Julia Dent Grant

 

           Julia Dent Grant

by
Patricia Daniels

Oral Presentation to the United Daughters
of the Confederacy -- Lee County, FL  Chapter

December 2025Editor’s note: Ms. Daniels never intended to have her written remarks for her oral presentation published. Written for ease of delivery in the role of Mrs. Grant, I was never-the-less able to convince her that Civil War enthusiasts would enjoy learning about her research as much as the members of the group she delivered her remarks to. I am indebted to her generosity and willingness to  share them with so many others. 

                                                                               --  Jack Bovee

My goodness!  I am so delighted that so many of you are here to hear about my beloved husband, Ulysses S. Grant!  (Ulys was his mother’s first born.  It would be six weeks before she named Hiram Ulysses Grant, ‘Ulysses’ from the sly fox of Homer’s poem.  Thomas L. Hamer was the Ohio congressman who would give Ulys an appointment to West Point. Hamer wrote the War Department to inform him of his choice but accidently named him Ulysses Simpson, using his mother’s maiden name, Grant which was fine with Ulys.  At West Point he was known as ‘Sam’.)

I am Julia Dent Grant.  I was born near St. Louis on my father’s 850-acre farm situated along the Gravois Creek.  It was the showplace of the county.

I was the fifth of eight children and the first girl.  My father, the Colonel, felt I could do no wrong.  My childhood was a “long summer of sunshine, flowers and smiles.”  As were my sisters, I was given three servants of my own when I was born, and they served me well for many years.  Our ‘people’ were very happy, at least in Mamma’s time, though the young ones became somewhat demoralized about the beginning of the Rebellion when all the comforts of slavery passed away forever.

Neither my mamma nor my papa ever chided me as a child.  I was happy, and I could do no wrong.

I was in school in St. Louis when Ulys began his weekly calls to White Haven at the invitation of my oldest brother.  My younger sister, Emily, was the first to fall in love with him, and she followed him around like a puppy whenever he came to visit with the other soldiers from the barracks.  When Ulys and I met, his weekly visits became daily.

My oldest brother, Fred, had been a roommate of Ulys’ at West Point.  Ulys was 16 when he matriculated---at his father’s insistence---but was not particularly interested in academics, other than mathematics, or his military appearance.  He had always been his happiest with horses, and was an exceptional and fearless rider. He spent his time with the horses at the academy, and one of his jumping records was not broken for more than twenty-five years!  Upon his graduation he had hoped to be assigned to the cavalry, but it was not to be.  At that time, the best students were assigned to the engineering corps, and the cavalry was the next most desirable assignment.  However, Ulys was assigned to the infantry and then stationed at Jefferson Barracks, the largest military base in the country at that time which was not far from our home.

My family was socially prominent and most hospitable to the soldiers who were frequent to White Haven on Sunday afternoons.  My brother Fred had encouraged Ulys to visit as well, and though shy, Ulys did so.  When I arrived home from St. Louis and met him for the first time I thought he was the nicest and most handsome young man I had ever met.  We enjoyed each other from the first and found common grounds in riding together in the early spring, fishing, and drawing botanicals together.  I was delighted to learn that Ulys enjoyed romantic novels, as did I, and had read many while at West Point.  Some said later that his ability to write clear orders for his armies’ officers and even his own memoirs were a result of all his novel reading.

I was 18 at the time and he was 21.  My father thought I was much too young for marriage, and he wanted more for me than to be the wife of a soldier.

There was a great deal of concern in the political climate of the day, and when Ulys learned his unit was to be relocated first to Louisiana and then to Texas which had just been annexed into the United States. He decided it was time to ask the Colonel for my hand in marriage.

It had been exceptionally rainy that spring and the creek was overflowing and treacherous when Ulys attempted to cross it.  He swam his horse through the flooded waters and arrived at the piazza soaked through.  Mother found him some dry clothes, and we all waited together inside for the outcome of the proposal.  “No,” announced the Colonel.  “If you wanted to marry Nellie, that would be fine, but not Julia”.  Ulys stood firm though and said, “Only Julia.”

Papa finally agreed to allow us to write to each other while Ulys was gone.  Later I asked Ulys why he had forded the creek under such conditions.  He replied, “It is a superstition of mine that when I start a task, I see that it is finished before turning back.”  I often thought of that remark during the Rebellion that was yet to come and especially during the Overland Campaign in the East.

Ulys wrote often in the four years he was gone.  He never approved of the war with Mexico though he served with many of the officers in the war that he would meet again during the War Between the States.  There were always two wars he felt should never have been fought.  He always felt the United States was wrong to invade a country so much smaller and so poorly equipped as was Mexico, and he always felt the issue of slavery could have been resolved without war.

Ulys remained devoted and loyal during his absence and wrote frequently of his love for me, often, he said, on drums captured from the enemy. I, on the other hand, was not as faithful a correspondent, and he was disappointed in that.  I did and still do have an eye condition known as strabismus that makes it difficult for me to read or write for long periods.  (The condition could have been corrected later, but Ulys said “No.”  He said he fell in love with me the way I looked then and did not want that to change.)

After the defeat of Mexico and Ulys’ return, my father finally consented to our marriage.  I will always remember fondly that hot, rainy evening in August of 1848.  It was of necessity a simple wedding.  We were married in my parent’s temporary townhouse in St. Louis, filled with candlelight and the fragrance of my favorite flowers, jessamine.  My dress, a gift of a dear friend was a beautiful white silk and a veil of beautiful white tulle with flowers in my hair.  Mrs. Judge Shurls presented me with a lovely corsage bouquet of white cape jessamine and a few more to fasten to my veil.

Papa’s hospitality provided a table at the end of the back parlor upon which were served ices, fruits and all that good taste could provide for the occasion.  Three of the officers at my wedding that evening would later surrender to Ulys at Appomattox Court House including my cousin Pete Longstreet--who was Ulys’ best man. (Lt. Cadmus Wilcox and Bernard Pratte were two of his groomsmen.)  Ulysses’ parents would not attend.  (They were strict abolitionists and disapproved of the marriage.)

The day following our wedding we set out to visit relatives and friends in Ohio. It was my first visit away from St. Louis and my first trip on a boat.  With Ulys it was like a dream to me and always pleasant.  I do not remember a single other passenger on that trip!

Ulys’ first assignments were to Detroit and Sackett’s Harbor in New York.  Though my father wanted me to remain at White Haven I was determined to be with Ulys.  When Ulys was appointed quartermaster and sent to the Pacific  Coast, I was pregnant with our second child and did return to White Haven.  (Ulysses Grant, Jr. would be born in Ohio at Ulys’ parents’ home and would be called “Buck” by all but me in honor of his birthplace, the Buckeye State.)

Buck would be two when his father who had never seen him finally returned from the West.  Ulysses had been lonely and had had several business setbacks while there.  He was finally forced to resign from the army or face a court-martial.  It was his friend, Simon Bolivar Buckner, from West Point and the Mexican War who would loan him the money to return to White Haven.

Following several unsuccessful business ventures in St. Louis, Ulys approached his father for a position in his leather goods store in Galena, Illinois.  We arrived in April of 1860 by riverboat and rented a small and comfortable home on High Street.  There were now four children.  The favorite, Jesse, named for Ulys’ father played happily with his father each evening, (When Ulys returned home Jesse would greet him at the door with, “You wanna fight Mister?” The two of them would then tumble happily together on the floor.  Ulys loved all his children deeply.)  We joined the Methodist Church on Bench Street.  Though Ulys did not care for the work in the store on Main Street he now could afford to feed and clothe his family.  He was always “very kind to me when I was childish and unreasonable.”  My servants helped me with the cooking, the children and housekeeping.  I was happy in Galena.

When Ft. Sumter fell to the Confederates, Galena held a meeting.  Ulys decided to go, and he never stepped foot inside the leather goods store again.  He offered his services to the army but was ignored by George McClellan who was in charge of the Ohio command and refused to see him.  The Illinois’ governor offered him the opportunity to train the unruly Illinois 21^st Volunteer Infantry in Springfield, which he did.  He then made the volunteers march all the way to Alton to join other volunteer groups rather than allow them to ride there by train.  Ulys was ordered to Missouri and then on to Cairo.

The two most important men in my life were Ulys and my father.  My father was an avid supporter of the South just as Ulys was an avid supporter of the North.  I was torn by my love of both, but eventually did what many women of the day did in choosing sides.  My country was my husband’s country!  Many of my childhood friends were most surprised at my choice, and my father, though he would later live with us in the White House, considered Ulys a traitor.

I joined Ulys in Cairo with the children and was so proud of him when Ft. Donalson fell.  It was the first victory of the Rebellion for the North.  Ulys offered Simon Bolivar Buckner, his friend from West Point and the friend who loaned him money to get home from New York after Ulys resigned from the army, “No terms but immediate and unconditional surrender…” earning him the name “Unconditional Surrender Grant.”

