Life of Wm. Tecumseh Sherman. / Late Retired General. U. S. A.

by Willis Fletcher Johnson

One evening, it is related, General Sherman went into a club of which he was an honorary member. At that time a hot Presidential campaign was going on and the subject most warmly discussed at the club that evening was politics. When the General entered the room there was a spontaneous cry for his opinion. General Sherman was not a politician, and he said that he would rather not say anything about the campaign. But he told a story, and it was a good story—a military tale which described a driving charge in the face of shot and shell. This story was about the battle of Resaca, and when it was ended a young man went up to General Sherman and asked him what the battle of Resaca was. For a moment General Sherman was taken back. "Resaca," he said, "don't you know about Resaca?" Then, while every one was waiting to shake hands with him or to get a word with him, he stood in one corner with the young man and spent fifteen minutes in telling him all about Resaca. Meanwhile his many friends stood about waiting for him to end his conversation with the young man, to whom the General had never before spoken.

Sherman once remarked, in conversation with a friend, that a woman had asked him how he felt when he got ready to make his great march to the sea. The General had a wonderful smile, which spoke volumes. He looked afar off, and then turning quickly said: "When she asked me what I thought, I said to her that I thought of the sea."

Colonel L. M. Dayton, who served on Sherman's staff during the war, said that what struck him most in the General's character was his versatility. "I cannot help believing," he said, "that as a general he was greater than any other the war produced. He planned a campaign to its uttermost limit before he began active operations. For instance, in the Vicksburg campaign, while General Grant might not have figured out his movements beyond the actual capture of that city itself, General Sherman in his place would have outlined clearly what he would do with his men after the siege and what disposition he would make of the baggage and siege guns.

"When we started out from Atlanta on the march to the sea nobody knew what our objective point on the Atlantic coast was except a few members of the staff and the authorities at Washington. Everybody else simply knew that we were going to march across Georgia to the coast. When General Sherman reached Savannah, which of course was all along known to the authorities as our objective point, he was greatly surprised to find that a gunboat had been despatched down the coast to meet him there. The captain of this gunboat had succeeded in ascending Ossabaw Sound and the Ogeechee River, which lies just back of Savannah, and made instant communication with the General. An important official document which had been brought down in this way was handed to General Sherman in my presence. When he received it he got excited and seemed vexed about something. I noticed his color rising and a look of irritation in his eye as well as the nervous motion of the left arm which characterized him when anything annoyed him. It seemed, for instance, as if he was pushing something away from him.

"'Come here, Dayton,' said he, and we went into the inner room of the building where he made his headquarters. As soon as we got inside he began to swear, and I could see that he was greatly opposed to the suggestions that had apparently been contained in the document. 'I won't do it,' he would say to himself several times over; 'I won't do anything of the kind.'

"The document was an official order from Secretary Stanton, approved by General Grant, for General Sherman to wait with his army at Savannah for transports which had been sent down the coast to convey them by sea to the mouth of the James, and then to ascend that river to co-operate with Grant. General Sherman had all along intended to march his army up the coast, across country, and he sat down at once and wrote a letter to General Grant explaining to him why he was opposed to taking a sea voyage with his men; how he thought such an experience would demoralize them with sea-sickness, confinement in close quarters and lack of exercise, and how he had decided to take all the responsibility and march them up by land, in accordance with his original plans. He said he would be at Goldsboro, N. C., on the 21st day of March, 1865, and that if any other orders were sent to him there they would reach him promptly. So closely did he calculate that on the 23d of March he was in possession of Goldsboro.

"As Sherman had at that time practically an army of a hundred thousand men, which could easily annihilate any opposition he might meet with on his march, the wisdom of his course was at once apparent to the authorities, and no attempt was made to interfere with his execution of his plans. As a matter of fact he did encounter Joe Johnston on the way up the coast and defeated him at Bentonville. That, I believe, was his last battle. No other general would have dared to do what Sherman did in this instance. The boldness of his military genius and his keen insight into the future were admirably illustrated by it."

General Rosecrans, who has already been quoted, had many reminiscences of Sherman, beginning with his cadet days at West Point, which school he entered two years later than Sherman. To Mr. Frank G. Carpenter, the well known writer, General Rosecrans said:

"Sherman was two classes above me, but he was one of the most popular and brightest fellows in the academy. I remember him as a bright-eyed, red-headed fellow who was always prepared for a lark of any kind, and who usually had grease spots on his pants. These spots came from our clandestine midnight feasts, at which Sherman usually made the hash. He was considered the best hash maker at West Point, and this in our day was a great honor. The food given the cadets then was furnished by contract. It was cheap and poor, and I sometimes think that the only meals we relished were our midnight hash lunches. We prepared for them by slipping boiled potatoes into our handkerchiefs when at the table and hiding these away inside our vests. One of us would steal a lump of butter during a meal, and by poking it into a glove we could fasten it by means of a fork driven into the under part of the table and keep it there until we got ready to leave. In addition to this we would steal a little bit of bread, and some of the boys had in some way or another got hold of stew-pans. After the materials were gotten, one of the boys who had a retired room where there was least danger of discovery would whisper invitations to the rest to meet him that night for a hash feast. When we got there Sherman would mash the potatoes and mix them with pepper, salt and butter in such a way as to make a most appetizing dish. This he would cook in the stew-pan over the fire. We had grates in those days, and when it was done we would eat it sizzling hot on our bread, which we had toasted. As we did so we would tell stories and have a jolly good time, and Sherman was one of the best story-tellers of the lot. He was by no means a goody-goody boy, and he was one of those fellows who used to go down to Benny Haven's of a dark night, at the risk of expulsion, to eat oysters and drink beer.

"Not long ago, while General of the army, he went to West Point, and, in company with the commandant of cadets, made an inspection tour of the barracks. He was'nt looking for contraband goods, but he got to talking about our old school days at West Point, and he said: 'When I was a cadet one of the considerations was as to what we were to do with our cooking utensils and other things during our summer vacations, and we used to hide our things in the chimney during the summer months. I wonder if the boys do so still.' This visit was made during the month of June, and when Sherman said this he was in one of the cadet's rooms. As he spoke he went to the fire-place and stuck his cane up the chimney. As he did so a frying pan, an empty bottle, a suit of citizen's clothes and a board which had been stretched across the chimney came flying down, and the cadets who occupied the room were thunder-struck. General Sherman laughed, and telling the commandant not to report the young men, he went to another room.