The grandfather, Taylor Sherman, was a judge in Norwalk, Conn., and one of the commissioners appointed by the State to go to Huron and Erie Counties, Ohio, to settle some land matters with regard to the Indians. He received two sections of land for his services.
His wife, Betsey, was a woman, says E. V. Smalley, in the Century for January, 1884, "of uncommon strength of character, who was always called on to give advice in times of trouble to her whole circle of relatives and descendants—a strong-willed, intelligent, managing woman.... To Grandmother Betsey might be attributed the talent of the later members of the family."
Her son Charles, admitted to the bar at twenty, married Mary Hoyt, and soon went to Lancaster, Ohio. He returned in a year, and took his young wife and baby over six hundred miles on horseback to the new home in the West, where ten other children were born, the eleven comprising six boys and five girls.
WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN.
The third son, William, was named Tecumseh after the famous Indian chief, who died at the battle of Tippecanoe. When the child was four years old, the father was appointed a judge of the supreme court of Ohio, but died suddenly in Lebanon while on the bench, after he had held the position for five years.
Mrs. Sherman found her home full of children, with an annual income of only two hundred and fifty dollars with which to support them. Her husband had been loved for his genial nature and his generous heart, so that friends were not wanting to help the young mother bear her burdens.
John, the now well-known senator, was sent to an uncle in Mount Vernon, another to a friend in Cincinnati, and Tecumseh to the home of the Hon. Thomas Ewing, a prominent United States Senator from Ohio.
The lad of nine attended the village schools till he was sixteen, when, through the influence of Mr. Ewing, he entered the Military Academy at West Point. He had no love for warlike pursuits, but looked forward to becoming a civil engineer in the far West.
He had all along cared for history, travel, and fiction, but never especially for battles. He enjoyed out-door sports, and long rambles with rod and gun. He studied well while at West Point, standing high in drawing, chemistry, mathematics, and philosophy, reaching the sixth place in a class of forty-three at his graduation in 1840.