Why He Was Named Tecumseh—His Adoption by Mr. Ewing—Character in Boyhood—Work as a Surveyor—Appointment to a Cadetship—From Lancaster to West Point—"Old Hickory"—Letters to His Sweetheart—A Youthful Philosopher—Character and Standing as a Cadet.
William Tecumseh Sherman was the sixth of the eleven children of Judge Charles R. Sherman, and John Sherman, the great Senator and national financier, the eighth. It is related that the distinctive family names had been exhausted upon the first five children, and when the sixth was born, perplexity arose as to how he was to be christened. William was presently adopted, but the father was not satisfied with it alone. Another must be chosen, and it must be a warrior's name; for, said the Judge, "likely enough this little chap will be a fighter." Finally Judge Sherman determined to call his baby by the name of Tecumseh, the illustrious Shawnee warrior and statesman, who had been killed in battle some seven years before. This Indian chief was well-known in that part of Ohio, and had often saved the lives of settlers there and averted bloodshed by his wise counsels and peaceful influence, and it was in fact more because of these benign features than on account of his powers in war that Judge Sherman admired him and gave his name to the boy.
Our hero was born at Lancaster, Ohio, on February 8th, 1820, and was consequently nine years old when his father fell a victim to Asiatic cholera. Little is to be recorded of those early years. They were spent in the customary manner of childhood, modified in a measure by the breezy, vigorous life of the sparsely settled frontier community, and cherished tenderly by a fond father and mother. When the catastrophe of death broke the family circle, "Cump" was a merry, active, bright-eyed, red-haired boy, fonder of play than of work or study, but truthful and trustworthy beyond a doubt.
And what now? The members of the bar who had been associated with Judge Sherman saw clearly that the widow could not properly care for all those eleven children, and they felt that it would be a privilege to aid her. The foremost of them, Thomas Ewing, a lawyer and statesman of national reputation, was quick to act. "I will adopt one of the boys," he said; and forthwith he proceeded to the stricken home and laid his offer before Mrs. Sherman. He was a distant relative as well as a warm friend of the family, and Mrs. Sherman, with mingled grief and joy, accepted his proposition. But which boy should he take? "I must have the smartest of the lot," said Mr. Ewing. "Well," replied the mother, "come and look at them and take your pick." So they went out to where the children were at play, but Mr. Ewing was undecided. "They all look alike to me," he said. But the mother and her eldest daughter soon made the choice. "Take 'Cump,' Mr. Ewing," they said; "he's by far the smartest." So Mr. Ewing picked up the nine-years-old urchin from where he was playing on a sand bank, and took him away in his carriage to a new home. "He ever after treated me as his own son," wrote General Sherman of his adopted father in later years; and indeed the boy soon won the hearts of all the Ewings, so that they loved him as much as though he belonged to them by birth instead of by adoption.
For seven years thereafter "Cump" was a member of the Ewing household, and attended the local school at Lancaster. He ranked high in his classes and was generally regarded as a promising boy. "There was nothing specially remarkable about him," Mr. Ewing wrote in later years, "excepting that I never knew so young a boy who could do an errand so correctly and promptly as he did. He was transparently honest, faithful and reliable. Studious and correct in his habits, his progress in education was steady and substantial."
One other thing, however, is to be recorded of these years. Mr. Ewing had a pretty little daughter, named Nellie, who was "Cump's" favorite playmate and upon whom "Cump" untiringly lavished all the chivalric attention of his boyhood. She was his sister by adoption, but even in these early years the boy seemed to hope that one day she would be more than a sister to him. And when he left home, at the age of sixteen, his adieus to her were more tender and more reluctant than to all the others.
One incident of his boyhood life deserves to be recorded. In 1834 he was large and strong for his age, and fond of labor and adventure. Canal construction was then being greatly pushed in Ohio, and it was planned to build one from the great Ohio Canal at Carroll, eight miles from Lancaster, and run down the Hocking Valley to Athens and thence to the Ohio River. A Mr. Carpenter, of Lancaster, had charge of the preliminary surveys, and recruited his force of assistants from among the youth of that town. Young Sherman was delighted at the opportunity for serious work and adventure, and rejoiced when he was chosen together with three other boys from his school. He was appointed a rod-man. They worked during the fall of 1834 and spring of 1835, laying out two experimental lines for the canal, and each boy received half a dollar in silver for each day's work. This was the first money young Sherman ever earned.
