Like Grant, Sherman was born in Ohio; the former in a log house at Mt. Pleasant, 1822, the latter at Lancaster, Feb. 8, 1820.

His ancestor, Edmund Sherman, came from Dedham, England, to Massachusetts, with his three sons, in 1634. From his son Samuel, who was one of the original proprietors of Woodbury, Conn., came the noted general, through a line of ministers and lawyers.

The grandfather, Taylor Sherman, was a judge in Norwalk, Conn., and one of the commissioners appointed by the State to go to Huron and Erie Counties, Ohio, to settle some land matters with regard to the Indians. He received two sections of land for his services.

His wife, Betsey, was a woman, says E. V. Smalley, in the Century for January, 1884, "of uncommon strength of character, who was always called on to give advice in times of trouble to her whole circle of relatives and descendants—a strong-willed, intelligent, managing woman.... To Grandmother Betsey might be attributed the talent of the later members of the family."

Her son Charles, admitted to the bar at twenty, married Mary Hoyt, and soon went to Lancaster, Ohio. He returned in a year, and took his young wife and baby over six hundred miles on horseback to the new home in the West, where ten other children were born, the eleven comprising six boys and five girls.

WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN.

The third son, William, was named Tecumseh after the famous Indian chief, who died at the battle of Tippecanoe. When the child was four years old, the father was appointed a judge of the supreme court of Ohio, but died suddenly in Lebanon while on the bench, after he had held the position for five years.

Mrs. Sherman found her home full of children, with an annual income of only two hundred and fifty dollars with which to support them. Her husband had been loved for his genial nature and his generous heart, so that friends were not wanting to help the young mother bear her burdens.

John, the now well-known senator, was sent to an uncle in Mount Vernon, another to a friend in Cincinnati, and Tecumseh to the home of the Hon. Thomas Ewing, a prominent United States Senator from Ohio.

The lad of nine attended the village schools till he was sixteen, when, through the influence of Mr. Ewing, he entered the Military Academy at West Point. He had no love for warlike pursuits, but looked forward to becoming a civil engineer in the far West.

He had all along cared for history, travel, and fiction, but never especially for battles. He enjoyed out-door sports, and long rambles with rod and gun. He studied well while at West Point, standing high in drawing, chemistry, mathematics, and philosophy, reaching the sixth place in a class of forty-three at his graduation in 1840.

He was never fond of display, and had no relish for the minutiÆ of dress and drill. "Men who have successfully conducted great campaigns, and fought great battles, have not," says Mr. Smalley, "as a rule, taken much interest in the polishing of buttons, or the exact alignment of a company of troops."

Soon after graduating, young Sherman, tall, slender, with auburn hair and hazel eyes, a second lieutenant in the Third Artillery, was sent to Florida to keep in check the Seminole Indians. After two winters he was transferred to Fort Moultrie, near Charleston, South Carolina, as first lieutenant, where he remained for four years. Here he enjoyed Southern hospitality, and learned the character of the people and the topography of the country, both here and in Georgia. More than twenty years later, this knowledge was invaluable when he fought his battles at Atlanta and made his immortal March to the Sea.

War with Mexico was threatening; and in 1846 Sherman was sent to New York, and afterwards to Ohio, as a recruiting officer. When he heard of the battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma, May 8 and 9, he was eager to be at the front: recruiting, as he says in his memoirs, while "his comrades were actually fighting, was intolerable."

He was soon ordered to California, which his company reached, after a voyage of nearly two hundred days, by way of Cape Horn. At Rio Janeiro, "the beauty of whose perfect harbor words will not describe," they remained for a week, and the young Ohio officer enjoyed the delights of travel. He saw Dom Pedro and his Empress, the daughter of Louis Philippe of France, the Palace, the Botanic Gardens, the Emperor's coffee plantation, where the coffee-tree reminded him of "the red haw-tree of Ohio; and the berries were somewhat like those of the same tree, two grains of coffee being enclosed in one berry."

At Cape Horn, "an island rounded like an oven, after which it takes its name (ornos, oven)," they were followed by Cape-pigeons and albatrosses of every color. At Valparaiso they remained ten days, and enjoyed large strawberries in November. The last of January, 1847, they entered Monterey Bay, and saw live-oaks and low adobe houses, with red-tiled roofs, amid dark pine-trees.

The camp was soon established, and some of their six months' provisions hauled up the hillside in the old Mexican carts with wooden wheels, "drawn by two or three pairs of oxen yoked by the horns."

They brought a saw-mill and a grist-mill with them to the new country. Living was cheap, as cattle cost but eight dollars and fifty cents for the best, or about two cents a pound.

Sherman soon met Colonel FrÉmont, afterwards a candidate for the Presidency, General Kearney, and other officers noted in those early days of California. San Francisco was called Yerba Buena, and Sherman felt almost insulted when asked if he wished to invest money in land "in such a horrid place as Yerba Buena."

The best houses were single-story adobes; the population was about four hundred, mostly Kanakas, natives of the Hawaiian Islands.

Sherman spent much time in hunting deer and bear in the mountains back of the Carmel Mission, and could often in a single day load a pack-mule with the geese and ducks which he had shot. These geese would appear in profusion as soon as the fall rains caused the young oats to come up.

"The seasons in California," he writes, "are well marked. About October and November the rains begin, and the whole country, plains and mountains, becomes covered with a bright green grass, with endless flowers. The intervals between the rains give the finest weather possible. These rains are less frequent in March, and cease altogether in April and May, when gradually the grass dies and the whole aspect of things changes, first to yellow, then to brown, and by midsummer all is burnt up, and dry as an ash-leaf."

The "gold-fever" broke out in the spring of 1848. Thomas Marshall found some placer-gold fifteen miles above Mormon Island, in the bed of the American Fork of the Sacramento River. He had worked for Captain Sutter in his saw-mills, and seeing this gold in the tailrace of the saw-mill, tried at first to keep it a secret, after telling Sutter; but others soon found the yellow metal, and not only California, but the whole civilized world, was excited over the discovery.

Sutter's saw and grist mills soon went to decay. Men earned fifty, a hundred, and sometimes thousands of dollars a day, if they found a "pocket" of gold. Prices became fabulous. Flour and bacon and other eatables sold for a dollar a pound. A meal usually cost three dollars. Miners slept at night on the ground. All day they worked in cold water in the river-beds, their clothes wet; but no complaints were heard.

Soldiers deserted from the coast to join the gold-diggers. At one time six hundred ships were anchored at San Francisco, and could not get away for lack of crews. Sherman and his officers were obliged to pay three hundred dollars a month for a servant, or go without, as their own pay was but seventy dollars a month. Often they did their own work. Sherman cooked, and Lieutenant Ord cleaned the dishes, but "was deposed as a scullion because he would only wipe the tin plates with a tuft of grass, according to the custom of the country," says Sherman; "whereas, Warner insisted on having them washed after each meal with hot water. Warner was, in consequence, promoted to scullion, and Ord become the hostler."

Twice Sherman and some other officers visited the mines, being obliged to cross the Sacramento River in an Indian dug-out canoe. The unwilling horses and mules were driven into the water, following the one led by the man in the canoe. When across, several of the frightened creatures escaped into the woods, where they were recovered and brought back by the Indians.

The winter of 1848-49 was a serious one to the thousands of homeless men and women who had come to seek their fortunes in the mountains. The president had made the gold-finding the subject of a special message to Congress, and emigrants were pouring into California by land and by sea. Of course there was much hardship, much disregard of law, and extremes of poverty and wealth.

The winter of 1849-50 only deepened the distress. In crossing the plains and mountains many animals of the emigrants perished, and they themselves lacked food. One hundred thousand dollars were used to buy flour, bacon, etc., for these people, and men and mules were sent out by General Persifer F. Smith to meet and relieve them. In San Francisco, after the long rains, Sherman says: "I have seen mules stumble in the streets and drown in the liquid mud. Montgomery Street had been filled up with brush and clay, and I always dreaded to ride on horseback along it, because the mud was so deep that a horse's legs would become entangled in the brushes below, and the rider was likely to be thrown, and drown in the mud."

A room twenty by sixty feet for a store or gambling-saloon rented for a thousand dollars a month. Sherman took a share in a store, and thereby made fifteen hundred dollars, which helped him to live with these exorbitant prices. Later he made about six thousand dollars in three lots in Sacramento.

He returned East in January, 1850, on a leave of absence for six months. His comrades had fought great battles in Mexico, which he had not been able to share. "I thought it the last and only chance in my day," he writes, "and that my career as a soldier was at an end."

He visited his mother, then living at Mansfield, Ohio, and on the 1st of May, 1850, married, after an engagement of some years, Miss Ellen Boyle Ewing, daughter of the man who had adopted him in his childhood. Mr. Ewing was then Secretary of the Interior, and, of course, the wedding, on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, was a brilliant one. President Taylor and his cabinet, Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, and other leaders were present. In the fall of 1851 Sherman was made a captain in the Commissary Department, and ordered to St. Louis. The following year he was sent to New Orleans, to which city Mrs. Sherman went with her two children.

Seeing little prospect of advancement in the army, in 1853 Captain Sherman resigned his position, and became manager of a bank in San Francisco, a branch of a house in St. Louis.

On his way to California, when near the Pacific coast, the ship Lewis struck on a reef, and all came near losing their lives. Sherman, with his usual mastery over circumstances, sat on the hurricane deck with the captain, and while others prayed, or called for help, waited calmly, and was among the last to leave the ship. When all were safely on the beach, he scrambled up the bluff, and finally saw a schooner loaded with lumber, on which he asked a passage to the city of San Francisco, that he might send help to the wrecked.

This schooner capsized, and Sherman found himself in the water, mixed up with planks and ropes, steadily drifting out to sea. He was finally picked up by a boat, and as soon as possible he sent two steamers to the relief of the passengers of the Lewis, which went to pieces the night after they got off.

In the unsettled state of the country, the bank did not prove a success, and was closed May 1, 1857. Mrs. Sherman and her three children, Minnie, Lizzie, and Willie, returned to Lancaster, Ohio.

For a time Sherman became agent in New York for the St. Louis house; but the latter failing in the financial disturbances of the country, his business ventures seemed at an end, and Sherman returned to Lancaster, July 28, 1858.

"I was then perfectly unhampered," he says, "but the serious and greater question remained, what was I to do to support my family, consisting of a wife and four children, all accustomed to more than the average comforts of life?"

Like General Grant, he had resigned from the regular army that he might earn enough to support his family. Banking had been no more successful than Grant's leather business.

Two sons of Mr. Ewing had gone to Leavenworth, Kansas, where they had bought some land, and opened a law office. They offered Sherman a partnership, as he had read law considerably. He accepted the position, but soon found that he did not earn money enough, so began to manage a farm, forty miles west of Leavenworth, for his father-in-law.

This not proving more remunerative than Grant's farming, he offered himself to the army again in 1859, feeling, that a sure, though small, amount was better for his family than the uncertainties of business. He was soon appointed the superintendent of a military college about to be organized at Alexandria, Louisiana.

This position did not prove an easy one. The building was a large and handsome one in the midst of four hundred acres of pine-land, but there was not a table, chair, or black-board ready for beginning. Sherman immediately engaged some carpenters, and went to work with his usual energy.

Meantime, the slavery question bade fair to rend the Union asunder. South Carolina seceded Dec. 20, 1860, and Mississippi soon after. In the middle of January, 1861, Sherman wrote to the Governor of the State: "If Louisiana withdraw from the Federal Union, I prefer to maintain my allegiance to the Constitution as long as a fragment of it survives.... I beg you to take immediate steps to relieve me as superintendent, the moment the State determines to secede, for on no earthly account will I do any act or think any thought hostile to, or in defiance of, the old Government of the United States."

Sherman soon came North and visited his brother, Senator John Sherman. Both called upon Lincoln, and the President asked the soldier "how the people of the South were getting along." "They think," was the reply of Sherman, "they are getting along swimmingly—they are preparing for war."

"Oh, well!" said Lincoln, "I guess we'll manage to keep house."