Following the victories of Forts Henry and Donelson came the bloody battles of Shiloh/Pittsburgh Landing, Vicksburg, known at the Gibraltar of the Confederacy, and then Chattanooga.  I stood with Ulys on the deck of his boat and held his hand as Admiral Porter’s transports slid by the Confederate guns at Vicksburg at night.  I stayed with him as often as I could throughout the war.  The officers were pleased when I was in camp.  Ulys was at his best when I was near.  Young Fred, Ulysses, Jr, Jesse, and Nellie were often with me as well.

Many did not realize Ulys suffered from severe migraine headaches during the war.  I would nurse him through these difficult periods with mustard plasters and footbaths, though the morning of his meeting with General Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House he would be suffering from one of the debilitating headaches, and I would not be there.

When President Lincoln had called Ulys to Washington to make him Commander of Chief of all the Union Armies, our son Fred accompanied him.  Ulys had plenty of political and military enemies, but the President was confident he had found his general.  “I can’t spare this man,” he had said.  “He fights.”  (Grant and Fred checked into the Willard Hotel.  Grant, clothed in a nondescript battle worn coat, was unrecognizable and was told only a small upper story room was available.  After Grant signed the registration the hotel clerk was stunned and immediately found an elegant suite for him and Fred.  That evening they were immediately recognized and received high praise by those in in the hotel dining room who did know who they were.)

By the spring of 1864, Ulys had told the President that he would command the armies from the field rather than from Washington, and he appointed our dear friend, Cump Serman, to command the army in the West.  Together they would win the war.  Ulys’ war strategy, he would tell me, was “exhaustion and annihilation.”  He knew he could replace men and supplies while General Lee could not.

Throughout the winter of 1864-65 and the spring of 1865, I stayed with Ulys at City Point, Virgina, then the busiest port in the world, bringing supplies to our troops.  When Lee’s starving troops finally tried to break out of the winter siege at Petersburg, I knew Confederate defeat was near.  By telegraph Ulys informed me of Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Court House and said he’d return late that evening, Mrs. Rawlins and I prepared a celebration dinner for Ulys and his staff officers, but when they still hadn’t arrived by 2 A.M. we went to our cabins.  When Ulys did arrive, he bounded up the stairs to my cabin to see me first.  We had a wonderful breakfast the next morning with all who were there, and we all listened to General Sheridan’s troops across the river as they raised shouts of jubilation and victory.

While I had been most anxious to see the defeated capital of the Confederacy and did so, Ulys was not, and he never did step foot inside the vanquished city.  Almost immediately we left for Washington to share in the celebrations there.  When the President invited us to accompany him and Mrs. Lincoln to Ford’s theater Ulys had as good as accepted.  Mrs. Lincoln did not like Ulys and referred to him as a “Butcher.”

I had no desire to spend another ghastly evening with Mrs. Lincoln and told Ulys I was anxious to reunite with the children.  In any case, I told Ulys that I refused to go and that we must leave Washington city that night.  Embarrassed, the General had to offer our regrets to the President.  I have always thought since then if we had attended the theater that night, I might very well have lost my beloved husband as well.

Ulys was elected twice to the presidency of the United States, and I do think those were the happiest years of my life.  I wept when he told me he had posted a letter that he would not seek a third term.  With a sense of direction Ulys used money he had made from investing in a Colorado silver mine to tour the world for two and a half years.  Ulys was probably the most admired man on earth.

Returning to live in New York City, Ulys invested his savings in an investment firm, Grant and Ward.  Mr. Ward, however, used ours and other war veterans’ investments to embellish his own lifestyle in what would later become known as a Ponzi scheme.  We were left penniless.  Ulys had even borrowed money from William Vanderbilt which was also lost.  In return Ulys gave him many of his most valuable war and travel mementoes with a promise to repay every cent borrowed.  It was a very low time in our life.

Mark Twain was aware of Ulys’ circumstances and after reading several of his war articles for Century Magazine convinced a reluctant Ulys to publish his own memoirs.  Ulys had no choice.  He had his family’s support to consider.  Though suffering he worked faithfully on the manuscript and died of throat cancer only a few days after he had finished it in July of 1885.  The book was sold by subscription.  It would earn more than $450,000 in royalties which would save the family from its bankruptcy and allow us to live a worry-free  and comfortable  existence. (This amount would be approximately $13-$14 million dollars today.  Mark Twain would almost later die penniless.)  The memoir’s is said to be the best piece of nonfiction writing and the most popular book other than the Bible ever published in the United States.  (It is still in print today.)

“Today I reside with my son Fred and his family in New York City.  I spend my days remembering my wonderful life and my beloved husband, our pleasant evenings together reading by the fire, our travels, our families and most of all hoping for the deepest feeling of my and America’s most successful general.  “Let us have peace,” he said.  Ulys’ memoirs and the victory he won are his greatest and most lasting legacy.”

“For nearly thirty-seven years, I his wife, rested and was warmed in the sunlight of his loyal and great fame, and now, even though his beautiful life has gone out, it is as when some far-off planet disappears from the heavens; the light of his glorious fame still reaches out to me, falls upon me, and warms me.”                                              
                                                          _______________________  

 (As the first First Lady, Julia began the tradition of extravagant state dinners.  She was also the first First Lady to write her memoir, though it was not published until 1975.)

Letters from the Front -- New Year's 1863

 

We wish to thank Capt. Dan Ward of the 111^th PA Volunteer Infantry Reenactor group for transcribing this document from an original soldier who served in that unit--Miletus Tuttle, Co B 111^th PVI—written to his family in Venango, Pa.  Enclosed with his letter was that of another to the folks at home. (Spelling and punctuation as in the original.)

                                                                Camp near Fairfax Station Va Jan 2^nd 1863

 Dear and Respected Friends,

   I once more seat myself to write a few lines to you and to commence with. I wish you all a happy New Years. although one day of the New years is passed and gone. Melinor I received your letter a few days ago and was glad to learn that you all enjoy as good health as you did. Yet as Myron I was sorry to hear that your health was so poor. As for my health it is good. I think I never enjoyed better health in my life than Ive ever since. I fully recovered from the fevers.

  Since I wrote to you last we have had conciderable hard marching and a little fighting mixed with it.

We had a 10 days march from Harpers Ferry to Dumfries and back to the Station where we now are. and last Saturday night about 10 o'clock orders came for us to strike tents and get ready to march. we were soon in line and again quick in line of march in the direction of Dumfries. we marched until near 3 o'clock in the morning and encamped in the woods for the rest part of the night and the next morning, we started on and had gone about five miles when we came in contact with some 4 thousand rebel cavalry and had a brush with them but nothing very serious as there was only a few charges made and with little affect. they charged on General Schlocum and Staf and some of the General's bodyguard were wounded. There was only 2 or 8 killed and a few wounded in all. we crossed the Occoquan Creek   within 5 miles of Dumfries and then started back reaching camp 3 days ago but for how long I do not know. The weather is still quite warm and pleasant down here although the nights are cold and frosty.

  how did you all spend Christmas & Newyears I hope none of you are deprived of spending them pleasently on account of sickness. I spent them both here in Camp the same as many others. holydays Sundays and week days are about one and the same in the army. I thought how I should like to be there and take newyears dinner with you although we had a very good one down here which consisted of potatoes bacon hard special Sugars and coffee but I must stop now and be ready for Brigade drill as that is now the order.

  well here I am again seated upon the ground under shelter of our Sibley tent with a small fire in the center which smokes like fury as we have no stove. it is now after dark and I have a bayonet stuck in the ground for a candle stick and Edson is sitting on one side of it writing to his Cousin and I am on the other side. Our drill lasted 2 o'clock until near sundown and was commanded by Gen.Green our Brigadier Gen Geary commands this Division and Schlocum the Corp.

  Melina the slice of dried beef came through Safe and tasted good and old fashioned I wish I had a bbl. of it. I supposed you and Blynn are learning fast this winter at School I judge so by your writing as it is very good indeed. I am almost ashamed of this writing but it coersponds very well with position in which I have to write as the ground is my Seat and a piece of cracker box in my lap for a writing desk.

  I suppose if nothing happens you will soon have the pleasure of visiting with Manley as he is about to get his discharge it will revieve me of a great anxiety when I hear that he has got home for I think he is intitled to his discharge from the service. perhaps you would like to know how I feel in regard to the home question. by this time I should like to see all my friends and have a visit with them but as long as my health is good I have no desire to be discharged from the service until the south is brought to terms or until I have Served my time out. it is here the war seems to be conducted in a bad way many times and many becoming dissatisfied and discouraged even in our army which is not much to be wondered at yet our cause is as good and first as ever and ought not to be deserted on account of the manner in which it is carried out by Some of our leading men of the north this is my feeling and sentiments on the subject.

