory, bringing total war to the civilian population. It was Sherman's chance to show the world his formidable military genius - as much for organisational ability, management and logistics as military strategy. Indeed, Sherman was a general who loathed bloodshed and massive casualties, who far preferred to manoeuvre his enemy out of positions than to fling troops headlong in attack. It is no wonder he is regarded as perhaps the first 'modern' general.
Sherman comes across in this biography as an immensely appealing man - although no doubt Southerners would disagree - a man who enjoyed theatre and dancing, outgoing and gregarious, a fine public speaker, a man of integrity and discipline, a man driven by ambition but not by ego, capable of great humility and restraint at times. If all history remembers of Sherman is the March to the Sea, it is doing him a grave disservice - one that thankfully this excellent biography does much to remedy.