Read Ebook: Life and Military Career of Major-General William Tecumseh Sherman by Headley P C Phineas Camp

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"On the fifth of March Wild Cat was announced as approaching the American camp with seven of his trusty companions. He came boldly within the line of sentinels, dressed in the most fantastic manner. He and his party had shortly before killed a company of strolling theatrical performers, near St. Augustine, and having possessed themselves of the wardrobe of their victims, put it on. He approached the tent of General Worth, calm and self-possessed, and shook hands with the officers. He then addressed the general without hesitation and with dignity, saying he had received the talk and white flag sent him. He had come according to invitation to visit the American camp with peaceful intentions, relying upon his good faith.

"At this moment his little daughter escaped from the tent where she was to remain till General Worth should think the proper time to present her to her father had come. With the feelings and habits of her race, she gave him musket balls and powder which she had managed to obtain and secret until his arrival. On seeing his child he could no longer command that dignity of bearing so much the pride of every Indian chief. His self-possession gave way to parental emotions; the feelings of the father gushed forth; he averted his face and wept.

"During the interview, Wild Cat spoke with great sincerity; frankly stated the condition and feelings of his people; stated the friendly attachment between the 'exiles' and Indians; said that they would not consent to be separated; that nothing could be done until their annual assemblage in June, to feast on the green corn; that, hard as the fate was, he would consent to emigrate, and would use his influence to induce his friends to do so. After remaining four days in camp, he and his companions left, accompanied by his little daughter, whom he presented to her mother on reaching his own encampment."

Young Sherman was created first lieutenant November, 1841, and soon after the war closed, followed by the removal of the "exiles" to the country beyond the State of Arkansas, joining the Creeks there.

There are two very interesting facts you will think of in this glimpse of the early experience of our cadet-soldier. The first is, the real beginning of the great rebellion, in the unjust and oppressive claims of the Southern States upon other races, and upon our national legislation. The other curious fact is the awful desolation of that leading State in this wrong, Georgia, by the lieutenant, more than a score of years afterwards, in the defence of our own imperilled liberties.

Hon. Joshua R. Giddings.

Lieutenant Sherman in Fort Moultrie--The Fortress--The Mexican War --He goes to California--His Service there--Appointed Captain-- His Marriage--Exciting Scenes in California--In the Commissary Department--Resigns his Commission--Turns Banker.

LIEUTENANT SHERMAN was next ordered to Fort Moultrie, on Sullivan's Island, in Charleston harbor. Do you know the origin of that fortress and of its name? Six days before the Declaration of Independence was signed, there was a memorable battle and victory here, over the British squadron commanded by Sir Peter Parker. A post had been commenced, which, upon the appearance of the fleet was hastily completed, under the command of General Moultrie, a very brave officer.

In this fortress Lieutenant Sherman had an unexciting round of duty. But more active service was near. If you will turn to the map of the United States you will see that the boundary between Texas and Mexico on the south, runs northwesterly toward the Pacific Ocean, where lies California, bounded on the southern side by Mexico. When war followed the dispute between the United States and the Mexican Government about the dividing line, in 1846, it was necessary to have troops in California. With the forces sent to that new and thinly-settled region, Lieutenant Sherman went under the banner he loved with all the enthusiasm of his ardent nature. The fighting was principally done, you know, at Palo Alto, Resaca de la Palma, Monterey, Molino del Rey, and a few other points far from the post of Sherman. But he did his duty in the ranks of the frontier-guard, and was off on recruiting service when those fierce battles were fought.

California had been for many years under the Government of Mexico. The people rebelled against Santa Anna, asserted their independence, but again submitted to the old authority. In 1842 its rich plains attracted emigration from all lands, which increased rapidly till war with Mexico was declared. General Fremont was there. A quarrel began between the Mexican people and the settlers. This was increased by the conflict of the two nations, which resulted in our establishing a territorial government. The whole was ceded to the United States at the close of the war for ,000,000, and became a State in 1850. With the flood of population from many countries, before and after Lieutenant Sherman went there, lawlessness of all kinds prevailed. Gambling was a common business, incendiarism equally so, and justice was almost unknown, even in the Government. Men were shot in open day for giving offence; the people became alarmed, and appointed a vigilance committee, who took law into their own hands. Our still youthful officer opposed such assumption of power, believing in redress for wrongs through the constitutional remedies. And often since the civil war commenced has he beguiled the weary hours of camp-life by recounting the exciting scenes of those wild days of California life. He saw a calmer period of history there. The vigilance committee at length surrendered its power to the State Government, and California has taken her place among the noblest of our commonwealths, loyal to the flag in the darkest hour of strife.

The rough experiences in southern and western forests--watching the stealthy Indians, and riding through perilous and difficult paths--were fitting him for work which would attract the admiring interest of the world. So well did he improve his opportunities to serve his country and perfect himself in military science, that his farther promotion to a captaincy was ordered while on the Pacific coast. The war closed in the winter of 1848, and the treaty of peace was signed in February of that year. The life of a "regular" in the army became monotonous. Garrisons and surveys occupied the troops. But there came, two years later, an interesting change in the social relations of Captain Sherman.

The friend he left with so much regret when he bade adieu to Lancaster, Ohio, for a home at West Point, Miss Ellen B. Ewing, attracted the gallant young soldier's steps from the round of martial duty. In the spring of 1850 he led her to the altar of marriage, in Washington, D. C., where the bride's father, the Hon. Thomas Ewing, has spent much of his long life in Congress, and in the Cabinet. Two of the greatest statesmen in this or any other nation, Daniel Webster and Henry Clay, were guests on the occasion, also General Zachary Taylor. Not many weddings in the Republic can boast of so many distinguished persons among the spectators of the ceremonies, offering their congratulations to the happy pair.

Captain Sherman was for a period connected with the Commissary Department of the Army. Its duties are the furnishing of the various supplies for the troops. Tired of the quiet and tameness of the service, in 1853 he resigned his commission, and retired to private life. That well-known and wealthy citizen of St. Louis, Mr. Lucas, proposed to establish a banking-house in San Francisco, under the name of "Lucas, Turner & Co.," at the head of which was placed Captain Sherman.

We have come to a singular turn in his history. The cadet has been from the Florida swamps to the mountains of the northern border, rising in position, and steadily, honorably pursuing the object immediately before him, till tired of an almost useless existence, as it seems, in the army, he is at length a gentlemanly banker in the principal city of the "golden coast." Days, weeks, months, and years, find him in the comparatively quiet round of business affairs. He is at home in the material condition and politics of the country; for he is familiar always with the current events of the times. The faithful boy at errands, is the trusty soldier and banker also. No stain rests on the record of his success in life.

Takes charge of a Military Academy in Alexandria, Louisiana--He sees the rising storm of Civil War--Resigns--A noble Letter--He repairs to St. Louis, and superintends a Street Railroad.

CAPTAIN SHERMAN, of the house of Lucas, Turner & Co., was not unsuccessful in the banking-office; but it was not suited to his culture and taste, and he was without large capital. It is not strange, therefore, that when, in 1860, he was offered the presidency of the Louisiana State Military Academy at Alexandria, on a salary of five thousand dollars per annum, he should accept the honorable position.

You know that, besides the national institution for discipline in the art of war, there are smaller schools of a similar character in several of the States, besides private enterprises of great merit. The Academy at Alexandria was organized in 1860, and, intended to accommodate two hundred cadets. Whether the State had reference to the possibility of a collision with the Government in this preparatory work we do not know, but are sure that the chief officer had no thought of serving the cause of revolt in taking its management. The town is situated on the Red River, nearly in the centre of the State, three hundred and fifty miles from New Orleans, which lies southeast of it, and down the Mississippi.

Louisiana is a great cotton-growing State, and Alexandria is in one of the richest portions of the wide plains skirting the stream which poured its flood into the magnificent tide of the "Father of Waters." It is beautifully situated in the midst of cotton plantations, which, like snow-fields in summer, spread away in every direction from the village. Here the professor was directing his genius and attainments to carry out the wishes of the founders of the school, when the first ominous sounds of rebellion followed the election of Abraham Lincoln.