Mr. Ewing was now United States Senator, and had within his gift an appointment to a cadetship at West Point. During the fall of 1835 and spring of 1836, Sherman devoted himself chiefly to grammar, geography and mathematics, in which studies he would have to be examined to enter the Military Academy. In the spring of 1836 he received his appointment. Mrs. Ewing provided him with a liberal outfit of clothes, etc., and on May 20th he left Lancaster in a stage coach for Zanesville. There he took passage on a coach on the Great National Road. Three days later he reached Frederick, Maryland, whence there was a steam railroad to Washington. But he was afraid of this strange device, and continued his journey by coach. When he got to Washington he put up for the night at Gadsby's Hotel, and next morning hunted up Senator Ewing. The latter lived in a boarding house, and to that house young Sherman removed at once, for the week which he was to spend at the Capitol. He saw more of Washington in that week than he ever saw in his many subsequent visits. "Old Hickory" Jackson was then President, and at the height of his fame. Sherman spent a full hour gazing at him with boyish awe through the picket fence that surrounded the White House grounds. Jackson was pacing up and down the gravel walks within. "He wore a cap," says Sherman, "and an overcoat so full that his form seemed smaller than I had expected. I also remember Postmaster-General Amos Kendall, Vice President Van Buren, Messrs. Calhoun, Webster, Clay, Cass, Silas Wright," etc.
From Washington he went by rail to Baltimore, thence by boat to Havre de Grace, by rail to Wilmington, Delaware, and by boat to Philadelphia. Thence by boat to Bordentown, New Jersey, by rail over the old Camden and Amboy railroad to Amboy, and by boat to New York. He spent a week with his uncle on Brooklyn Heights, and with another relative on White Street, New York, and then took passage on the steamboat "Cornelius Vanderbilt," up the Hudson, to West Point, where he was duly entered as a cadet. West Point was not as large a school then as now. But the routine of military discipline and instruction was fully established, very much as it has remained ever since. Colonel R. E. De Russy was the Superintendent, and Major John Fowle, Commandant of Cadets. The chief members of the faculty were: Professors Mahan, engineering; Bartlett, natural philosophy; Bailey, chemistry; Church, mathematics; Weir, drawing; and Berard, French. That was in June, 1836. In the summer of 1838 he had a vacation of two months, which he gladly spent with the Ewings. With that exception, he was absent from Lancaster and present at West Point continuously until his graduation in June 1840. His scholastic career was not unlike that in the school at Lancaster. He stood high, but not highest, in his class. There were forty-two men in that class, Sherman ranked sixth. George H. Thomas was twelfth. Other members were R. S. Ewell, Stewart Van Vliet, Bushrod R. Johnson, George W. Getty, William Hays and Thomas Jordan.
By far the most interesting feature of his cadet life was the correspondence he maintained with Miss Ellen Ewing. More characteristic letters were never penned. Years afterward the stern War Secretary, Stanton, perusing his vigorous letters from the front, declared that Sherman wrote as well as he fought. These earlier epistles were a fitting prelude to the more serious writings of after years. They were sprightly and vivacious, touched with humor, often eccentric, sometimes inclining to egotism, but always intensely earnest and decidedly vigorous. He was not as much a lover of "society" then as in his later life, for on one occasion he wrote: "We have two or three dancing parties each week, at which the gray bobtail is a sufficient recommendation for an introduction to any one. You can well conceive how the cadets have always had the reputation, and have still, here in the East, of being great gallants and ladies' men. God only knows how I will sustain that reputation." As he got nearer and nearer to the actual army, he was more and more impressed with the responsibilities that would be placed upon him, and he almost shrank from them. One day in 1839 he wrote of himself: "Bill is very much elated at the idea of getting free of West Point next June. He does not intend remaining in the army more than a year, then to resign and study law, probably. No doubt you admire this choice; but to speak plainly and candidly, I would rather be a blacksmith. Indeed, the nearer we come to that dreadful epoch, graduation day, the higher opinion I conceive of the duties and life of an officer of the United States Army, and the more confirmed in the wish of spending my life in the service of my country. Think of that!"