What do you think?
Rate this book
Sherman's March in Myth and Memory
General William Tecumseh Sherman's devastating "March to the Sea" in 1864 burned a swath through the cities and countryside of Georgia and into the history of the American Civil War. As they moved from Atlanta to Savannah—destroying homes, buildings, and crops; killing livestock; and consuming supplies—Sherman and the Union army ignited not only southern property, but also imaginations, in both the North and the South. By the time of the general's death in 1891, when one said "The March," no explanation was required. That remains true today.
Legends and myths about Sherman began forming during the March itself, and took more definitive shape in the industrial age in the late-nineteenth century. Sherman's March in Myth and Memory examines the emergence of various myths surrounding one of the most enduring campaigns in the annals of military history. Edward Caudill and Paul Ashdown provide a brief overview of Sherman's life and his March, but their focus is on how these myths came about—such as one description of a "60-mile wide path of destruction"—and how legends about Sherman and his campaign have served a variety of interests.
Caudill and Ashdown argue that these myths have been employed by groups as disparate as those endorsing the Old South aristocracy and its "Lost Cause," and by others who saw the March as evidence of the superiority of industrialism in modern America over a retreating agrarianism.
Sherman's March in Myth and Memory looks at the general's treatment in the press, among historians, on stage and screen, and in literature, from the time of the March to the present day. The authors show us the many ways in which Sherman has been portrayed in the media and popular culture, and how his devastating March has been stamped into our collective memory.
Legends and myths about Sherman began forming during the March itself, and took more definitive shape in the industrial age in the late-nineteenth century. Sherman's March in Myth and Memory examines the emergence of various myths surrounding one of the most enduring campaigns in the annals of military history. Edward Caudill and Paul Ashdown provide a brief overview of Sherman's life and his March, but their focus is on how these myths came about—such as one description of a "60-mile wide path of destruction"—and how legends about Sherman and his campaign have served a variety of interests.
Caudill and Ashdown argue that these myths have been employed by groups as disparate as those endorsing the Old South aristocracy and its "Lost Cause," and by others who saw the March as evidence of the superiority of industrialism in modern America over a retreating agrarianism.
Sherman's March in Myth and Memory looks at the general's treatment in the press, among historians, on stage and screen, and in literature, from the time of the March to the present day. The authors show us the many ways in which Sherman has been portrayed in the media and popular culture, and how his devastating March has been stamped into our collective memory.
240 pages, Hardcover
First published June 27, 2008
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 27, 2011
Would give this book 3.5 starts if that was an option. It is very interesting - well researched and covers about all that you can bring up regarding Sherman during the war as well as after the war. It is a given that the south will never forgive Sherman for what they say happened on the famous march. I do a talk on the Atlanta Campaign and cover what I term southern folklore vs actual facts.
Sherman was a harsh opponent, but the vast majority of burnings and so forth attributed to him by southern sympathetic writers are simply untrue. Outlandish charges abound in southern books in that regard.
It would seem that Sherman’s words were more severe than actual events. The authors write that this so and they cover his march, and civil war fallacies.They make a good point when they write that the disparity between Sherman’s rhetoric and his actions allowed him to be “demonized” in prose and his deeds to be amplified and exaggerated.
The south will never give up on their version of history - since they need someone to demonize and blame for their defeat. And defeated they were. The confederacy fought for the right of one man to own another - which is simply not defendable. It was an ugly institution and one that the southern economy used to build their centralized so called land of cavaliers.
Sherman was a harsh opponent, but the vast majority of burnings and so forth attributed to him by southern sympathetic writers are simply untrue. Outlandish charges abound in southern books in that regard.
It would seem that Sherman’s words were more severe than actual events. The authors write that this so and they cover his march, and civil war fallacies.They make a good point when they write that the disparity between Sherman’s rhetoric and his actions allowed him to be “demonized” in prose and his deeds to be amplified and exaggerated.
The south will never give up on their version of history - since they need someone to demonize and blame for their defeat. And defeated they were. The confederacy fought for the right of one man to own another - which is simply not defendable. It was an ugly institution and one that the southern economy used to build their centralized so called land of cavaliers.
May 28, 2017
As I have noted before [1], I have a certain degree of fondness for William Tecumseh Sherman. He was a redheaded, highly nervous and energetic person who had a particularly fierce form or rhetoric that often belied far more gracious conduct. He was a man of tensions and contradictions, and had a strong degree of knowledge and interest in logistical and psychological aspects of war. He has never been forgiven for showing the much-vaunted sense of honor of the Confederacy to be a hollow shell and for ripping the guts out of the Confederacy through his marches in late 1864 and early 1865 through Georgia and the Carolinas. This particular book is less a history than it is an examination of literary criticism in viewing how Sherman has been portrayed and remembered in history, journalism, and literature, and the result is quite a fascinating one, as it demonstrates the way that Sherman has been a source of debate and disagreement over the last 150 years and how he has taken on a symbolic role that far outweighed his own actions and his own behavior during the Civil War. The book itself is the third of a trilogy of works dealing with John Mosby and Nathan Bedford Forrest, but I have not read those books and do not tend to feel it necessary to promote the memory of such traitors, so it is unlikely that I will read them myself.
The contents of this book are thematically organized and the authors take a great deal of attention in viewing Sherman through the various ways that others have seen him, which leads to a lot of interesting conclusions. The book opens with a discussion of how Sherman's march through Georgia burned a picture into history, both in the way it was seen as an epic march by Northern journalists and as a swatch of rapine and destruction by Southern journalists, who largely created in Sherman a villain that did not really exist in real life. The authors then turn, sensibly, to Sherman himself as a complicated and articulate person who teetered on the edge between lunacy and mere eccentricity in how he was perceived by others. The next three chapters look at Sherman in how he is remembered and portrayed by historians, novelists, and playwrights and screenwriters and poets. The authors then turn to how people have sought to remember the March itself and travel alongside, which prompts a look into the tragic life of Tom Sherman, the Jesuit priest who was the general's son, as well as a look at automobile culture and the tension between the South and modernity. The end of the book summarizes the book's main threads and leaves it to the reader to examine how they think about and remember Sherman and how important the man is to an understanding of the tensions and contradictions within American culture.
There is a lot to think about in this book in terms of its implications. Sherman was known to be a bit of a rhetorical loose cannon (as was his son), and the gulf between his rhetoric and his conduct has led to a wide variety of post hoc myths developing to explain the lack of total destruction of antebellum architecture in the affected areas of Georgia. Likewise, even among those who concede that Sherman was not a villainous barbarian hell-bent on destruction, many blame his rhetoric for encouraging and legitimizing the sort of supposed total war that would be practiced in WWII and Vietnam. The authors seem to view Sherman as the sort of talisman that reveals much about ourselves and how we view technology, culture, and rhetoric. The authors show more than a little bit of frustration at the tropes of romance and the way that Sherman is often viewed in literature as a sort of inexorable force. Ultimately, though, this is a worthwhile book that is full of serious matter to reflect on and more than a little bit of humor in its skillful textual criticism.
[1] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2011...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2015...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2015...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2015...
The contents of this book are thematically organized and the authors take a great deal of attention in viewing Sherman through the various ways that others have seen him, which leads to a lot of interesting conclusions. The book opens with a discussion of how Sherman's march through Georgia burned a picture into history, both in the way it was seen as an epic march by Northern journalists and as a swatch of rapine and destruction by Southern journalists, who largely created in Sherman a villain that did not really exist in real life. The authors then turn, sensibly, to Sherman himself as a complicated and articulate person who teetered on the edge between lunacy and mere eccentricity in how he was perceived by others. The next three chapters look at Sherman in how he is remembered and portrayed by historians, novelists, and playwrights and screenwriters and poets. The authors then turn to how people have sought to remember the March itself and travel alongside, which prompts a look into the tragic life of Tom Sherman, the Jesuit priest who was the general's son, as well as a look at automobile culture and the tension between the South and modernity. The end of the book summarizes the book's main threads and leaves it to the reader to examine how they think about and remember Sherman and how important the man is to an understanding of the tensions and contradictions within American culture.