   I received a letter today from Charlotte Smith with Fannies likeness in it. They were all well. MaryAnn thinks she should come out there in the Spring we were mustered for pay day before yesterday and should look for Mr paymaster along in about two weeks I expect to get 8 months pay to my great surprise on Christmas Eve. my promotion was recent on Dressparade No 5^th Corp.quite a Christmas gift indeed as the Boys called it. Newyears I received a very nice present which was a pair of gloves that Jennells Mother sent to me. I wish I had Something that I could Send to you all for a Newyears present but as I have nothing this letter will have to do by sending with it my kind regards and well wishes to you all and now as the bugles are sounding and drums beating for rollcall I will bid you good evening.  write soon

                                                                                                        Miletus Tuttle

 ___________ 
   

 Respected friend

   I seat myself to fill this vacant place and I hardly know what to write that will prove interesting to you but as a passtime I will say my health is not as good as I wish it was still I keep around and do my duty it being greatly lightened by my Superior Officer showing me some favor on my behalf on the account of poor health.

  I have been out on drill and am so nervous that I don't know as you can read what I write.

 Well I declare here we are soldiering yet and thing look as dark on our side as they did one year ago last Oct when I started out to serve my country. It is first a victory and then a defeat and take it all around it seams we have gained but little but live in hopes is all the consolation now days believing that this dark cloud that now overshadows this once peacefull and prosperous country will finly vanish and the radiant sunshine of freedom and tranquility will burst forth and all will be sunshine again.

  I should like to see you once more and trust I may be spared to return home. for the want of space I will close hoping you will remember me in your next

                                                                                                                E C Hills  

William Tecumseh Sherman

by
Patricia Daniels
Member Lee County Civil War Roundtable
Presentation given 12/04/2025

Perhaps the most savage of the Civil War period, William Tecumseh Sherman is recognized today for his command of military strategy and criticized for the harshness of his scorched earth policies during the Civil War.  He was one of its most valuable military officers.  His drive and determination succeeded in cutting the Confederacy in half, the taking Atlanta by siege, and then continuing onward with his march to the sea and north through the Carolinas.  He was a hero in the North and a monster in the South.

The British historian B.H. Liddell Hart in the 1930’s recognized him as, “the most original genius of the Civil War and the first modern general.”  He was a complex and intelligent man who was influenced dramatically by his early childhood upbringing.

Born February 8, 1820, in Lancaster, Ohio to the politically prominent family of Judge Charles R. and Mary Hoyt Sherman, William Tecumseh Sherman was the third son and the sixth child in a family of 11 children.  His father named him after the Shawnee Chief, Tecumseh, an American Indian who had sided with the British and was killed during the War of 1812. 

A Justice on Ohio’s State Supreme Court, Charles Sherman would die unexpectedly of typhoid fever at the age of 41, while riding the circuit.    Tecumseh was known as ‘Cump’ by his family.  He was nine when his father died.  His mother, Mary, and the children were left penniless.  Destitute, Mary would keep her three youngest children.   Her oldest was finishing at Ohio University and would be on his own, and her second, Elizabeth, was about to be married.  The other six middle children were taken and raised by neighbors, friends, and relatives.

Cump was selected for adoption by wealthy friends of his parents, Thomas and Maria Ewing of Lancaster.  Maria agreed to the adoption but wanted only the brightest of the six available children.  Cump was her choice.  She would become the chief disciplinarian for her family’s children and Cump.  The Ewings were a strict Roman Catholic family, and Maria was rigid and uncompromising in matters of religion.  Though Cump had been initially baptized in the Presbyterian faith, Maria insisted he be baptized again in the Catholic faith.

There is some difference of opinion among historians whether ‘William’ was added at the time of his Catholic baptism or if it had been part of Cump’s original baptismal name.  The name “Cump” would continue throughout Sherman’s life among those who knew him well and were his friends.  He would use W. T. Sherman on his official papers, and his soldiers during the war would refer to him as “Uncle Billy.”

Sherman’s wealthy adoptive father, Thomas Ewing, was a kind and generous man, though he and Cump would disagree often in the ensuing years.  Thomas Ewing was prominent in political circles and was responsible for Sherman’s acceptance at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point--which he entered at the age of 16, in 1844.   Tecumseh would graduate 3^rd academically in his class but would be ranked 6^th because of his earned demerits.