Thus decided in his convictions and loyalty, he did not wait for the thunder of cannon around Fort Sumter. He wrote the following manly, strong, and patriotic letter, which tells its own glorious story:

"And furthermore, as President of the Board of Supervisors, I beg you to take immediate steps to relieve me as superintendent the moment the State determines to secede; for on no earthly account will I do any act, or think any thought, hostile to or in defiance of the old Government of the United States.

"With great respect, &c., " W. T. SHERMAN."

What a scorching rebuke is that in the first paragraph! How sublimely loyal the sentiments of the last!

The resignation was accepted. The professor turned his back upon his cadets and upon Louisiana, till he shall return under the torn and blackened flag of conquest. Repairing to St. Louis, he had no employment for his brain or hands. But he was ready for any honest work. Mr. Lucas, one of the millionaires of the city, offered him the office of superintendent of a street railroad, on a salary of two thousand dollars a year. He at once entered upon its duties, without a regret that he had abandoned the halls of military science and a larger reward for his labor.

Sumter falls--Sherman repairs to Washington--His Interview with the Secretary of War and the President--His Prophetic Insight of the Threatening Times--The state of the Country--Rebel Expectations.

THE traitorous Secretary of War, John B. Floyd, had not lost sight of the probable uprising of the South at no distant period, for a moment, during all of his official career. Every fort on her soil was made an easy prey to her rebellious hand by reducing their garrisons.

The magnificent Fortress Monroe, on which the United States had expended nearly two and a half millions, could muster only eight companies of artillery. The forts, Moultrie, Pinckney, and Sumter, of Charleston harbor, had only eighty men, who were in Fort Moultrie.

And yet, had you been in the Halls of Congress when Mr. Clarke, of New Hampshire, offered a resolution of inquiry into the condition of those defences, you would have heard a storm of apparently virtuous indignation from Jefferson Davis and his fellow-conspirators, as if the intimation of treachery were an insult to Southern chivalry.

A week later General Anderson and his band, loyal to the national banner, having become assured that their capture with Fort Moultrie was designed, after destroying its equipment as far as possible, stole at dead of night from its walls and floated over the waters to silent Sumter, whose massive battlements promised a safer refuge from the passions of infatuated men. The rebels immediately seized Forts Moultrie and Pinckney; and ten days later the Star of the West, an unarmed steamer conveying a re?nforcement of two hundred and fifty soldiers and supplies for the destitute garrison, was fired upon from newly-erected earthworks.

The spring came with flowers and birds, but the angry storm of rebellion beat around Sumter with increasing fury. Iron-clad batteries had risen on every hand to cut off the approach of our ships, and grim ordnance now pointed toward the old fortress.

April 12th a messenger approached it with a very brief message to Major Anderson; it was, "Surrender!" The reply was nearly as short: "His sense of honor and his obligations to the Government would prevent compliance."

A few hours after, and "boom! boom!" was the sound, followed with shot and shell, against Sumter's walls, which opened a bloody civil war. In the iron hail the fort was scarred, and its ground covered with exploding shells. At length the band, one-third the number of the famous warriors at Thermopylae, against ten thousand, saw the hopelessness of resistance, and made honorable terms to themselves, of surrender. Every telegraphic wire in the land, North and South, trembled to the tidings of the battle hour.

Our railroad superintendent at St. Louis thought that all observant people must see that a terrible conflict had begun, and like Grant in Galena, left his office to offer his services to the Government, and his life, if that should be the sacrifice, included in their acceptance. He hastened to the nation's capital. Soon after reaching Washington he called on Secretary Cameron.

"Mr. Secretary, civil war is imminent, and we are unprepared for it. I have come to offer my services to the country in the struggle before us."

"I think," replies Mr. Cameron, "the ebullition of feeling will soon subside, we shall not need many troops."

Indeed the Secretary was quite surprised, if not annoyed, at the earnestness of Captain Sherman. He next sought an interview with the President, and made a similar statement and offer to him. The good President was inclined to take the whole thing as a joke. After listening to the serious enthusiasm expressed in the strong appeal, he replied, pleasantly: "We shall not need many more like you; the whole affair will soon blow over."

