“The Civil War in Kentucky” is a 10-part series recently published in my Journey Log entitled “Surrounding Fort Knox, including Southern Indiana.” It deals primarily with the Central Kentucky Theater. I present it here as a series of individual blogs for my readers. Links to the previously published chapters will be provided at the end of each blog. Look for them on each Saturday morning! (A link to the book and its Table of Contents is found here.)
Chapter 2: Surrounding Sherman and Grant
William Tecumseh Sherman [1820-1891] was famous for his relationship with Ulysses S. Grant [1822-1885]. Together they would win the Civil War, although when it started, their part in the story would not be so obviously told.
Sherman was from a large Ohio family [eleven children], fathered by a noted Ohio Jurist who died of Typhoid Fever when Sherman was just nine years old. The child was sent to the family of friend Thomas Ewing to be raised. He was warmly accepted into that family and would later marry Thomas Ewing’s daughter, Eleanor.
Political connections were part of Sherman’s initial military adventures. His foster father, Thomas Ewing, became a United States Senator and Secretary of the Interior. Later, his younger brother, John Sherman, would also become a Senator, as well as Secretary of State.
When Sherman [called “Cump” by family and friends] was 15, his adoptive father secured his appointment to the West Point Military Academy. Grant would enter West Point just as Sherman was finishing up his training there.
During the Mexican War [1846-1848], Sherman was not assigned to combat duties, instead being stationed in the emerging state of California as an Administrator. One can wonder if his well-connected relatives were responsible for keeping Sherman out of the line of fire. More than 500 graduates of West Point would fight in the Mexican War. That war became the crucible of training for officers who would lead Armies for both sides of the Civil War, thirteen years later. And many of these officers would come to face Sherman on the field of battle!
Henry Halleck [“Old Brains,” for his scholarly studies] was also assigned to California with Sherman, and would later figure in prominently in both Sherman’s and Grant’s Civil War career in Kentucky. Halleck would end up as the “General in Chief” of the Union Armies.
When Sherman married Ellen Ewing in Washington D.C. in 1850, the strength of his political connections was clear. President Zachary Taylor attended, along with members of his Cabinet, including Thomas Ewing who was the first Secretary of the Interior. Supreme Court Justices attended, as did Senator Henry Clay and Representative Daniel Webster.
Sherman resigned his military commission in 1853, seeking greater economic opportunities. For four years, he served as the Chief Executive of the San Francisco Branch of a St. Louis Bank. During this time, he began to suffer serious attacks of asthma, which would plague him throughout his life. In addition, Sherman would face recurring bouts of malaria, probably contracted during the Seminole Wars of Florida in which he served right after graduation from West Point.
In California, Sherman faced down crises in the volatile banking market and even led the State Militia in attempting to moderate a growing Vigilance Committee. Then he acted as a member of the Grand Jury investigating a prominent San Francisco newspaper. He became the object of criticism. His reaction would prejudice him against journalists when he was later in Kentucky during the Civil War. He was rough on reporters, and the newspapers in Kentucky would quickly enough find reason to label him as “insane.”
In 1857, back in San Francisco to close out his affairs, Sherman once stumbled on Ulysses S. Grant, whom he recognized from West Point. Grant, too, had struggled, having also resigned from the Military in an unsuccessful attempt to establish a career in business. Sherman was 37. Grant was 35. I wonder if Grant looked up at the taller Sherman, admiring him for having “made it” in the banking business. In a few short years, their roles would be reversed as General Sherman became General Grant’s most trusted weapon, a sword with which to slice through the Southern Rebellion.
The career of Ulysses S. Grant is not the subject of this volume. But his activity in the western region of our Commonwealth, including the Battle of Belmont, the Battle of Paducah, and his two river campaigns to take Forts Henry and Donelson, figure in. That is where Sherman would join Grant after being dismissed as Commander in Louisville following his emotional breakdown as described further on herein. So a short history of the early life of Ulysses S. Grant ties into what Sherman would become, and is instructive.
Like Sherman, Grant was also born in Ohio. Unlike Sherman, Ulysses S. Grant had no political connections, although his austere father, a tannery owner, wrangled a West Point invitation without even telling him. Weighing only 117 pounds and standing at 5’1” in height, Grant was 17 years old when he entered West Point in 1839.
In 1860, at age 38, he would enter the Civil War at 5’8” tall, weighing 135 pounds. He owned a reputation as an exceptional horseman, with a record of valor and logistics while fighting in all of the major battles of the Mexican War. Captain Grant married his betrothed of four years, Julia Dent, upon his return from that war. Soon to be Confederate General James Longstreet was his Best Man.
Grant’s marriage was a happy one by all accounts. After four years together, Grant was assigned to duty in California. Pregnant with their second child, Julia was advised not to take the ship trip from New York through the jungle land crossing over the Isthmus of Panama, loading back onto a second ship for the final leg to San Francisco. Their caution proved prescient. A Cholera epidemic killed almost a third of the soldiers and their families on that voyage.
Alone for a year and one-half without his family, and finally posted to the California wilderness at Fort Humboldt more than 200 miles north of San Francisco, Grant started drinking. Drunk on the job, Grant’s superiors gave him a choice. Either resign or face court-martial. In 1854, one year after Sherman resigned, Captain Ulysses S. Grant became a civilian.
For six years, Grant struggled, first as a Missouri farmer, then a firewood salesman, and eventually a real estate agent. In all of these endeavors, he failed, being finally relegated to work as a clerk in one of his father’s stores selling leather.
Sherman, too, had ended up working for his wife’s father in his Kansas real estate operations. Learning that Louisiana had set up a new Military Academy [which would eventually become Louisiana State University], he applied to be its first Superintendent. Then located in Pineville, across the Red River from Alexandria in Louisiana, Sherman was hired in November, 1859.
Sherman, like Grant, had no particular issue with southern slavery [Grant’s father, however, maintained stern opposition to slavery and did not attend Grant’s wedding into a slave-holding family]. But they both had strong feelings opposing secession. In January 1861, Louisiana seceded from the Union. Sherman resigned from the Academy and headed back north to his family.
The war was on, and the United States needed Army Officers. Both Sherman and Grant were soon commanding again. Grant as Colonel of the 21st Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment, and Sherman as Colonel of the 13th U.S. Infantry Regiment after initially commanding an Ohio volunteer brigade.
Previous Chapters
Chapter 1: The History of the Civil War in Kentucky
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