As a child he seemed to be shy and sensitive, though he saw himself as a mischievous and adventurous boy.  The loss of his father and the separation from his mother whom he would struggle to help financially with his meager income had psychological consequences in the emotional crises he would experience during his war years.

Following army duty in Florida, South Carolina and California during the Mexican War he would resign from the army and seek success in law and banking.  Somehow failure seemed to follow him in civilian life.  In 1859, he became the superintendent of the new Louisiana State Military College known today as Louisiana State University.  He was recommended for the position by Don Carlos Buell and friend, Braxton Bragg, two of his West Point classmates, one who would later prove his enemy, and the other who would provide him support at Shiloh.  Sherman was excellent in the Louisiana Military College position and became familiar and fond of the South during the time he spent there. 

With Southern secession he would be offered, and reject, a commission in the Confederate Army.  He distrusted democracy but was a Northern man and a loyal Unionist.

His marriage to his half-sister, Elenor Ewing, following a seven-year engagement was a difficult and confrontational one.  She adored her father, loved Lancaster, and expected to live and be respected as a person of social standing and wealth.  She was a devout and determined Roman Catholic.  She was not submissive as an ideal wife at the time ought to be. She considered herself “a civilized, refined and sickly woman.”

Sherman hated Lancaster, had no interested in formal religion of any kind, and struggled to become successful in an era of male dominance and machoism.  He struggled to achieve success and recognition in each of his pursuits and wanted desperately to be recognized and appreciated.  He saw Ohio as his doom.  He was often unhappy and deeply depressed.

Theirs was a disjointed marriage.  Their unresolved personality conflicts festered for years.  Ellen saw herself as man’s better half, not his slave, and did not appreciate Sherman’s need for manly standing.  Worst of all was her ceaseless campaign to convert Sherman to what he considered an intolerant Catholic faith.  Much of their marriage was lived apart, and in their correspondence, they shared little affection.  He deeply resented her “bottomless material needs.”  She would still be most supportive of him throughout the war years.

Sherman believed an excess of democracy caused the Civil War.   He felt the popular opinion formulated in bar rooms and village newspapers had broken the law and caused the collapse of constitutional democracy.   He saw the negro as an inferior race, and he defended slavery.  He believed only the army and men like himself could save the country.

With secession he left his Louisiana position, returned to Washington, and was assigned a command of Wisconsin and New York volunteers.  Bull Run would be his first experience.  An old army man, he had never been in battle, and Bull Run would prove a disaster. 

He would redeem himself at Vicksburg, Shiloh and in Tennessee.

 After the capture of Atlanta, Sherman’s idea to wage war against the civilian population crystalized when he decided military occupation of southern cities was crippling the army.   He felt conquered cities should be destroyed instead of occupied.  Occupation was crippling the Federal armies by forcing them to leave detachments behind to guard and protect the interests of a hostile population.

He supported the psychological terror caused by the evacuating of Atlanta and the forages, burning, and pillaging by his troops while in Georgia.

He was a famous and furious man, “brilliant, insightful, garrulous, complicated, tightly wound, energetic, aggressive, salty, angry and racist.  He was grudge-bearing, yet often kind, insecure and positive,” about what the war was about and how it would end.

Following his early Kentucky episode of “despair” in 1861, newspapers often mentioned Sherman’s “lunacy.”  In the 20^th Century a condition such as his was often referred to as manic depressive.  Today the condition is referred to as bi-polar disorder, and today, the current theory is that Sherman carried a “narcissistic injury” that was inflicted at an early age.  Its hallmarks are notions of exaggerated self-esteem, vaulting confidence, infallibility and omnipotence. “The narcissist is a restless person, often a workaholic at a job he does well.  He never admits to failure or shortcomings and rationalizes his errors by assigning blame to others or to circumstances beyond his control.”

Following his controversial handling of Joe Johnston’s surrender of all Confederate forces east and west of the Mississippi in April 1865, it was reported that Sherman had once again lapsed into “lunacy.”  He was aware that he had earned the official displeasure of President Johnson and Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton, and he was most concerned about how he stood with his superiors in Washinton. 

At the same time Sherman, the soldier, was broadly popular with the public in the North.

After the war, his family moved to the booming city of St. Louis, Missouri, and Sherman plunged into his new command which left him little time for the family he cared for deeply. (He still suffered from the loss of his favorite, Willie,  to typhoid fever in 1863, at age 9, after Willie, his mother and sister, Minnie, came to visit him at Big Black River, a camp 20 miles south of Vicksburg following that victory.)  

