Memoirs of General W.T. Sherman (Library of America) (Hardcover)

by William Tecumseh Sherman (Author), Charles Royster (Editor) "ACCORDING TO Cothren, in his "History of Ancient Woodbury, Connecticut," the Sherman family came from Dedham, Essex County, England..." (more)
Key Phrases: rebel parapet, military division, third brigade, General Grant, United States, General Sherman (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Hailed as a prophet of modern war and condemned as a harbinger of modern barbarism, Sherman is the most controversial general of the Civil War. "War is cruelty, you cannot refine it," he wrote in fury to the Confederate mayor of Atlanta, and his memoir is filled with dozens of such wartime exchanges and a fascinating, eerie account of the famous march through the Carolinas.

From the Publisher
The Library of America is an award-winning, nonprofit program dedicated to publishing America's best and most significant writing in handsome, enduring volumes, featuring authoritative texts. Hailed as "the most important book-publishing project in the nation's history" (Newsweek), this acclaimed series is restoring America's literary heritage in "the finest-looking, longest-lasting edition ever made" (New Republic).

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 1136 pages
• Publisher: Library of America (October 1, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0940450658
• ISBN-13: 978-0940450653
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.2 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #138,399 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

57 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A General's Memoirs, August 18, 2000

By	Michael J. Connor (Waltham, MA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I am reviewing the Library of America edition of Sherman's Memoirs

In 1875 General William Sherman published the first edition of his Memoirs. They were controversial. Eleven years later Sherman published his second edition, with two new chapters, and appendixes. To be sure the memoirs remained controversial. Even today there seems to be no middle ground. He is either a great general, or an overrated one. He is either "hailed as a prophet of modern war or condemned as a modern barbarism." There have been full scale biographies and books about his campaigns, but none are as rewarding as these memoirs.

The chapters which interested me the most were the ones where Sherman is most emotionally involved. In Chapter 7 Sherman writes of his time at the Louisiana State Seminary of Learning and Military Academy. Sherman gives a "Clay Whig" description of that state's secession, and how hard he took it. Another chapter which I found thrilling is Chapter 19. On page 601 Sherman quotes a letter he wrote to Atlanta's Mayor James Calhoun and others: "You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and all those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out."

I recommend the Library of America edition of Sherman's Memoirs because it reprints the second edition. Make sure you buy a reprint of the second edition because the it includes information that was not included in the first edition.

41 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the most interesting characters of the Civil War, September 16, 2003

By	bixodoido (Utah, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

After the Civil War, there were many public misunderstandings and misrepresentations about General William T. Sherman. Secretary of War Stanton had caused to be published certain opinions of his that Sherman had messed things up, and many supporters of General Grant gave him all the credit for Sherman's famous march to the sea and Atlanta campaign (which was entirely Sherman's idea). Partly to dispel popular misconceptions about him, and partly to provide future historians with a great primary resource (which intention he states in the opening pages of this work), General Sherman decided to undertake the writing of his memoirs, and this is the result.

The historical value of these memoirs is enormous. Sherman contributed a great deal to the war, and was partially responsible for the war ending when it did. He conducted one of the most brilliant military campaigns in modern history (actually, they were three campaigns--Atlanta, Savannah, and the Carolinas) and accomplished what many considered to be the impossible. His policy of total war, applied in the South, was utilized by Sheridan in the Shenandoah, and was later slightly modified to be used against the Indians. Thanks to his memoirs, we have a step-by-step account of how this policy developed.

Sherman's work is engaging and very to the point. He is meticulous almost to a fault in his quest for accuracy and detail. His writing is very, very good, and easy to read. Also, Sherman truly (I believe) endeavored to be completely objective in his evaluations, and accomplished this end better even than most modern historians. He is quick to give praise and slow to censure, but is not afraid to record the failures of his subordinates when necessary. He sometimes points out things they could have done better, but is never overly critical of them. He even admits that he made mistakes sometimes. In fact, I believe this is one of the most objective and fair autobiographies I have ever read. Sherman had much reason to dislike many people, but never, in reading this work, did I find a single instance of him trying to debunk the character of any man. Even Stanton, the man who falsely represented Sherman's actions, receives fair treatment at the general's hands.

William T. Sherman is a very colorful figure in Civil War history. He may well be one of the most complex and intriguing individuals of the war. To some, he is a barbarian; to others, a deliverer. He is immensely quotable, and was very opinionated and outspoken. If you're contemplating studying the Civil War, do not be put off by this book's length. Far from being a dry account of a man's recollections, this is a very engaging and very worthwhile autobiography, and any student of the war will profit by reading it.

