The Sherman Letters: Correspondence Between General and Senator Sherman from 1837 to 1891

by William T. Sherman, Rachel Sherman Thorndike, John Sherman

1894. With Portraits. Introduction: Soon after beginning the work of arranging my father's papers for publication, I found a series of letters which awoke my deepest interest. They covered a period extending from 1837 to 1891, and proved to be the complete correspondence between my father and his brother John during those more than fifty years. These letters, exchanged by two brothers of such eminence, and many of them written during the most stirring events of our country's history, seem to me unique. They form a collection, complete in itself; they are of great historical value, and the expressions of opinion which they obtain are so freely given as to furnish an excellent idea of the relations that existed between my father and his brother. Realizing all this, I have decided to publish the correspondence by itself; and in so doing, my chief desire has been to let the letters speak for themselves, and to put them such form that they may be easily understood.

398 pages, Hardcover

First published July 18, 2009

About the author

Appointed commander of all Union troops in the west in 1864, William Tecumseh Sherman, American general, captured Atlanta and led the destructive "march to the sea," which effectively cut the Confederacy in two.

People almost entirely burned the city of Atlanta on 15 November 1864 before the start of march of William Tecumseh Sherman, Union general, to the sea.

This soldier, businessman, and author educated. He served in the Army during the Civil War from 1861 to 1865 and received recognition for his outstanding of military strategy as well as criticism for the harshness of the total "scorched earth" policies that he implemented and conducted against the states. Military historian Basil Liddell Hart famously declared Sherman "the first modern general".

Sherman served under Ulysses Simpson Grant in 1862 and 1863 during the campaigns that, alongside the fall of the stronghold of Vicksburg on the Mississippi River, culminated with the routing of the armies in the state of Tennessee. In 1864, Sherman succeeded Grant in the theater of the war. He proceeded to the city with a military success that contributed to the reelection of Abraham Lincoln, president. Sherman subsequently through Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina further undermined the ability to continue fighting. He accepted the surrender of all the armies in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida in April 1865.

With Grant as president, Sherman then succeeded him of the army from 1869 to 1883. He responsibly conducted the wars against Native Americans in the states. He steadfastly refused draw into politics and in 1875 published his Memoirs of the best-known firsthand accounts of the Civil War.