His new command, The Division of the Missouri, more than a million square miles and a full third of the continental United States, was vast and varied.  There were new challenges that were not familiar to him, including the baffling and inscrutable Red man, the Department of the Interior and its Office of Indian Affairs, and Congress. Sherman had neither political nor diplomatic skill.  He saw for the Indians extinction or confinement, and he felt they should be confined to areas where the settlers moving west would not or could not live.  He felt the same about the herds of buffalo that were a primary source of food for the Indians.  By the late 1870’s, his job of moving Indians to reservations or destroying them and replacing the buffalo with settlers’ cattle was for the most part successfully completed as far as he was concerned.

But at the same time, and contrary to all this, Sherman visited the Navajo who had been forced from their homeland and were living at Bosque Redondo, an area he compared to the Confederate prisoner of war camp at Andersonville, Georgia with soil too poor to grow crops, no water, and living on minimal diets of army rations.  Despite considerable opposition he moved the Navajo back to their original home.  A similar situation with settlers and the Utes resulted in his defense of the Indians rather than the settlers, all seemingly incongruous in light of his earlier forced actions against the red man.

In 1868, U.S. Grant was elected president, and Sherman moved with his family to Washington.  He became the commanding general of the United State Army, a position in which he would serve until 1884. In 1874, He would transfer his headquarters from Washington to St. Louis, with Grant’s approval.

Then in 1878, his son Tom completed his studies at Yale and entered law school in St. Louis.    He then sent a letter to his father the following spring indicating he would not handle the family’s future financial interests but was answering a higher calling to become a Jesuit priest.  His father was devastated.  Tom would leave the U.S. for Europe and Rome.

William and Ellen decided then to spend their last years in their home in St. Louis.  Willie’s body would be buried there in the Calvary Cemetery with them along with Charles Celestine Sherman, an infant son conceived at Big Black River, whom the general had never seen.  (The baby had been born in 1864, when his father was driving on Atlanta.  Sherman learned of his death from a Savanah newspaper six month later.)

But things changed, and St. Louis would not be their final home.  The children had moved East, and Ellen wanted to be near them.  In 1888, Sherman bought a house on West Seventy-first Street in New York.  Ellen’s health was deteriorating, and in November she died there.  It was a terrible blow to him.  Then, three years later, on February 14, 1891, William Tecumseh Sherman would also die, probably of pneumonia.

 The Civil War began as a “good war,” a gentlemanly affair in which the operations of the contending armies were to be carried out with the civil population as simple spectators.  It would not remain so.  Sherman carried out a policy that would bring the enemy civilians in the army’s path stress, privation and loss.  For that he received extensive condemnation, though future military figures would ultimately give him an impressive stamp of approval.

In the current U.S. Army’s doctrinal manual, FM 100-5, Sherman’s “indirect approach…not only carried on war against the enemy’s resources more extensively and systemically than anyone else had done, but he developed also a delicate strategy of terror directed against the enemy people’s mind.”

In the end, Sherman has come in death to enjoy all that he sought in life.  The “fair fame” he sought in life had finally come to him.

 ______________________________________________

 

 “War is cruelty, and you cannot redefine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out.” Sherman’s justification for “hard war”.   Sherman   

 (Sherman succeeded U. S. Grant as Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Army in 1861, retired in1883, and died in 1891.)

 

(In 1844, the Sisters of the Holy Cross founded the St. Mary’s Academy in Bertrand, MI.  In 1855, they moved it to South Bend, IN.  Its founder, Mother Angela Gillespie was a cousin of Ellen Ewing Sherman.  (William Tecumseh Sherman would not allow his children to be educated in Catholic schools.)  In 1864, Ellen took temporary residence in South Bend so her young family could be formally educated at Notre Dame and St. Mary’s Academy.  The academy gradually became today’s St. Mary’s College.  Minnie Sherman was the first female to become a student at Notre Dame!)

 _____

Resources

Fellman, Michael.  Citizen Sherman: a life of William Tecumseh Sherman. Lawrence:

      University Press of Kansas, 1995. 

Flood, Charles Bracelen.  Grant and Sherman.  New York:  Harper Perenniel, 2005.

Kennett, Lee B.  Sherman: a Soldier’s Life.  New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2001.

McNeely, Patricia G.  Sherman’s Flame & Blame Campaign. Columbia, S.C., 2014.