31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good Writers Make Good Generals!, July 22, 2008

By	Giordano Bruno (Wherever I am, I am.) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Memoirs (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)

There's the example of Julius Caesar, of course. And in America, there was Ulysses Grant, whose orders and dispatches were so concise and unequivocal that they were credited by his subordinates for many of his victories. Grant's Memoirs are widely recognized as a classic of autobiography, as much for their literary merit as for their content. I've had this Penguin edition of "Cump" Sherman's Memoirs on my shelf for so long that the price is about a third of the current, but I've never been tempted to read them, chiefly because of Sherman's reputation for inhumanity during his service against the trans-Mississippi Indians.
A couple days ago, however, I opened the book on a whim and started reading, and I've hardly looked at anything else since. The writing is fantastic! Utterly unadorned yet vividly descriptive. Witty, and that's a surprise! Forthright, modest, down-to-earth. As thoroughly planned as one of his campaigns, which I find may be explained in part by his frequent assignment of logistic tasks in his early military career. He knew how to move supplies and keep account of where things were.

Like any 19th C memoirist, or any Viking skald, Sherman feels obliged to trace his ancestry for a few pages, which I confess didn't immediately stir my interest. Then, however, when he begins his narrative of his military service in Florida, against the Seminoles, suddenly the saga comes to life. I learned more from this one chapter, as a primary source, about the early Americanization of Florida than from anything I've read elsewhere. I could feel the rash from the palmetto on my skin. Likewise, the two chapters on his years in California just after the invasion of Mexico, took me to Monterey, to Yerba Buena before it became San Francisco, and up the river to Sutter's Mill and the Gold Rush Country more vividly, more "virtually" in the game-boy sense of the word, than any historian's account of those years. Sherman was, in his blunt style, as fine a writer as Twain. No wonder he was so effective as a general. Good writers make good generals, as I said before. My thesis is proven; I'll be sending a sample of my reviews here on amazon to the new Commander-in-Chief in Washington next February, in hopes of an appointment in the field. I will, of course, in true 19th C fashion, remind Pres. Obama of my ardent electioneering on his behalf.

[I had no intention of reviewing this book until I finished it, but the first 112 pages have been so exciting that I wanted to share them. I plan now to add paragraphs to this report as I continue reading.]

One of the thrills of reading Sherman's account of his years in California is encountering the street names of San Francisco -- Mason, Larkin, Stockton, Ord -- incarnated as ardent young bucks, flesh-and-blood yearning for the accomplishments you know lie well in their futures. It's also intriguing - poignant, if you will - to find Sherman hunting geese or courting señoritas in company with young fellow officers whom he will be thrashing on the battlefields in another fifteen years.

* It's worth noting that Sherman was only slightly more successful during the 1850s than Grant. Despite his intrepid energy, probity, and obvious business skills, he found himself in 1858 with no significant wealth, no stable occupation, and a family of a wife and four daughters. Perhaps it wasn't so easy, after all, for a person without deep pockets to achieve success in ante-bellum America, except by luck, dishonesty, or slavery. Sherman's last job before the elction of Lincoln was as the superintendent of a "military seminary," that is, a school for the sons of planters, in Louisiana. Knowing that his moderate criticisms of the slave system would get him fired anyway, Sherman resigned as soon as Lincoln was elected. No one around him in Louisiana expressed any doubt that the preservation of slavery was the "fighting issue" behind secession.

** As Sherman left his youth behind and entered the fray of the Civil War, he shifts his tone from that of an adventurous raconteur to an earnest historian, and I've found that I need to read him differntly also, less for pleasure than for historical knowledge. I've slowed down and taken time to evaluate his reportage in comparison to what I already 'know' of Civil War historiography. Sherman's manner of constructing his narrative also changed; he began to incorporate documents - his field reports and letters, the field reports of other officers, etc. By the mid 1870's when Sherman wrote these memoirs, the true course of events and the soundest interpretation of them were already afire with controversy.
Two insights, from Sherman's perspective: 1) the elite Louisianans whom Sherman conflicted with, over the act of secession, were amazingly confident that there would be no war and that their 'peculiar institution' would thrive. They were all remarkably civil and genteel in their agreement to disagree, and Sherman departed without obstruction and with his pay in his pocket! 2) from Sherman's perspective, right at the front firing line with his green regiments, the Battle of Bull Run was a wash; either nobody won or both sides did, but neither side had the military skills to follow up and inflict a tactical victory. The war would continue until somebody on one side or the other knew how to win... and as "we" know, that would be Grant and Sherman himself.