He was named after an enemy of the United States. Â
He was proslavery despite his loyalty to the Union. Â He burned and pillaged an already beaten foe on a march history will never forget.
If, as he famously said, "war is hell," William Tecumsah Sherman can be classified as a flamethrower of ruthless ferocity. Â Defined by his contradictions, Sherman achieved immortality in his role as Ulysses Grant's hammer in the Civil War. Â A failed banker and lawyer, Sherman found his calling with the outbreak of war in 1861. Â With indecision a common ailment among Union generals early the conflict, Sherman's temperment and unwavering focus on the mission at hand-preserving the Union-helped shift the fortunes of North and South.
Authors Agostino Von Hassell and Ed Breslin present Sherman as once man and phenomenon. Â From Bull Run to Shiloh, from Vicksburg to Chattanooga, and from Atlanta to Savannah, Sherman carved the Confederacy with a feral singularity of purpose. Â At times disheveled and informal to a fault, "Uncle Billy" became a hero whose legend only grew with allegations of villainy.
