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The Memoirs of General William T. Sherman is an autobiographical account of portions of William Tecumseh Sherman's life. First published in two volumes by D. Appleton & Company in 1875, Sherman expanded and revised the memoirs for a second edition in 1885. They were best-sellers and are commonly regarded as some of the most famous memoirs on the American Civil War.

Background

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A black-and-white photograph of a man, pictured from above the waist in a military outfit. A signature is written below the photo
Portrait of Sherman in the frontispiece of the second edition of his Memoirs (1886). The engraving is based on a photograph taken ca. 1885 by Napoleon Sarony.[1]

William T. Sherman was...

Writing

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Sherman had collaborated with his friend Samuel M. Bowman on a biography of himself in the 1860s, providing Bowman with documents and reviewing the text. The account was published in 1865 as Sherman and His Campaigns. It was moderately successful, and the two considered publishing a second volume in 1866 or 1867. However, Sherman elected instead to publish his own memoirs.[2]

He began work on them by 1868; a draft manuscript from that year about his life before the Civil War is held in the collection of the Ohio Historical Society. While Kennett writes that Sherman had finished a draft of his memoirs in 1872,[2] Hirshon writes that he had begun them that year upon the urging of George Bancroft,[3] while Cushman writes that he had begun the process "by October 1873." He may have discussed possible publication of the memoirs that month.[4] Fellman writes that Sherman wrote his memoirs while he spent nineteen months in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1874. He had moved there while holding the post of Commanding General of the United States Army as a protest against the corruption he perceived in Washington, D. C..[5]

Sherman was secretive about the memoirs before their publication, receiving encouragement from the historians John Draper (who read the draft) and Bancroft, but otherwise telling few people that he was even writing them. [2] He also sent a copy to George William Childs to ask Childs's opinion on the work's treatment of Grant.[6]

Sherman formally sought a publisher beginning in 1874. After talking to William Conant Church he elected to publish the memoir's final chapter, "Military Lessons of the War", in The Army and Navy Journal to gain a feel on how the book would be received; the trial was a success. After this he signed a contract for broader publication with D. Appleton & Company. Sherman ensured in the contract that he would retain ownership of the plates used in publication in the event he decided to destroy the work.[2] He was paid 40 cents for every set of the memoirs that sold.[3]

Publication

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The Memoirs of General William T. Sherman were published in two volumes in early May 1875, when Sherman was fifty-five years old.[7][3] Appleton heavily promoted the release. Excerpts were published in newspapers across the nation.[8] Kennett describes this as "the major publishing event" of the season.[2] They were quick best-sellers;[8] 10,000 copies were purchased at a price of $7 within three weeks of the book's release[3][9] and around 25,000 copies eventually sold.[9]

A second edition with an introduction, appendix, revisions and two additional chapters (one at the beginning and one at the end) was published in 1885.[10][11][12] Among the revisions included the removal of two criticisms of Hooker.[11] Charles L. Webster and Company published a third edition in 1890. Two editions of the memoirs were published in 1891 after Sherman's death, one by Appleton and the other by Webster and Company. Both publisher's added accounts of Sherman's death and funeral; Appleton's was by Willis Fletcher Johnson and reviewed by Oliver Otis Howard while Webster's had a preface by members of Sherman's family and reviewed by James G. Blaine. Blaine contributed some content of the preface as well.[13] Webster's was published at the initiative of Sherman's children to raise money. Though it was cheaper than the original edition, the re-issue was unsuccessful.[14][15]

Content

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The memoirs initially followed Sherman's life from 1846 onwards and began with Sherman stationed in Fort Moultrie, South Carolina in Company G of the Third Artillery of the United States Army. After retiring from the Army, Sherman wrote another chapter, adding two brief stories about his youth, which was included in the second edition of the memoirs along with a chapter about his post-war life.[7][10]

While the memoirs broadly focus on Sherman's experiences in the Civil War, they have uneven coverage;[16][17] for instance the book includes more than one hundred pages on Sherman's time in California, but only thirty on his time in between then and the outbreak of the Civil War.[17] It includes six pages on the relatively minor battle around taking the Arkansas Post, less than is dedicated to the First Battle of Bull Run.[18] Kennett consider's Sherman's telling of the Great March to be Sherman's most detailed account of the March published, but still only "entertaining and informative" and remaining "far from the whole story."[19] Sherman spends much of his book responding to criticisms of his conduct and describing his proudest accomplishments, ranging from the capture of Vicksburg, to capturing Atlanta and the the March to the Sea. He responded to allegations of insanity that had been first published in 1861 in the Cincinnati Commercial.[16]

Reception and assessment

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Early reviews of the book were broadly very positive, with few errors pointed out. Almost all American newspapers had reviewed it by May 1875, and reviews in periodicals were published throughout the summer. In 2001 Kennett wrote that this opinion remained unchanged, noting that it was held up as one of "a handful of classic works on the war".[17] Along with the Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant the memoirs are generally considered the Civil War's best memoirs.[8]

Castel writes that "it would be difficult to exaggerate the influence of" Sherman's memoirs on "both popular and professional conceptions of the Civil War," noting both Sherman's engaging, quotable prose and information he includes that is not found elsewhere. They have been widely read and a number of historians have drawn on them in works about the Civil War.[20]

Early reception

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A review of the book published in the St. Louis Globe Democrat mocked Sherman's emphasis on his own deeds, writing that they were "almost convinced that the suppression of the rebellion was the product of one man's supernatural genius in overcoming the blunders of everyone else." After the book's publication it was attacked in a series of articles by the journalist Henry V. Boynton,[21] who had also served as a general in the Civil War, who wrote that the memoirs tried to "claim the merit which belongs to others, and steps still beyond and attempts to belittle the deeds of men in no respect his inferior as generals." Boynton concluded that the book was "the gigantic wrong as the false historian." In the review he also cited government archives to advance his arguments that Sherman had poor character. Boynton had been given access to the archives by Grant's aide Orville E. Babcock.[22]

Sherman, greatly angered at the attack, argued that Babcock andWilliam W. Belknap, the United States Secretary of War under Grant, had hired Boynton to write the work.[23] He took this as cause to be angry at Grant, and the move "alienated" the two, according to Fellman. Grant himself had approved of Sherman's memoirs.[22] Boynton compiled his articles into a book, Sherman's Historical Raid: The Memoirs in Light of the Record. Kennett notes that, while much of the evidence Boynton presented was supported by the documents he drew on, it was intended to present Sherman in the worst way possible, as opposed to Sherman's memoirs which presented him in the best light: "somewhere between these poles one must look for the truth."[24]

A defense of the memoirs was also published by Sherman's friend Samuel Bowman who wrote that "no truer memoirs have ever been written since the New Testament", and considerations were made about publishing a second edition that would respond to Boynton's allegations.[25] Instead, Sherman convinced his brother-in-law Charles W. Moulton, a journalist and lawyer, to write a response. Working closely together, the two developed a response that largely attacked Boynton and defended Sherman's Memoirs.[26]

The British historian B. H. Liddell Hart concluded in his biography of Sherman that the memoirs were broadly accurate and unbiased with only "occasional careless slips".[23]

Characterization of other generals

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Early disputes over the book largely concerned Sherman's descriptions of other generals, including Francis Preston Blair Jr. and John A. Logan, men he deemed "political generals", John Alexander McClernand, characterized as an "amateur", and William Sooy Smith and George W. Morgan, who had served under Sherman's command. Smith criticized his depiction in a letter to Sherman; Sherman was not moved, writing back: "[y]ou seem to think that I should have not written my memoirs, but yours." Morgan publicly spoke against Sherman's writing. Some, such as Thomas Worthington, also criticized Sherman's depiction of the course of events at the Battle of Shiloh, arguing that he had, in fact, been surprised by the Confederate attack— Sherman denied this in his memoirs.[21]

One of the few generals to not be criticized in the book was Johnston. Indeed, Sherman often praised his skill and early in his Memoirs establishes Johnston as his "special antagonist". Cushman writes that this was likely to present Johnston as the foremost Confederate commander to emphasize Sherman's surrender negotiations.[27] Cushman argues that Sherman clearly wrote the second volume of his Memoirs and went back to revise the first using Johnston's Narrative.[4]

Another controversy over the book emerged over Sherman's description of his March to the Sea. He had presented it as entirely his idea, spending a whole chapter to advancing the argument. He also suggested that the march was the Confederacy's "death blow".[28]

Modern reception

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The historian Michael Fellman, in his 1995 biography of Sherman writes that it is interesting that Sherman initially chose to begin his memoirs so late in his life, as he was generally very "self-revelatory". When he added the chapter about his childhood, it was the first time he had written about those years.[7] Fellman notes that Sherman wrote the work from a point of self-interest, telling stories that he had "cleaned up" before describing and others that were "retrospectively self-justifying" and "self-serving and untrustworthy".[29] Fellman did consider Sherman's descriptions of his and Grant's opinions on George Henry Thomas "quite accurate and full".[30]

Historian Stanley Hirshon wrote that they offered a number of descriptions and observations on the Civil War that "remain unmatched in Civil War literature." He also noted that "few figures... emerged from the two volumes untarnished" with the exception of Sherman and John Johnston.[3] Moody concludes that "Although there is a great deal of defensiveness and self-aggrandizement in Sherman's memoirs, he appeared honest, and many of his shortcomings come to light in his writings." He notes that Sherman admits to failures in business, and receiving substantial aid from his relatives in his career. However, he later writes that Sherman, in his memoirs, was "not above rewriting the battle plans of others in order to share credit for the victory."[31]

Innacuracies

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In 1994 Castel reviewed Sherman's depiction of the Atlanta campaign and found a number of flaws and errors. These include a number of minor errors of fact, which he attributed to Sherman's over-reliance on memory. Castel also found a number of larger errors, concluding that "this description is filled with exaggerations and dubious assertions, omissions, and distortions of facts and with deliberate and sometimes malicious prevarications, fabrications, and falsifications". He went on to write that other parts of the memoir such as his accounts of Shiloh, Chickasaw Bayou, and Missionary Ridge seemed to have similar flaws, concluding that the memoirs only held value as a historical source when used "cautiously and critically".[32]

Another of Sherman's biographer's, Lee Kennett, described Sherman's memoirs as featuring "deft 'retouching' of the past."[33] Kennett describes the prose as "vigorous and engaging" and the content as well suited to draw reader interest. He writes that Sherman knew what the American people wanted to read and wrote as such, devoting lengthy descriptions to the battles of the Civil War. However, he also took the opportunity to put in "strategic and logistical threads" that to Kennett make the Memoirs a "richer, more textured narrative." Historian Russell Weigley considered the memoirs "almost unique" among similar efforts because of the thought Sherman had put into the "future of war."[17]

Historian Albert Castel notes that a passage relating to the day after the Battle of Kolb's Farm is largely inaccurate, stating that the passage casts doubts on Sherman's veracity. While Castel notes that some of the problems can be attributed to memory lapses in the decade between Kolb's Farm and the publishing of the memoirs, much of the inaccuracies is likely due to "the produce of [Sherman's] intense personal animosity to [Joseph] Hooker".[34] Likewise, historian Ed Bearss notes that Sherman's description of the Battle of Snyder's Bluff greatly overestimates the effect of an operation conducted by Sherman.[35]

Hirshon 223?,170, 173, 176, 178 Hirshon 355-8 Moody 48, 54-56, 59, 61-74

References

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  1. ^ "William T. Sherman". National Portrait Gallery Collection. Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved January 7, 2022.
  2. ^ a b c d e Kennett 2001, p. 317.
  3. ^ a b c d e Hirshon 1997, p. 355.
  4. ^ a b Cushman 2021, p. 21.
  5. ^ Fellman 1995, pp. 277, 286–287.
  6. ^ Kennett 2001, p. 318.
  7. ^ a b c Fellman 1995, pp. 3–5.
  8. ^ a b c Moody 2011, p. 44.
  9. ^ a b McDonough 2016, p. 709.
  10. ^ a b Kennett 2001, p. 321.
  11. ^ a b Hirshon 1997, pp. 381–382.
  12. ^ Cushman 2014, p. 70.
  13. ^ Cushman 2021, p. 188.
  14. ^ Hirshon 1997, pp. 388.
  15. ^ Cushman 2021, p. 160.
  16. ^ a b Moody 2011, pp. 44–45.
  17. ^ a b c d Kennett 2001, pp. 317–318.
  18. ^ Kennett 2001, p. 196.
  19. ^ Kennett 2001, p. 266.
  20. ^ Castel 1994, p. 48.
  21. ^ a b Kennett 2001, pp. 318–319.
  22. ^ a b Fellman 1995, p. 325.
  23. ^ a b Castel 1994, pp. 48–49.
  24. ^ Kennett 2001, p. 320.
  25. ^ Kennett 2001, pp. 320–321.
  26. ^ Fellman 1995, pp. 326–328.
  27. ^ Cushman 2021, pp. 22–24.
  28. ^ Moody 2011, pp. 52–45.
  29. ^ Fellman 1995, pp. 85, 91, 93, 241.
  30. ^ Fellman 1995, pp. 327.
  31. ^ Moody 2011, pp. 44–45, 49.
  32. ^ Castel 1994, pp. 50–51, 70–71.
  33. ^ Kennett 2001, p. 102.
  34. ^ Castel 1992, pp. 298–299.
  35. ^ Bearss 1991, p. 267.

Bibliography

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patriotic Gore

https://books.google.com/books?id=AhiZCgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22Memoirs+of+General+William+T.+Sherman%22&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiF4Zeg_av6AhWApokEHRTZCbQQ6AF6BAgHEAI#v=onepage&q=%22Memoirs%20of%20General%20William%20T.%20Sherman%22&f=false

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