He left the Chief Magistrate of a republic whose very existence he knew was assailed, with a shadow of disappointment on his brave, loyal spirit--not for himself, but for the cause near his heart. Friends then advised him to go to Ohio and superintend the organization of three months' men there. He declared "it would be as wise to undertake to extinguish the flames of a burning building with a squirt gun, as to put down the rebellion with three months' troops."

To talk of any thing less than a gigantic war was to him absurd. But he was then nearly alone in his just estimate of the struggle.

The Conflict Deepens--The Captain is made Colonel of the Thirteenth New York Volunteers--The Battle of Bull Run--The unterrified Commander of the Thirteenth and his Troops--The Brave Stand.

INSTEAD of "blowing over," the storm of rebellion grew darker, and extended toward every point of the horizon. The appointment of Captain Sherman to an important command was discussed and urged by those who knew him. And what do you think he said? You recollect our Lieutenant-General, when he asked the privilege of serving his country, declined a generalship because too modest to aspire to its honors. The lamented Major-General Mitchel desired any place, however humble, where he might defend the Stars and Stripes. And said the gallant Sherman: "I do not wish a prominent place; this is to be a long and bloody war."

General McDowell, who was then one of our most popular commanders, seems to have had a just appreciation of Sherman. He wanted his services; and on the 13th of June, 1861, offered him the colonelcy of the Thirteenth Infantry in the regular army, the command dating May 14th of that year.

A month of preparation for the field passed, and the first great meeting of the opposing armies summoned him to the war-path. July 16th, General McDowell, with thirty-two thousand five hundred men, moved in four divisions upon Manassas, through which lay the route to Richmond, the capital of Virginia and of the Confederacy. From Arlington Heights, Long Bridge, and Alexandria, the troops marched proudly forward, anticipating an early victory.

Never before, my young reader, did a large army go to the plain of carnage with hearts so light and gay--"as if on a pic-nic excursion." It was a splendid, and to most of the troops a novel spectacle, that march upon the "sacred soil" of the "Old Dominion," to the animating notes of "The Star Spangled Banner" and other national airs. July 21st, the Sabbath day, the signals of battle were seen in our lines, regardless of the hallowed time, and confident of an almost bloodless conquest.

Colonel Bowman, one of General Sherman's officers since, and a faithful friend, has given a clear and unvarnished story of his part in the affray:

"The enemy had planted a battery on Warrenton turnpike, to command the passage of Bull Run, and seized the stone bridge which crossed it, erecting a heavy abatis to prevent our advance in that direction. The object of the battle was to force this position, with a view to subsequent operations beyond. The army engaged was commanded by Brigadier-General McDowell. The fourth division was left in the rear. The first, second, third, and fifth were commanded respectively by Brigadier-General Tyler, and Colonels Hunter, Heintzelman, and Miles. In the plan of battle, Miles was to be in reserve on the Centreville Ridge; Tyler was to advance directly in front of Stone Bridge, on the Warrenton road, and cannonade the enemy's batteries; Hunter and Heintzelman were to move to the right and cross the run above, and get to the enemy's rear. Colonel Sherman commanded the third brigade in Tyler's division, consisting of troops since renowned for gallantry--Captain Ayres' Regular Battery, the Thirteenth, Sixty-ninth, and Seventy-ninth New York, and Second Wisconsin infantry.

