[lit-ideas] Sherman's Memoirs, the Introduction

David,

I just received my copy of Sherman's Memoirs and read the introduction,
written by Michael Fellman, Professor of History at Simon Fraser University
in Vancouver, British Columbia.

A person would have to be really committed to go ahead and read the memoirs
after reading Fellman's introduction.  Fellman didn't like or respect
Sherman.   Sherman won his battles only because the Confederates did
something stupid.   Sherman was a wreck of a human.  Fellman didn't admire
Sherman's abilities (as Liddell Hart or Victor Hanson do), he thought him a
monster: "Both his anger and his coldness remain deeply troubling, not
merely because he was a monster  . . . he was a kind of self-appointed,
legendary figure . . . "

We spoke just the other day about the absence of any American interested in
rehabilitating Sherman's reputation.   Fellman seems to be Canadian (unless
he is an America who chose to live in Canada . . . you don't suppose he
burnt his . . . nah) but he clearly isn't interested doing it.  I can see
from Amazon.com that he has written a full length biography of Sherman.
Why?    

Here is an Amaxon.com review of Fellman's biography of Sherman:   "I did not
like this book when I read it, and I thought even less of it after I heard
the author speak! In his biography---and talks---of Sherman, writer Michael
Fellman commits one of the most unforgivable errors possible: Fellman judges
Sherman, not by the man that he was as framed by events in the 19th century,
but rather by Fellman's own, modern-day, extremely liberal views. This fact
alone renders Fellman's work of highly questionable value."

After mentioning that no American, to my knowledge, had taken up the task of
rehabilitating Sherman's reputation (although Hanson does it in a small way,
giving Sherman a third of his The Soul of Battle), I mentioned that he was
in a similar situation to Cromwell in England.  A lurker thought that
Sherman was sure to be rehabilitated before Cromwell and sent me the
following apparently fairly-current-ditty from Ireland:

Pat McGuigan 
Chorus:
Armored cars and tanks and guns
Came to take away our sons!
But every man must stand
Behind the men behind the wire! 
In the little streets of Belfast,
In the dark of early morn,
British soldiers came a-running,
Wrecking little homes with scorn.
Hear the sobs of crying children,
Dragging fathers from their beds;
Watch the scenes as helpless mothers
Watch the blood fall from their heads.
Chorus:         2. Not for them a judge or jury,
Nor for them a crime at all,
Being Irish means they're guilty,
So they're guilty one and all.
Around the world the truth will echo:
Cromwell's men are here again!
England's name again is sullied
In the eyes of honest men.
Chorus: 
3. Proudly march behind our banner;
Proudly march behind our men!
We will have them free to help us
Build a nation once again!
Come the people, step together,
Proudly, firmly on your way;
Never fear and never falter,
Till the boys come home to stay!
Chorus:         

Although I suspect the Irish and Scots will be hard on Cromwell long after
the English have forgiven him.
Lawrence Helm
San Jacinto

Other related posts: