[lit-ideas] Sherman's army, passing in review
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Lit-Ideas" <Lit-Ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2008 08:12:50 -0700
From The Soul of Battle by Victor Davis Hanson, p 123 ff
". . . a triumphant parade marched through Washington D.C. By all
contemporary accounts the army of William Tecumseh Sherman both delighted -
and awed - the Washington crowd. Sherman himself, who rode with his men
like a Roman imperator, was proud of that dual nature of his soldiers, an
army of deadly democratic avengers that had burnt its way through Georgia in
wonderful order, ruining for the cause of freedom the rich countryside in
its path. The narrative of his memoirs closes with a description of that
last ceremonial march of his men:
'It was in my judgment, the most magnificent army in existence - sixty-five
thousand men, in splendid physique, who had just completed a march of nearly
two thousand miles in a hostile country. . . . The steadiness and firmness
of the tread, the careful dress on the guides, the uniform intervals between
the companies, all eyes directly to the front, and the tattered and
bullet-riven flags, festooned with flowers, all attracted universal notice.
Many good people, up to that time, had looked upon our Western army as a
sort of mob; but the world then saw, and recognized the fact, that it was an
army in the proper sense, well organized, well commanded and disciplined;
and there was no wonder that it had swept through the South like a tornado.
For six hours and a half the strong tread of the Army of the West resounded
along Pennsylvania Avenue; not a soul of that vast crowd of spectators left
his place, and, when the rear of the column had passed by, thousands of
spectators still lingered to express their sense of confidence in the
strength of a Government which could claim such an army.'
. . .
"Sherman's was an army that was wilder and more rugged than other Northern
corps, and yet still far better equipped, disciplined organized - and more
lethal - than the battle-hardened veterans of the South it opposed in 1864.
. . . Sherman's Westerners, who had routed or bypassed all veteran Southern
forces. . . made the well drilled and veteran Army of the Potomac look in
comparison somewhat soft . . . Other observers that May afternoon at once
perceived the Westerners' army's incongruous ferocity and recklessness
beneath its veneer of seeming order and precision. On the following day,
May 24, the New York Times described Sherman's army as 'tall, erect, broad
shouldered men, the peasantry of the west, the best material on earth for
armies. . . .'
"Most contemporaries naturally compared Grant's and Sherman's men, noting
that it was much harder to distinguish officers from enlisted men in the
Army of the West. Sherman's troops walked even talked, differently from the
other corps; they somehow seemed 'more intelligent, self-reliant, and
determined.' Marching through an enemy country and destroying its economic
infrastructure and social strata - while losing less than 1 percent of an
army - can instill confidence in soldiers in a way that camp life,
entrenchment, and even ferocious set battles cannot..
"Sherman's enlisted men themselves were aware that the Union's other great
army had settled in Virginia and ended there, while they had started in
Tennessee, marched through Georgia and the Carolinas, and finished their
circle ten months later right beside the sluggish Army of the Potomac. A
soldier from the 7th Iowa wrote . . . of Sherman's men and the Army of the
Potomac, 'The difference in the two armies is this: They have remained in
camp and lived well; we have marched, fought and gone hungry and ended the
war.' A Minnesota recruit scoffed of the Easterners, 'The more I see of
this Army [Potomac] the more I am disgusted with operations for the last
years. If there had been an army worth anything here, Richmond would have
fallen three years ago.'
"Sherman's veterans failed to appreciate that their corps, except for normal
furloughs, were one and the same army that had left Atlanta a half a year
earlier. In that sense, their esprit de corps was more akin to
Epaminondas's hoplites than to Grant's army, which, in contrast, was in
reality a continually metamorphosing body. In its revolving-door manner of
mustering, thousands of its crack troops were to be killed in a series of
harrowing assaults in the Wilderness (May 5-12, 1864), Cold Harbor (June 3,
1864), and outside Petersburg (June-October 1864), always to be replaced by
a continual stream of raw and often anonymous human fodder. . . . in
contract, the Westerners under Sherman believed that their particular men
alone would both win and survive the war.
". . . by late summer 1864, those with Sherman felt that in the year to come
they would live, while a great many with grant knew they would probably die.
Not one soldier in Sherman's army pinned paper with his name to his back -
the nineteenth century equivalent of dogs tags - as he marched toward
battle. The Ohioan C. B. Welton wrote home of his general that Sherman 'was
a great military genius who depends upon his brains to win his victories
instead of the lives of his men.' . . . ."
"The outward appearance of invincibility of the Westerners was due in large
part to the fact that they had fought and marched together for over a year
and had survived the ordeal. When General Peter Osterhaus's 15th Corps
marched past the Washington reviewing stand - they had occupied the southern
wing during Sherman's March to the Sea - the German ambassador remarked, 'An
army like that could whip all Europe.' Of the 20th Corps - half of
Sherman's renamed Army of Georgia - that followed, he added, 'An army like
that could whip the world.' And finally when its sister corps, the 14th
under the fiery General Jefferson C. Davis, passed, he concluded, 'An army
like that could whip the devil.'"
Comment:
In evaluating Sherman's reputation one must take into account that Sherman
was until the end usually under orders. He was the North's best general but
it wasn't properly realized and Sherman wasn't a politician or one to put
himself forward. He was simply the best. When Grant created a plan,
Sherman might voice his objection, and Grant would listen to him. Grant had
great respect for Sherman, but he had great confidence in himself as well.
As often as not Grant ordered Sherman to follow orders. Sherman would then
do his best in an effort he told Grant in advance could not succeed. The
superficial hold that against Sherman. The military historian B. H.
Liddell Hart was perhaps the first to sift through the records and obtain a
true view of when Sherman was operating on his own and when he was operating
under orders.
Lawrence
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