There is a lot to think about in this book in terms of its implications. Sherman was known to be a bit of a rhetorical loose cannon (as was his son), and the gulf between his rhetoric and his conduct has led to a wide variety of post hoc myths developing to explain the lack of total destruction of antebellum architecture in the affected areas of Georgia. Likewise, even among those who concede that Sherman was not a villainous barbarian hell-bent on destruction, many blame his rhetoric for encouraging and legitimizing the sort of supposed total war that would be practiced in WWII and Vietnam. The authors seem to view Sherman as the sort of talisman that reveals much about ourselves and how we view technology, culture, and rhetoric. The authors show more than a little bit of frustration at the tropes of romance and the way that Sherman is often viewed in literature as a sort of inexorable force. Ultimately, though, this is a worthwhile book that is full of serious matter to reflect on and more than a little bit of humor in its skillful textual criticism.
[1] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2011...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2015...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2015...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2015...
September 16, 2023
In "Sherman's March in Myth and Memory," Caudill and Ashtown offer an intriguing wade through the popular mythmaking that painted Willaim T. Sherman as either a champion of the Union or a devil of the South. Insightful and well researched, this book is an excellent and enjoyable investigation into the memories surrounding the man.
June 21, 2015
Edward Caudill and Paul Ashdown's book is among the best that I have read about General Sherman, and it is a joy to read! I have read many accounts of what happened during Sherman's March to the Sea, but the authors make a good case that it is just as important to know what Sherman and his army are remembered for doing during that march.
The "history" of the march, as well as an outline of the basics of Sherman's life are the starting point of this book, but then the authors begin to examine how Sherman and the March have been portrayed throughout history - in film, stage, the contemporary and modern press, literature, and among historians. Of course, the South tends to think of Sherman and his army in a negative light, and the North tends to give them credit for helping to end the most destructive war in American History. However, Sherman still defies easy explanation. There are so many sides to his personality, and his actions in war were so controversial, that it is difficult to stuff him into any single box. He was a destroyer who was also a humanitarian, he hated reporters but used them to create his myth, he was an excellent practitioner of war but strove for peace, and he was the South's worst enemy but his way of fighting them saved southern lives.
While Caudill and Ashdown's book is not a biography, it is essential reading for those who would understand Sherman and his place in American History. While some perspectives are just flat out wrong (for example, Sherman could not possibly have been everywhere to personally destroy every home or building attributed to him), History is largely a social construct, and Sherman's place in it depends on who is telling the story.
The chapters on how Sherman has been portrayed in Hollywood and literature are the most fun to read in the book, though I feel that a chapter on Sherman in American Art is warranted for a more rounded view of the collective memory of the general.
Those familiar with Sherman will find many new perspectives to consider in this work, and those who are not familiar with the general will find this work to be a superb introduction!
The "history" of the march, as well as an outline of the basics of Sherman's life are the starting point of this book, but then the authors begin to examine how Sherman and the March have been portrayed throughout history - in film, stage, the contemporary and modern press, literature, and among historians. Of course, the South tends to think of Sherman and his army in a negative light, and the North tends to give them credit for helping to end the most destructive war in American History. However, Sherman still defies easy explanation. There are so many sides to his personality, and his actions in war were so controversial, that it is difficult to stuff him into any single box. He was a destroyer who was also a humanitarian, he hated reporters but used them to create his myth, he was an excellent practitioner of war but strove for peace, and he was the South's worst enemy but his way of fighting them saved southern lives.
While Caudill and Ashdown's book is not a biography, it is essential reading for those who would understand Sherman and his place in American History. While some perspectives are just flat out wrong (for example, Sherman could not possibly have been everywhere to personally destroy every home or building attributed to him), History is largely a social construct, and Sherman's place in it depends on who is telling the story.
The chapters on how Sherman has been portrayed in Hollywood and literature are the most fun to read in the book, though I feel that a chapter on Sherman in American Art is warranted for a more rounded view of the collective memory of the general.
Those familiar with Sherman will find many new perspectives to consider in this work, and those who are not familiar with the general will find this work to be a superb introduction!
March 18, 2013
An excellent look at the historiography around the 1864 campaigns of William T. Sherman, though it is a little dry at times.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews