Sherman is promoted

On today's date in 1864, Union Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman was made the new commander of the Military Division of the Mississippi following Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's promotion to commander of all the Union armies. Maj. Gen. James B. McPherson ascended to Sherman's old position as head of the Army of the Tennessee.

Soon after his promotion, Grant met with Sherman to work out a master plan for winning the war. Their decision called for Grant to direct the Army of the Potomac and destroy Robert E. Lee's army while trying to take Richmond. For Sherman's part, he will try to do the same to Joseph E. Johnston's Army of Tennessee, now at Dalton, Georgia, and ultimately take Atlanta. This will be the first time that the Union's Eastern and Western armies will advance simultaneously in a coordinated effort to defeat the South.

In May, Sherman will begin his Atlanta Campaign at Dalton, and he will try to destroy Johnston's army along the way. Sherman will end the year with his infamous "March to the Sea." Also in May, Grant will confront Robert E. Lee in a series of bloody battles, beginning the Wilderness Campaign and ending with Lee trapped at Petersburg, Virginia. Grant finally will force Lee's surrender at Appomattox on April 9, 1865, and Sherman will receive Johnston's surrender at Durham, North Carolina, a few days later on April 26th.

William Tecumseh Sherman was one of several Union generals who hailed from Ohio. Appointed to U.S. Military Academy at West Point at 16 years of age, Sherman graduated sixth in his class in 1840. His early military career was unremarkable, and by 1853, he resigned his commission in the army. He tried his hand at banking and law before becoming the superintendent of the Louisiana Military Academy in 1859. When war broke out between the states, Sherman resigned from the academy and returned north to become a colonel of the 13th United States Infantry.

Sherman in Atlanta, 1864

Sherman saw his first war action at First Manassas as a brigade commander. Impressing his superiors by his leadership there, President Lincoln appointed him brig-adier general in August 1861. He was sent to the border state of Kentucky to keep it from seceding. However, the assignment brought him to  the verge of a breakdown, compelling him to request to be relieved of command. After a brief period of recuperation, he was transferred to serve under Maj Gen. Henry W. Halleck and supported his army in the successful battle for Fort Henry.

By now, Sherman was enjoying the support of personal friendship with Grant and had earned his commander's confidence.* From this point on, Grant will increasingly grow to depend on Sherman's military decisiveness.

In the Battle of Shiloh in April 1862, against Albert Sydney Johnston's army, Sherman commanded a division under Grant. Despite being overrun during the battle, Sherman was promoted to major general the next month.

Sherman next led troops in the Battles of Chickasaw Bluffs in late December 1862, and Arkansas Post in January 1863, and he commanded a corps during the Vicksburg Campaign. In the Battle of Chattanooga in November 1863, Sherman's attack against Patrick Cleburne's Division (which included my Great Grandfather Nathan Oakes) at Missionary Ridge was decidedly repelled, although the Union army under Grant did succeed in driving the Confederate army off the ridge and out of Tennessee.

Sherman's Atlanta Campaign and March to the Sea, 1864
Source: Georgia Stories

Now in March 1864, as commander of all troops in the Western Theatre, Sherman will soon prepare his 100,000-man army to wage warfare that will bring him both fame and notoriety. Believing that to defeat the South he must both destroy its military force and the source for its material support, Sherman will apply a strategy of total warfare. Adapting to Johnston's defensive approach, Sherman will use a series of flanking maneuvers to cut him off on the race to Atlanta, destroying most everything in his path. In July, he will have his prize in hand and then promptly destroy the city. He will do the same with the homes, farms, countryside—everything in his 60-mile wide path on his "March to the Sea" by year's end. Next, he will lead his army on a destructive route through the Carolina Campaign, hastening the war's end by April 1865.


* Sherman also was able to restore, and even increase, his reputation among those who would serve under him.  No less a leader than division commander Maj. Gen. Jacob B. Cox, who served under Sherman from the Atlanta Campaign through the Carolinas, wrote about his admiration for the general: "I soon acquired an undoubting conviction that of all the men I had met, [Sherman] was the one to whose leadership in war I would commit my own life and the lives of my men with most complete confidence. In him the combination of intellectual insight with fertility of invention and with force of will in execution was of the highest order. I felt that if the end we aimed at was a noble and worthy one, the price he asked us to pay was reasonable, and the object was worth the sacrifices he called for: we were therefore enthusiastic in our obedience."

Sources: Decision in the West: The Atlanta Campaign of 1864, Albert Castel; Military Reminiscences of the Civil War, Jacob Dolson Cox; Civil War Trust