                              

 

Time to Set the Record Straight on Slavery

 

James Simpson, American Thinker, September 30, 2019

{snip}

A look into the past is instructive. According to Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, 12.5 million African slaves were shipped to the New World between 1525 and 1866, and 10.7 million (about 86 percent) survived the trip. Of these, only 450,000 (about 4 percent of the total) were sent to America. The rest were shipped to South America and the Caribbean. Brazil alone received 4.9 million. {snip} And the black slave trade to the West pales in comparison to the white and black slave trade conducted by Muslim nations of Africa and the Middle East in its barbarity and numbers.

The much larger and infinitely more barbaric Muslim slave trade began in about 711, capturing both whites and blacks in numbers much higher than those taken by the West, and Muslim slave-traders provided over 80% of those black slaves sold to the West. Of the slaves captured by Muslims for their own use, 80 to 90 percent died on the way to market. Of those shipped to North Africa for sale to Western slavers, about 30–50 percent died enroute. Males slated for Muslim markets were castrated. Only 25 percent survived the operation. Their descendants in those nations are much smaller in number because most male African slaves were used as eunuchs and worked to death. Estimates of total black enslavement in Muslim nations range from 11 million to 32 million. Given the high mortality rate of capture and transport, the impact on black African tribes must have been genocidal.

The Muslim Ottomans, the Barbary pirates, Crimean Tatars, and Turks enslaved European, Russian, Mediterranean, and Caucasus whites between the 15th and 19th centuries. According to The Islamic Trade in European Slaves by Emmet Scott, the most conservative estimate is 15 million white slaves. Women and boys were preferred. Most of the women were sold into sex slavery, while boys were castrated and used as eunuchs. Crimean Tatars, who enslaved about 3 million, gave older men of little value to Tatar youths, who killed them for sport.{snip}

Scott writes:

The great humanitarian impulse to end slavery, from the late eighteenth century onwards, came entirely from the Christian West, and by the mid-nineteenth century it was stamped out completely in most Christian lands.

In the Middle East, it was officially ended only due to pressure from the West:

That slavery no longer exists (officially at least) in the majority of Muslim territories is due entirely to the efforts of Westerners, and in fact Muslim societies vigorously resisted all attempts by Europeans to stamp out the slave trade in Africa during the nineteenth and early twentieth century. It was not in until the second half of the twentieth century that slavery was finally abolished in the Gulf States and the Arabian Peninsula — after intense Western pressure. Is it not about time that some of this information got through to students in our schools and colleges?

But slavery has not been abolished. Mauritania, the last nation to publicly condone slavery, officially outlawed it finally in 2007.  However, the truth is that slavery in Mauritania is alive and well, with as much as 10-20 percent of the population (340,000 to 680,000) in bondage. Algeria (106,000), Sudan (35,000 or more), Libya (48,000), and certain other nations still practice slavery.  {snip}

Original Article

 

 

Selected Women of the Civil War

 Too large to be presented in one program, this PowerPoint features some of the contributions of Civil War era women. The role of women in caring for the sick and wounded and on the home-front is covered in this program. Women spies and soldiers will be the focus of another. The PowerPoint program contains additional information in the Notes section of each slide that the PDF version does not contain. The PDF version, however, takes up much smaller memory. A sample of some of the women featured in the program is below. To access the entire program, click on the format you prefer:  PowerPoint    PDF  (This version contains information about three Confederate nurses.)  A SUVCW version without these slides on Confederate Women is available in either format: PowerPoint   PDF.  

Flagbearers and Color-guards in the Civil War

 A review of the human cost of carrying an American or Confederate flag during our nation's most costly war.  Among the many inspirational stories of our ancestors, read about the war of attrition between the 24th Michigan and the 26th North Carolina at Gettysburg on July 1, 1863. Both regiments suffered the heaviest number of casualties in either army during their encounter. The Union regiment lost 9 Color-bearers and the Confederate regiment lost 14 such men that day. The survivors of the 26th went on to lose another 8 color-bearers in Picket's Charge two days later--a total of 22 men who carried their colors into battle over three days. This doesn't include the loss of several dozen more men who comprised the color guard for the Regiment. To download a PDF version of this program, click HERE.  

A few of the 55 slides for the program are shown below.  We hope that education about the important role our flag has played in the preservation of freedom in our nation and around the world will result in fewer instances of it being burned and destroyed in 'protests' in the future. This version discusses both important examples of heroism on the part of both Union and Confederate flag-bearers and color guards. A SUVCW PowerPoint that concentrates on Union regiments and soldiers is available HERE.