Savannah taken, the more difficult march northward was determined upon, so as to make a junction with Grant before Richmond, and end the war by one final and tremendous stroke. The "Campaign of the Carolinas," as this northward march was called, was a really greater achievement than the march to the sea, for it was against more formidable natural odds, and was done in midwinter. The distance covered, from Savannah to Goldsboro, in North Carolina, was four hundred and twenty-five miles; five large rivers were crossed, three important cities were captured, and the Stars and Stripes were once more flung to the breeze above the ruins of Fort Sumter. And yet, in fifty days from the start, the army reached Goldsboro, "in superb order," and concluded what Sherman himself designates as "one of the longest and most important marches ever made by an organized army in a civilized country." It was a great achievement, but it was without the novelty, the mystery, and the dramatic qualities of the earlier cross-country campaign, and so it has come to pass that the first has been the most famous, and Sherman's march to the sea has gone into history as one of the romances and glories of the War of the Rebellion.
The campaign of the Carolinas fitly ended, as had the march to the sea, in victory; and the successes at Averysboro and Burtonville culminated on April 26, 1865, in the surrender, near Raleigh, of Johnston, and the last organized army of the Confederacy.
The war was over. Sherman's army marched northward to Washington, where, on May 24, 1865, on the second day of the famous Grand Review, General Sherman and his victorious army marched past the presidential reviewing stand—"sixty-five thousand men," says General Sherman, "in splendid physique, who had just completed a march of nearly two thousand miles in a hostile country." Then came the disbandment; Sherman bade his "boys" good-by in a ringing farewell order; the men departed to their waiting homes, and the splendid "Army of the West" was a thing of the past.
After the conclusion of the war General Sherman was, for four years, stationed at St. Louis, as Commander of the Military Division of the Mississippi. He was a notable public character, with a reputation for bravery that none dare assail, and a record as a soldier that made him one of the nation's heroes. He stood next to Grant in position, merit, and popularity; and when, in 1869, General Grant was elected to the presidency, Sherman, who had been named lieutenant-general in 1866, was promoted to the vacant post as general of the army, with head-quarters at Washington.
He visited Europe in 1871-72 and, both because of his own brilliant record, and his official position as head of the American army, he was everywhere received with honor and distinction. Returning home he wrote his "Memoirs;" they were published in 1875, and stamped him, in the opinion of critics, as "by far the ablest writer among America's military men."
On February 8, 1884, he was placed upon the retired list—"turned out to grass," as he expressed it, "and told I could spend the rest of my days in peace and retirement." As an especial mark of the nation's pride in his record, he was, as the order stated, "placed upon the retired list of the army, without reduction in his current pay and allowances," and the President in the same order publicly put on record the gratitude of the American people "for the services of incalculable value rendered by General Sherman in the War for the Union, which his great military genius and daring did so much to end." It was a fitting tribute to the man who had worn the uniform of his country for forty years, faithful to every trust and equal to every emergency, and who had risen through every grade from a cadetship and a lieutenancy, to the proud eminence of General of the Armies of the United States.
The twenty-six years that were his after the close of the great struggle in which he had been one of the central figures, were filled with a quiet enjoyment of life and a wide personal popularity. Wherever he went he was a living hero, welcomed and honored as such by the people who owed so much to his wise brain and his unsheathed sword. He could have been President of the United States, had he been willing to accept the nomination that was offered him; instead, he declined with peremptory and characteristic bluntness, and he is, it is believed, the only man who ever did refuse that high office.
After his retirement he made his home, first in St. Louis and then in New York, where the last five years of his life were passed, and where he speedily became one of the great city's familiar, honored, and notable figures. Here, too, the final call came to him. On February 14, 1891, when he had just passed his seventy-first birthday, sounded the order "parade is dismissed," and Sherman died in his own home, in West Seventy-first Street, mourned by an entire nation. He was buried in St. Louis by the side of his wife, who had died in 1890.
William Tecumseh Sherman was, in the strictest sense of the word, a soldier. His bearing and presence told of camp and uniform. With a military education and military environments, he could not understand, and could not calmly brook, the cautious conservatism of the civilian, which would often temporize when swift, determined action seemed necessary, and which was often boastful at home, and timorous in the field. Able in action, fierce in assault, unerring in judgment, watchful in detail; with a sagacity and foresight that amounted almost to genius, and a memory that was marvellous, General Sherman was a great military leader, and one who, when the opportunity came, rode straight into fame and reputation. As determined as he was daring, as magnanimous as he was impulsive, as clear-headed as he was energetic, and as gentle-hearted in peace as he was ruthless in war, he was indeed a unique figure in America's history, and, as time goes on, his name will stand as that of one of the great Republic's most famous men and most cherished memories.[Back to Contents]