"One fact in the battle has hitherto escaped comment. The orders of Tyler's division were to cross Bull Run, when possible, and join Hunter on the right. This was done, Sherman leading off, with the Sixty-ninth New York in advance, and encountering a party of the enemy retreating along a cluster of pines. Lieutenant-Colonel Haggerty, of the Sixty-ninth, without orders, rode over to intercept their retreat, and was shot dead by the enemy. Furious at his loss, the Sixty-ninth sprang forward and opened fire, which was returned. 'But,' says Sherman, 'determined to effect our junction with Hunter's division, I ordered the fire to cease, and we proceeded with caution toward the field, where we then plainly saw our forces engaged.' Turning to Colonel Burnside's official report, we shall find that he was at this time overwhelmingly pressed by the enemy. It was a critical juncture. At length Major Sykes's battalion of regulars came up, and staggered the enemy, and at the same moment Sherman came marching over the hill. 'It was Sherman's brigade,' says Burnside, 'that arrived at about twelve and a half o'clock, and by a most deadly fire assisted in breaking the enemy's lines.' So much for soldierly promptness and strict obedience to orders. From the vigor with which Sherman fought his brigade, the loss in his four regiments was one hundred and five killed, two hundred and two wounded, two hundred and ninety-three wounded or missing, with six killed and three wounded in the battery, making a total of six hundred and nine, the whole division losing eight hundred and fifty-nine. The loss of the army, excluding prisoners and stragglers, was computed thus: killed, four hundred and seventy-nine; wounded, eleven hundred and eleven; total killed and wounded, fifteen hundred and ninety. When the conduct of Sherman had become known, the Ohio delegation in Congress unanimously urged his immediate promotion. This was easily effected, and on the 3d of August, 1861, he was confirmed a brigadier-general of volunteers."

Colonel Sherman's brigade was the only one which retired from the field in order, making a stand at the bridge on the track to Washington, to dispute bravely "the right of way," should the enemy pursue our panic-stricken forces toward the capital.

General Sherman goes to Kentucky--Muldraugh's Hill--His army weakened--General Buckner's superior force--Succeeds General Anderson--Writes General McClellan--Interview with Secretary Cameron--Paducah.

AWAY on the borders of Kentucky the tramp of war was heard. The hero of Sumter, General Anderson, was in command of the department. With the advent of autumn, the Union Home Guards of Kentucky, with other troops, had gathered to the banks of the Rolling Fork of Salt River--a branch two hundred feet wide and only three feet deep. Two miles from the road crossing lie the Muldraugh's Hills, rising in romantic outline. Half way upon the ascent runs the railroad, whose bridge is trestle-work ninety feet high; it then enters Tunnel Hill, emerging into an open plain.

General Buckner, the rebel commander, was at Bowling Green, looking toward Louisville, where he boasted he would spend the winter. General Sherman was sent to join General Anderson, the second in command, and moved his force to Muldraugh's Hills. Buckner had burned the bridge; the Home Guards were withdrawn; and the enemy's troops numbered twenty-five thousand. To retire to Elizabethtown with the five thousand Union soldiers was the best that General Sherman could do.

At this crisis General Anderson resigned his command on account of ill health, and the mantle of authority fell on General Sherman; no very desirable honor at that time, for "most of the fighting young men of Kentucky had gone to join the rebels. The non-combatants were divided in sentiment, and most of them far from friendly. He lacked men, and most of those he had were poorly armed. He lacked, also, means of transportation and munitions of war; and if the rebel generals had known his actual condition, they could have captured or driven his forces across the Ohio in less than ten days. He applied earnestly and persistently for re?nforcements, and, at the same time, took every possible precaution to conceal his weakness from the enemy, as well as from the loyal public. At that time newspaper reporters were not always discreet, and often obtained and published the very facts that should have been concealed. He issued a stringent order excluding all reporters and correspondents from his lines. This brought down upon him the indignation of the press. More unfortunately still, he failed to impress the Secretary of War with the necessities of his position and the importance of holding it. On the 3d of November he telegraphed to General McClellan the condition of affairs, with the number of his several forces, showing them to be everywhere, except at one single point, outnumbered, and concluded his despatch with the emphatic remark, 'Our forces are too small to do good, and too large to be sacrificed.'

"It has been said of the Spaniards, 'that they generally managed to have an army when they had no general, and a general when they had no army;' and during the first years of the war we surpassed in folly their example. It was vainly expected the rebellion could effectually be put down without either a general or an army, by a mere flourish of trumpets--as if the foundations of the Confederacy, like the walls of Jericho, would yield and fall at the blowing of a ram's horn. Subsequent events have sufficiently vindicated General Sherman's opinion expressed in his reply to the Secretary of War.

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