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General William T. Sherman's Innovations And Legacy

General William T. Sherman’s Innovations and Legacy
“I know him well as one of the greatest purest and
best of men. He is poor and always will be, but he is great and magnanimous.”
~ U.S Grant praising Sherman

Introduction
      It is a common belief among many historians that history is told through the eyes of the winners. Read any American history book or any world history textbook and they mainly tell you about the hero that saved the nation such as Wellington at Waterloo or General Washington in the Revolutionary War or General Patton in World War II.   The case of the American Civil War is no different, especially for a man who changed the war. Ask anybody in the south, even the kindergartners and they will tell you about William Tecumseh Sherman, the man who burned everything. Ask anyone in the North and they’ll tell you how Sherman and Grant together helped the North win the war. General William Tecumseh Sherman constantly said that he disliked war yet when his time came in the Civil War he rose up from a man who was dubbed crazy to become a man who changed war into a concept of total war and would go on to become one of the worlds first modern generals.
Before the War
      On February 8, 1820 one of America’s most famous (or infamous) military general was born in Lancaster, Ohio. He was born to Charles and Mary Sherman. Nine years later Charles Sherman died leaving his wife a widow with eleven children and no money. It was at this point when Mary Sherman sent her son, Tecumseh Sherman to live with a family friend, Thomas and Maria Ewing. Thomas was a prominent lawyer in Ohio who later became a U.S. Senator. Thomas’ wife who was a devote Catholic wanted to see Tecumseh baptized and it was through this baptism that he was given the name of William Tecumseh Sherman though he always went by his nickname “Cump.”   Though Sherman lived an influential life he also lived an early life of fear. “He had a horror of debt—as he saw it, if his father had not...