Southern Storm by Noah Andre Trudeau Read Free Book Online

moment,” a soldier observed. Even while he was continuing an unbroken discussion of the war situation with Grant’s aide, Sherman constantly fidgeted. “He twice rose from his chair, and sat down again, twisted the newspaper into every conceivable shape, and from time to time drew first one foot and then the other out of its slipper and followed up the movement by shoving out his leg so that the foot could recapture the slipper and thrust itself into it again.” Sherman’s way of talking at such times was stream-of-consciousness. Bold ideas couched in epigrammatic phrases were rattled off with the hammering intensity of a Gatling gun. Sherman’s explanation: “I’m too red-haired to be patient.”
    “To the casual observer, his quick and nervous manner, the flash of his eagle eye, the brusque command, might give token of hasty conclusions, of disregard of details, of eager, and impatient habits of thought,” added a member of Sherman’s staff. “There could be no greater error. Nothing was more characteristic of his plans, nothing more noteworthy in the general orders which outlined their execution, than the marvelous foresight, itself the fruit of patient thought, which included and took into account each probable contingency, each necessary detail, every other being brushed aside as an encumbrance.”
    It wasn’t luck that brought Sherman to the mountaintop, though luck had played its part in his journey. Sherman’s success began with a solid foundation in the military arts. “Sherman was the professional and practical soldier,” wrote one admirer. “He studied topography, knew roads, mastered the details of a campaign in advance as no other general did.” The smallest matters received his attention, and no aspect of a planned campaign, however trivial, escaped his attention. His men respected his thoroughness, something Sherman used to his advantage. “Without being aware of it, I seem to possess a knowledge into men & things, of rivers, roads, capacity of trains, wagons, etc., that no one near me professes to have,” he noted. “All naturally & by habit come to me for orders and instructions.”
    By the latter part of the war Sherman exuded leadership. “Gen. Sherman is the ablest General in the United States Service I believe,” declared a Pennsylvania soldier. “Every man under Sherman has thegreatest confidence in him,” seconded a New Yorker, “and make up their minds that when he strikes it is sure death to all rebs within his range.” To this a Minnesota artilleryman added, “we felt as though Sherman could be trusted in every time of trial.” Speaking with a civilian clergyman, Sherman confided his secret. “The true way to be popular with troops is not to be free and familiar with them, but to make them believe you know more than they do. My men believe I know everything; they are much mistaken, but it gives them confidence in me.”
    Largely because of his West Point training, Sherman (as did most of his peers) believed that order could be imposed on the chaos of war. “War is the conflict of arms between people for some real or fancied object,” he wrote. “It has existed from the beginning. The Bible is full of it. Homer immortalized the siege and destruction of Troy. Grecian, Roman, and European history is chiefly made up of wars and the deeds of soldiers; out of their experience arose certain rules, certain principles, which made the ‘art of war’ as practiced by Alexander, by Caesar, by Gustavus Adolphus, and by Frederick the Great. These principles are as true as the multiplication table, the law of gravitation, of virtual velocities, or of any other invariable rule of natural philosophy.” Late in the conflict Sherman ended a debate with a Rebel general regarding his interpretation of the “laws of war” with the exhortation: “See the books.”
    When the Civil War began, Sherman tried to apply the rules he had been taught. He railed against soldiers under his