April 1, through the influence of friends, Sherman was made President of the Fifth Street Railroad, in St. Louis, at a salary of twenty-five hundred dollars a year, and moved his family thither. Five days later, and six days before the attack on Sumter, April 12, 1861, he was asked to accept the chief clerkship of the War Department, with the promise that, when Congress met, he should be made Assistant Secretary of War. This offer he declined, as he had already moved his family to St. Louis, and did not feel at liberty to change his position.

He wrote later to Simon Cameron, Secretary of War, that he would not volunteer for three months, "Because," said he, "I cannot throw my family on the cold charity of the world," but for a three-years' call, good service might be done. He was appointed Colonel of the Thirteenth Regular Infantry, May 14, 1861, and again his family returned to Lancaster, Ohio.

The war feeling had been greatly intensified at the North by the death of Colonel E. Elmer Ellsworth, a young man of twenty-four, who had organized a body of Zouaves in Chicago, and had escorted President Lincoln to Washington. On May 24, when the Union forces crossed into Virginia, Ellsworth's Zouaves occupied Alexandria. A part of the troops were proceeding towards the centre of the town, when they saw a secession flag flying from the Marshall House.

Ellsworth ascended to the roof and pulled it down. The hotel keeper, James T. Jackson, shot him through the heart, and attempted to shoot Private Francis E. Brownell, who was with Ellsworth. Brownell at once shot Jackson through the head.

Brownell died at Washington, D.C., March 15, 1894.

The body of Colonel Ellsworth lay in state in the East Room of the White House for several hours. President Lincoln, and indeed the whole North, were deeply affected by his death.

Mr. Lincoln soon called for four hundred thousand men and four hundred million dollars, to carry on the war. Two Confederate armies were already before Washington; one at Manassas Junction under General Beauregard, the other at Winchester under General Joseph E. Johnston.

General Irvin S. McDowell, aged forty-three, of the Mexican War soldiers, had command of the Union forces, and Sherman held a brigade under him. The battle of Bull Run, or Manassas, was fought Sunday, July 21, with a loss on our side of 2,896, and on the Confederate of 1,982. Over thirty thousand men were in each army.

General John D. Imboden, in vol. 1 of that most interesting and valuable series, "Battles and Leaders of the Civil War," edited by Messrs. Johnson and Buel, tells the following incident of "Stonewall" Jackson in this battle. He had been wounded in the hand, but paid no attention to it, binding it up with his handkerchief, saying, "Only a scratch, a mere scratch," and galloped along his line. Three days later General Imboden found him at a little farm-house near Centreville. Jackson was bathing his hand at sunrise, in spring water. It was swollen and very painful. Mrs. Jackson had already come to him. "General," said Imboden, "how is it that you can keep so cool, and appear so utterly insensible to danger, in such a storm of shell and bullets as rained about you when your hand was hit?" referring to the Bull Run battle.

"Captain," he said, "my religious belief teaches me to feel as safe in battle as in bed. God has fixed the time for my death. I do not concern myself about that, but to be always ready, no matter when it may overtake me." After a pause, he said, "Captain, that is the one way all men should live, and then all would be equally brave."

Imboden apologized for the use of profanity on the battle-field, and Jackson simply remarked, "Nothing can justify profanity."

The men idolized Jackson, in part because he almost always succeeded. They trusted him without questioning. "Where are you going?" was once asked of some of his troops.

"We don't know," was the reply, "but old Jack does."

"It is now generally admitted," says Sherman, "that it [the Battle of Bull Bun] was one of the best planned battles of the war, but one of the worst fought.... Nearly all of us for the first time then heard the sound of cannon and muskets in anger, and saw the bloody scenes common to all battles, with which we were soon familiar. We had good organization, good men, but no cohesion, no real discipline, no respect for authority, no real knowledge of war. Both armies were fairly defeated, and whichever had stood fast, the other would have run."

Though the Union army retreated in great disorder, and the North was saddened thereby, Sherman and some others were made brigadier-generals for their bravery.

President Lincoln and Seward came to the Union camps soon after the battle. Lincoln said, in his homely fashion, "We heard that you had got over the big scare, and we thought we would come over and see the 'boys.'"

He stood up in the carriage and made a most feeling address, telling them how much devolved upon them, and how all looked for brighter days. When they began to cheer, he said, "Don't cheer, boys. I confess, I rather like it myself; but Colonel Sherman here says it is not military, and I guess we had better defer to his opinion."

A little later an officer who had attempted to go to New York without leave, and whom Sherman had threatened to shoot if he deserted at that critical time, approached the President, saying that he had a grievance, and that Colonel Sherman had threatened to shoot him.

With that rare good sense for which Lincoln was famous, and knowing that his leaders must be supported in authority, he bent over toward the aggrieved officer, and said in a loud whisper, "Well, if I were you, and he threatened to shoot, I would not trust him, for I believe he would do it." Sherman afterwards thanked the President for his confidence.

Soon after this General Sherman was assigned to the department of the Cumberland, under General Robert Anderson, formerly at Fort Sumter. Anderson's health failing, Sherman soon took his place. Mr. Cameron, Secretary of War, having a consultation with Sherman, the latter complained that he had only eighteen thousand men, whereas two hundred thousand men were needed to destroy all the opposition in the Mississippi Valley.

It soon came out in the papers that Sherman was "crazy," as at that time the North seemed to have no adequate idea of the immensity of the work in hand. The succeeding years proved that Sherman was right in his estimate of the power and purpose of the South in its war against the Union.

Sherman was relieved by General Buell, and the "insane" general was ordered to take charge of a Camp of Instruction. Hurt by the cruel charge, he still performed his duties "for a country and government," as he said, "worth fighting for, and dying for if need be."

Early in 1862 Grant had won some great victories at Forts Henry and Donelson, on the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers. The latter fort, under General Buckner, surrendered Feb. 16, with sixty-five guns, seventeen thousand six hundred small arms, and nearly fifteen thousand troops.

Major-General Grant was now commanding the Army of the Tennessee under Halleck, and Sherman was assigned to a division under Grant. The latter held about the same "crazy" idea that Sherman held,—that the Southerners were hard and brave fighters, and would never surrender till forced to it through exhaustion of men and money.

The next great battle was at Shiloh, or Pittsburg Landing, begun by the Confederates Sunday, April 6, 1862, and lasting two days. The first day our men were driven back a mile with heavy loss. General Albert Sidney Johnston, the commander-in-chief of the Confederates, was struck about 2 P.M. by a minie-ball in the calf of the leg, which penetrated the boot and severed the main artery. His horse was shot in four places. He would not leave the field till compelled by loss of blood, and died soon after.

Dr. D. W. Yandell, who had been with Johnston, left him to establish a hospital for the wounded, among them many Federals. "These men were our enemies a moment ago," said Johnston; "they are our prisoners now. Take care of them." Had Yandell remained with him, his life would probably have been saved, as the wound would have been attended to.

"During the whole of Sunday," says Grant, "I was continually engaged in passing from one part of the field to another, giving directions to division commanders. In thus moving along the line, I never deemed it important to stay long with Sherman. Although his troops were then under fire for the first time, their commander, by his constant presence with them, inspired a confidence in officers and men that enabled them to render services on that bloody battle-field worthy of the best of veterans.

"A casualty to Sherman that would have taken him from the field that day would have been a sad one for the troops engaged at Shiloh. And how near we came to this! On the 6th, Sherman was shot twice—once in the hand, once in the shoulder, the ball cutting his coat and making a slight wound, and a third ball passed through his hat. In addition to this, he had several horses shot during the day."

Later, Colonel James B. McPherson's horse was shot quite through, just back of the saddle, but the poor creature carried his rider out of danger before he dropped dead.

Both armies slept on their arms that night in a pouring rain, and the next morning, April 7, renewed the fight, with a hard won victory for the Union forces. So dreadful was the conflict that Grant writes, "I saw an open field, in our possession on the second day, over which the Confederates had made repeated charges the day before, so covered with dead that it would have been possible to walk across the clearing in any direction, stepping on dead bodies, without a foot touching the ground.... On one part, which had evidently not been ploughed for several years, probably because the land was poor, bushes had grown up, some to the height of eight or ten feet. There was not one of these left standing unpierced by bullets. The smaller ones were all cut down."

Our loss in killed, wounded, and missing was 13,573; the Confederates reported their loss as 10,699, but General Grant thinks it was much greater.

The battle had been bravely and desperately fought on both sides. About five hundred yards east of Shiloh meeting-house there had been a deadly combat. Several times cartridges gave out; but Sherman appealed to the regiments to "stand fast," as their retiring would have a bad effect on others, and the men heroically kept their posts. Sherman's division lost over two thousand men.

Grant said, in his official report, "I feel it a duty to a gallant and able officer, Brigadier-General W. T. Sherman, to make mention that he was not only with his command during the entire two days of action, but displayed great judgment and skill in the management of his men."

Halleck said, "Sherman saved the fortunes of the day on the 6th, and contributed largely to the glorious victory on the 7th."

When on the 8th it was found that the enemy had retreated, "leaving killed, wounded, and much property by the way," says Sherman, "we all experienced a feeling of relief. The struggle had been so long, so desperate and bloody, that the survivors seemed exhausted and nerveless. We appreciated the value of the victory, but realized also its great cost of life."

Sherman was promoted to the position of major-general May 1. During June and July he was "building railroad-trestles and bridges, fighting off cavalry detachments coming from the South, and waging an everlasting quarrel with planters about the negroes and fences, they trying, in the midst of moving armies, to raise a crop of corn."

The desire now was to get complete possession of the Mississippi River. Admiral Farragut had taken New Orleans, after the dreadful passage of Forts Jackson and St. Philip. The brave old admiral had said, "If I die in the attempt, it will only be what every officer has to expect. He who dies in doing his duty to his country, and at peace with his God, has played the drama of life to the best advantage."

With his six sloops-of-war, sixteen gunboats, twenty-one schooners, and five other vessels, forty-eight in all, carrying two hundred guns, all led by the Hartford, Farragut pushed his way through a sea of fire. Five fire-rafts—flat boats, filled with dry wood smeared with tar and turpentine—blazed among his ships, while shot and shell strewed his decks with the dead; but he cut his way to victory, and won immortal honor.

Memphis had been captured by our gunboats and rams, under Admiral Davis, June 6. Of the eight Confederate gunboats in the flotilla, three, the Lovell, Beauregard, and Thompson, were destroyed by our vessels; four were captured and repaired for our use; while one, the Van Dorn, escaped. Five transports and some cotton were taken, and a large ram and two tugs on the stocks were destroyed.

Sherman was ordered to go to Memphis to take command of the district of West Tennessee. When he entered the city, the stores, churches, and schools were closed. He caused these and the places of amusement to be opened, and put the fugitive slaves to work on the fortifications, and gave them food and clothing.

The story is told of an Episcopal clergyman who came to Sherman, saying that he was embarrassed about his prayer for the President.

"Whom do you regard as President?" said Sherman.

"Mr. Davis," was his reply.

"Very well; pray for Jeff Davis if you wish. He needs your prayers badly. It will take a great deal of praying to save him."

"Then I will not be compelled to pray for Mr. Lincoln?"

"Oh, no. He is a good man, and don't need your prayers. You may pray for him if you feel like it, but there's no compulsion."

To some of the editors in Memphis, Sherman said, "If I find the press of Memphis actuated by high principle and a sole devotion to their country, I will be their best friend; but if I find them personal, abusive, dealing in innuendoes and hints at a blind venture, and looking to their own selfish aggrandizement and fame, then they had better look out; for I regard such persons as greater enemies to their country and to mankind than the men who, from a mistaken sense of State pride, have taken up muskets, and fight us about as hard as we care about."

Sherman went to the Argus office one day, and, in his familiar manner, said to the young editors, as he sat down and rested his feet on the table: "Boys, I have been ordered to suppress your paper, but I don't like to do that. I just dropped in to warn you not to be so free with your pencils. If you don't ease up, you'll get into trouble."

When some complained of the acts of the soldiers, Sherman replied that he knew of several instances where their conduct had been provoked by sneering remarks about "Northern barbarians" and "Lincoln's hirelings." "People who use such language," he said, "must seek redress through some one else, for I will not tolerate insults to our country or cause."

All sorts of ruses were adopted by the Southern army to obtain things from Memphis. While General Van Dorn was at Holly Springs, he desired supplies for his men. Some of our soldiers found, in a farmer's barn, a large hearse with pall and plumes, which had been used at a big funeral. It was filled with medicines for Van Dorn's army! "It was a good trick," said Sherman, "but diminished our respect for such pageants afterward."

In December there was a concerted movement by Grant and Sherman to capture Vicksburg. The latter was to move down the river, and with Admiral Porter's gunboats, "proceed," said Grant, "to the reduction of that place in such manner as circumstances and your own judgment may dictate." Sherman was to make the attack by land, in the rear, while Porter attacked by river front. Three divisions of Sherman's army were landed in the low, marshy lands, cut by the Chickasaw Bayou and other creeks, where a slight rise in the Mississippi River would drown them all. The bluffs of Walnut Hills, on which Vicksburg stands, are two hundred feet high, and impregnable.

Against these the fearless troops were led Dec. 29, with great slaughter. De Courcy's brigade of Morgan's division, and Frank Blair's brigade of Steele's division, with the Fourth Iowa, were under the hottest fire. De Courcy lost 700, Blair 743, and the Fourth Iowa 111 men; the Confederate loss was only about 187.

Sherman says, "The men of the Sixth Missouri actually scooped out with their hands caves in the bank, which sheltered them against the fire of the enemy, who, right over their heads, held their muskets outside the parapet vertically, and fired down. So critical was the position, that we could not recall the men till after dark, and then one at a time. Our loss had been pretty heavy, and we had accomplished nothing."

It was evident that Vicksburg must be taken in some other manner. Grant decided to cut a canal across the peninsula opposite Vicksburg, that he might get below the city. All through January and February, Sherman's men were digging the canal, planned to be sixty feet wide and nine feet deep, and fighting off the Mississippi, which continued to rise, and threatened to drown them. When the men were not digging canals, they were clearing bayous, which were filled with cypress and cottonwood trees. Sometimes they marched at night through canebrakes, carrying lighted candles, Sherman walking with them, the water above his hips. The drummer-boys carried their drums on their heads, and the men slung their cartridge-boxes around their necks.

Admiral Porter, from his gunboats, used to send Sherman messages, written on tissue paper, concealed in a piece of tobacco. A negro carried them through the swamps.

Many weeks were spent on other canals, but all proved useless. Finally it was decided to move all the troops down the west bank of the river, cross over below Vicksburg, and attack it on the land side.

A series of battles followed at Port Gibson, Raymond, Jackson, Champion Hills, and Big Black. Grant had inflicted a loss upon the enemy during a few days of eight thousand in killed, wounded, and missing; had captured eighty-eight pieces of their artillery, and driven them into their defences at Vicksburg. "We must go back to the campaigns of Napoleon," says Francis Vinton Greene, lieutenant of engineers, "to find equally brilliant results accompanied in the same space of time with such small loss."

In these days of carnage, incidents even amusing happened. While Sherman and his troops were at Jackson, a fat man came to him and hoped that his hotel would not be burned, as he was a law-abiding Union man. Sherman said that this fact was manifest from the sign on his hotel, where the words "United States" had been faintly painted out and "Confederate Hotel" painted over it!

On May 22 the last assault was made on Vicksburg; and, though severe and bloody, it was unsuccessful, on account of the strength of the position, and the earnest fighting of the garrison.

"I have since seen the position at Sevastopol," writes Sherman, "and without hesitation I declare that at Vicksburg to have been the more difficult of the two."

It was during this dreadful assault that the drummer boy, Orion P. Howe, came to Sherman, calling out in a childish voice that one of the regiments was out of ammunition, and must abandon its position unless relief was sent. The general looked down from his horse upon the lad, and saw the blood running from a wound in the leg.

"All right, my boy," said Sherman, "I'll send them all they need; but as you seem to be badly hurt, you had better go to the rear and find a surgeon and let him fix you up."

The boy saluted and started for the rear; but again he came running back, shouting, "General, calibre fifty-eight, calibre fifty-eight!" fearing that the wrong size might be sent, and prove useless. He was afterwards, through Sherman, appointed a cadet at the Naval Academy, Annapolis.

The siege of Vicksburg was begun at once. Mines were dug by both sides and exploded. Chief Engineer S. H. Lockett, of the Confederates, tells how a private suggested the firing of a wicker case filled with cotton, which protected the Federals in their sapping. He took a piece of port-fire, put it into cotton soaked with turpentine and fired it from an old-fashioned bore musket. The wicker case took fire and burned up. Barrels of powder, lighted by a time-fuse, were thrown into the ranks of the besiegers.

As the weeks went by, the provisions for the soldiers and citizens of Vicksburg were well-nigh consumed. They ate rats and mules. Flour was five dollars a pound. Some of the people built rooms in the yellow clay banks, and thus escaped the shells.

The soldiers grew desperate. General Pemberton hoped they could cut their way out, and caused boats to be made out of some of the houses,—they planned to make two thousand,—which they could use in their escape down the river.

Finally, when all became hopeless, Pemberton said, "Far better would it be for me to die at the head of my army, even in a vain effort to force the enemy's lines, than to surrender it and live and meet the obloquy which I know will be heaped upon me. But my duty is to sacrifice myself to save the army which has so nobly done its duty to defend Vicksburg."

July 4, 1863, Pemberton surrendered his garrison of over thirty-one thousand men, sixty thousand muskets, and over one hundred and seventy cannon.

Grant said of Sherman, "His untiring energy and great efficiency during the campaign entitled him to a full share of all the credit due for its success. He could not have done more if the plan had been his own."

Before sunset of July 4, Sherman, with fifty thousand men, was in pursuit of Johnston, who had been trying to aid Pemberton. Johnston marched rapidly, driving all cattle, hogs, and sheep into the ponds, and shooting them, so that they should not furnish food for the Federals, and also to spoil the water. Johnston made a stand at Jackson, but soon evacuated the place.

For bravery and success in this campaign, Grant was made major-general in the regular army, the highest grade then allowed by law, and Sherman and McPherson brigadier-generals in the regular army.

After the fall of Vicksburg, Sherman's family, Mrs. Sherman, Minnie, Lizzie, Willie, and Tom, came from Ohio to visit him. Willie was nine years old, fond of the parade of war, and was made a "sergeant" in the regular battalion. He became ill in the low marshy country, and died of typhoid fever, just after the family reached the Gayoso Hotel in Memphis.

This death was a great blow to Sherman, as he showed in a letter which he wrote to Captain C. C. Smith, commanding Battalion Thirteenth United States Regulars: "I cannot sleep to-night till I record an expression of the deep feelings of my heart to you, and to the officers and soldiers of the battalion, for their kind behavior to my poor child.... The child that bore my name, and in whose future I reposed with more confidence than I did in my own plan of life, now being carried by steamer a mere corpse, seeking a grave in a distant land, with a weeping mother, brother, and sisters clustered about him. For myself I ask no sympathy. On, on I must go, to meet a soldier's fate, or live to see our country rise superior to all factions, till its flag is adored and respected by ourselves and by all the powers of the earth....

"Child as he was, he had the enthusiasm, the pure love of truth, honor, and love of country, which should animate all soldiers.... Assure each and all, if in after years they call on me or mine, and mention that they were of the Thirteenth Regulars when Willie was a sergeant, they will have a key to the affections of my family that will open all it has; that we will share with them our last blanket, our last crust!"

In the spring of 1867, Willie's body was removed from Lancaster, Ohio, to St. Louis, and buried by the side of another child, Charles, born in 1864. Sherman's officers and men erected a beautiful monument to Willie, and had inscribed on it, "Our little Sergeant Willie, from the First Battalion Thirteenth United States Infantry."

After the dreadful battle of Chickamauga, Ga., Sept. 20, 1863, in which we lost 15,851 men, and the Confederates 17,804, Grant went to Chattanooga to retrieve that disaster. In this battle Thomas, "who," says General Fullerton, "never retreated and had never been defeated," so wonderfully held his ground that he was ever afterwards called the "Rock of Chickamauga."

"With but twenty-five thousand men," said General Garfield, "formed in a semicircle, of which he himself was the centre and soul, he successfully resisted for more than five hours the repeated assaults of an army of sixty-five thousand men, flushed with victory and bent on his annihilation.

"Towards the close of the day his ammunition began to fail. One by one of his division commanders reported but ten rounds, five rounds, and two rounds left. The calm, quiet answer was returned, 'Save your fire for close quarters, and when your last shot is fired give them the bayonet.

"On a portion of this line the last assault was repelled by the bayonet, and several hundred rebels were captured. When night had closed over the combatants, the last sound of battle was the booming of Thomas's shells bursting among his baffled and retreating assailants."

Grant telegraphed to Thomas to hold Chattanooga at all hazards; and Thomas, with his troops on less than half rations for the past month, replied, "We will hold the town till we starve." He urged Sherman to come at once. Then followed those memorable battles of Lookout Mountain, when Hooker fought his "Battle above the clouds," and Missionary Ridge, when Wood's and Sheridan's divisions under Thomas lost in one hour's storming 2,287 men.

"Sherman was fighting the heavy column of the enemy on our left," said General Henry M. Cist, "and the main part of the battle had been his share." He lost about two thousand men.

At three o'clock the first rifle-pits on the ridge were to be carried, and there they were to halt to await orders. There was some delay, so that the order was not given till half-past three, when the guns sounded, one, two, up to six, for the charge.

The enemy had four lines of breastworks, but one had been captured by Thomas the day before. Three rifle-pits remained. As our men approached, cheering, and breaking into a double-quick, the enemy poured upon them shot and shell from their batteries, changing it soon to grape and canister, with a terrific fire of musketry.

"Dashing through this over the open plain," says General Cist, "the soldiers of the army of the Cumberland swept on, driving the enemy's skirmishers, charging down on the line of works at the foot of the ridge, capturing it at the point of the bayonet, and routing the rebels, sending them at full speed up the ridge, killing and capturing them in large numbers. These rifle-pits were reached simultaneously by the several commands, when the troops, in compliance with their instructions, lay down at the foot of the ridge awaiting further orders."

Here they waited under a hot fire. The orders did not come; and then without orders, first one regiment and then another, with their colors raised, pushed up the mountain covered with rocks and fallen timber.

The centre of Sheridan's division reached the crest first, and almost at the same time the ridge was carried in six places. Almost entire regiments were taken from the enemy, and batteries, the Confederates often bayoneted at their guns. In an hour the work had been accomplished, and the storming of Missionary Ridge had passed into history as a memorable instance of bravery. "After it was over," says General Fullerton, "some madly shouted, some wept from very excess of joy, some grotesquely danced out their delight,—even our wounded forgot their pain to join in the general hurrah."

Grant and Thomas were watching the battle through their glasses. Grant asked, "By whose orders are those troops going up the hill?"

"I don't know," said Thomas, "I did not."

"I didn't order them up," said Sheridan, "but we are going to take the ridge."

Grant remarked that "it was all right if it turned out all right, but, if not, some one would suffer."

By the capture of the ridge, Sherman was enabled to take the tunnel as he had been ordered. Captain S. H. M. Byers, who was captured at the tunnel with sixty of his regiment and put in Libby prison for seven months—the sixty were soon reduced to sixteen by death—thus describes the scene. "As the column came out upon the ground, and in sight of the rebel batteries, their renewed and concentrated fire knocked the limbs from the trees above our heads.... In front of us was a rail-fence. 'Jump the fence, boys,' was the order, and never was a fence scaled more quickly. It was nearly half a mile to the rebel position, and we started on the charge, running across the open fields. I had heard the roaring of heavy battle before, but never such shrieking of cannon balls and bursting of shells as met us on that run."

Sherman, in his official report, gave his officers and men due credit for their "patience, cheerfulness, and courage." "For long periods," he said, "without regular rations or supplies of any kind, they have marched through mud and over rocks, sometimes barefooted, without a murmur. Without a moment's rest after a march of over four hundred miles, without sleep for three successive nights, we crossed the Tennessee, fought our part of the battle of Chattanooga, pursued the enemy out of Tennessee, and then turned more than a hundred and twenty miles north, and compelled Longstreet to raise the siege of Knoxville."

Congress soon passed a resolution of thanks to Sherman and his army for their "gallant and arduous services in marching to the relief of the Army of the Cumberland, and for their gallantry and heroism in the battle of Chattanooga, which contributed in a great degree to the success of our arms in that glorious victory."

The grade of lieutenant-general was now revived in the army, and bestowed upon Grant. He wrote Sherman at once to "express my thanks to you and McPherson, as the men to whom, above all others, I feel indebted for whatever I have had of success. How far your advice and suggestions have been of assistance, you know. How far your execution of whatever has been given you to do entitles you to the reward I am receiving, you cannot know as well as I do."

And Sherman wrote back: "I believe you as brave, patriotic, and just as the great prototype Washington; as unselfish, kind-hearted, and honest as a man should be; but the chief characteristic in your nature is the simple faith in success you have always manifested, which I can liken to nothing else than the faith a Christian has in his Saviour.

"This faith gave you victory at Shiloh and Vicksburg. Also, when you have completed your best preparations, you go into battle without hesitation, as at Chattanooga—no doubts, no reserve; and I tell you that it was this that made us act with confidence. I knew, wherever I was, that you thought of me, and if I got in a tight place you would come—if alive."

Sherman at this time was put in command of the military division of the Mississippi, with Schofield, Thomas, McPherson, and Steele under him. Grant was to conquer Robert E. Lee and his large army at the East; and Sherman, Joseph E. Johnston's army at the West and South.

Supplies were at once gathered by Sherman at Chattanooga for one hundred thousand men, which would necessitate one hundred and thirty cars, of ten tons each, to reach that city daily. Confederate raids under Forrest and others were frequent; but, as in the case of Grant, nothing could deter Sherman.

On May 5, 1864, the great army started for Atlanta, Ga., prepared to fight its way. The men fought bravely at Resaca, at Allatoona Pass, and elsewhere.

During the month of May, Sherman had advanced his army, as he says, "nearly a hundred miles of as difficult a country as was ever fought over by civilized armies. The fighting was continuous, almost daily, among trees and bushes, on ground where we could rarely see a hundred yards ahead." Sherman had lost 9,299 men; nearly two thousand in killed and missing, and over seven thousand wounded. The enemy's loss was a little over half that number.

From June 10 to July 3 an almost constant battle was waged about Kenesaw Mountain, with a loss on our side of nearly eight thousand, and the Confederate loss considerably less.

An amusing remark came to Sherman's ear at Kenesaw. One of the Confederate soldiers said to another, "Well, the Yanks will have to git up and git now, for I heard General Johnston himself say that General Wheeler had blown up the tunnel near Dalton, and that the Yanks would have to retreat, because they could get no more rations."

"Oh," said the listener, "don't you know that old Sherman carries a duplicate tunnel along?"

The enemy were constantly driven back towards Atlanta. On July 22 a bloody battle was fought near Atlanta, usually called the Battle of Atlanta, in which the brave General McPherson was killed in the hottest of the fight when passing from one column to another. He rode into a wood, and soon his horse returned, wounded, bleeding, and riderless. His body was recovered, with his gauntlets on and boots outside his pantaloons, but his pocket-book with his papers was gone. The spot where he fell was soon retaken by our men, and the pocket-book and its contents were found in the haversack of a prisoner of war, captured at the time.

McPherson was only thirty-four years old, over six feet high, universally beloved, and apparently destined for a great future. Sherman could not look long upon the body. "Better start at once, and drive carefully," said the bluff but tender-hearted general to McPherson's staff, as he covered the body with the flag. It was taken home to Clyde, Ohio, where it was received with great honor, and buried near his mother's house in a small cemetery, part of which is the family orchard where he played when a boy.

General John A. Logan took the command after the death of McPherson, and fought bravely. The attack was made upon his line seven times, and seven times repulsed.

Sherman was often in extreme danger. Once, when he, Logan, and a few others were talking together, a minie-ball passed through Logan's coat-sleeve, scratching the skin, and struck Colonel Taylor in the breast. A memorandum-book saved his life. At another time a cannon-ball passed over Sherman's shoulder and killed the horse of an orderly behind. Another ball took off the head of a negro close by Sherman.

The month of July was an extremely hot one, but the soldiers had been in almost constant conflict. Our loss in that month was about ten thousand men, and that of the enemy perhaps greater by a few hundreds.

Sherman's men tore up railroad-tracks, made bonfires of the ties, wrapped the heated rails round trees and telegraph poles, and left them to cool,—such rails could not be used again,—and filled up deep cuts with trees, brush, and earth, commingled with loaded shells, so arranged that they would explode if disturbed. Thus the devastation of war went on.

Atlanta was full of foundries, arsenals, and machine-shops, and was called the "Gate City of the South." "I knew that its capture," says Sherman, "would be the death-knell of the Southern Confederacy."

Sept. 2 Atlanta could bear the Federal guns no longer, was evacuated by the enemy, and our troops marched into the city with great rejoicing. The losses during these four months had been over thirty thousand on each side.

President Lincoln wrote to Sherman: "The marches, battles, sieges, and other military operations, that have signalized the campaign, must render it famous in the annals of the war, and have entitled those who have participated therein to the applause and thanks of the nation."

Grant wrote from City Point, Va., "In honor of your great victory, I have ordered a salute to be fired with shotted guns from every battery bearing on the enemy.... I feel that you have accomplished the most gigantic undertaking given to any general in this war."

Sherman at once required all the citizens and families resident in Atlanta to leave the city and go North or South as they chose, with a reasonable amount of furniture and bedding. This order was denounced by Hood, who had relieved Johnston, as unprecedented and cruel. A bitter correspondence took place, in which Sherman said, "War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it.... You might as well appeal against the thunder-storms as against these terrible hardships of war. They are inevitable; and the only way the people of Atlanta can hope once more to live in peace and quiet at home, is to stop the war, which can only be done by admitting that it began in error and is perpetuated in pride....

"I want peace, and believe it can only be reached through union and war, and I will ever conduct war with a view to perfect and early success. When peace does come, you may call on me for anything. Then will I share with you the last cracker, and watch with you to shield your homes and families against danger from every quarter."

Hood then took his army into Tennessee, and much of the old battle ground was fought over. Allatoona Pass was wonderfully defended by General John M. Corse, who lost a cheek-bone and an ear by a ball cutting across his face, but still led his men, holding the pass and killing the enemy three to one. Mr. John C. Ropes regards this fight "as one of the most memorable occurrences of the war."

At Resaca, when General Hood demanded its surrender, Colonel Clark R. Weaver said, "In my opinion, I can hold this post. If you want it, come and take it." But Hood did not attempt it after his losses at Allatoona.

Sherman saw the impossibility of holding the country and defending the railroads without constant losses. He telegraphed Grant, "With twenty-five thousand infantry and the bold cavalry he has, Hood can constantly break my road. I would infinitely prefer to make a wreck of the road and of the country from Chattanooga to Atlanta ... and with my effective army move through Georgia, smashing things to the sea."

On the morning of Nov. 15, 1864, this great army of about 65,000 men began its march from Atlanta to the sea. The depot, round-house, and machine-shops of the Georgia railroad had been burned. The fire destroyed the heart of the city, but did not reach the mass of the dwelling-houses. The army carried sixty-five guns, or one to each thousand men. Each gun, caisson, and forge was drawn by four teams of horses. There were twenty-five hundred wagons, with six mules each, and six hundred ambulances with two horses each. Every soldier carried on his person forty rounds of ammunition, and in the wagons were enough cartridges to make up two hundred rounds to a man. The procession occupied five miles or more of road.

Corps commanders alone were intrusted with the power of destroying mills, cotton-gins, etc. "Where the army is unmolested," said Sherman, "no destruction of such property should be permitted."

The cavalry and artillery were allowed to take horses, mules, and wagons, especially from the rich, who were not usually as friendly as the poor. Soldiers were not to enter the dwellings of the inhabitants, but might gather vegetables and stock. Regular foraging parties might gather provisions at any distance from the road travelled.

As the great company moved out of Atlanta, the black smoke of her buildings rising high in air, the men sang "John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in his grave." "Never before or since," says Sherman, "have I heard the chorus of 'Glory, glory, hallelujah!' done with more spirit, or in better harmony of time and place."

As Sherman moved past his men, some of them called out, "Uncle Billy,"—they usually called him this,—"I guess Grant is waiting for us at Richmond!"

The first night they camped by the roadside near Lithonia. All night long groups of men were tearing up railroads and bending the heated rails around trees or telegraph poles.

At the towns the white people came out to look upon the hated intruders, and the colored people were frantic with joy. Each day foraging parties, "Sherman's bummers" as they were called, usually about fifty men from a brigade, would go out to the plantations for food.

"The foragers," says Major-General Jacob D. Cox in his "March to the Sea," "turned into beasts of burden oxen and cows, as well as horses and mules. Here would be a silver-mounted family carriage drawn by a jackass and a cow, loaded inside and out with everything the country produced, vegetable and animal, dead and alive. There would be an ox-cart, similarly loaded, and drawn by a nondescript tandem team, equally incongruous. Perched upon the top would be a ragged forager, rigged out in a fur hat of a fashion worn by darkies of a century ago, or a dress-coat which had done service at stylish balls of a former generation." Many of the horses and mules collected were shot, as it produced a bad effect on the infantry when too many idlers were mounted.

The usual march for the army was about fifteen miles per day. The Southern press urged that the invading army be destroyed, starved, obstructed by gun, spade, and axe. But the great host swept on.

At Milledgeville the arsenal and such public buildings as could be used easily for hostile purposes were burned, while several mills and thousands of bales of cotton were spared. Other places shared the same fate.

As the army neared Savannah, they were assured by some prisoners whom they took, that it would be found strongly fortified. On one of the roads torpedoes had been planted, one of which exploded when touched by a horse's hoof, killing the animal and literally blowing off the flesh from the legs of the rider. This so angered General Sherman, that he made some rebel prisoners, much against their will, pass over the road to explode their own torpedoes, or to discover and dig them up.

Sherman demanded of General Hardee the surrender of Savannah. This Hardee declined to do; but he evacuated the city about the time the assault was to have been made, leaving behind his heavy guns, cotton, railway-cars, steamboats, and other property, but destroying his iron clads and navy-yards. The ground outside the forts was filled with torpedoes, as was also the Savannah River. Log piers were stretched across the channel below the city, and filled with the cobble-stones that formerly paved the streets. A heavy force at once set to work to remove the torpedoes and other obstructions from the river, and Savannah became the great depot of supply for the troops. Very many destitute Southern families were fed by Sherman.

Sherman telegraphed the President, Dec. 22, 1864: "I beg to present you, as a Christmas gift, the city of Savannah, with over one hundred and fifty heavy guns and plenty of ammunition, also about twenty-five thousand bales of cotton."

There was great rejoicing at the capture of the city, as now Sherman could march into the Carolinas and lay them waste, and then join his army to that of Grant, who was besieging Lee in Richmond. Thomas had conquered Hood at Nashville. The end of the war could be plainly seen.

Grant congratulated Sherman on his brilliant campaign. "I never had a doubt," he said, "of the result. When apprehensions for your safety were expressed by the President, I assured him, with the army you had, and you in command of it, there was no danger but you would strike bottom on salt water some place; that I would not feel the same security, in fact, would not have intrusted the expedition to any other living commander."

Lincoln wrote, "The undertaking being a success, the honor is all yours; for I believe none of us went further than to acquiesce.... But what next? I suppose it will be safer if I leave General Grant and yourself to decide."

Congress passed a vote of thanks to Sherman and his men for the great March to the Sea, of three hundred miles in twenty-four days. This march greatly interested Europe, though Sherman never considered it so important as the passage of the army afterwards through the Carolinas.

The London Times said: "Since the great Duke of Marlborough turned his back upon the Dutch, and plunged hurriedly into Germany to fight the famous battle of Blenheim, military history has recorded no stranger marvel than this mysterious expedition of General Sherman, on an unknown route, against an undiscovered enemy." Noted army men regard it as having "scarcely a parallel in the history of war."

In January the whole army left Savannah, Ga., for Columbia, S.C. Sometimes, in pouring rains, they waded up to their shoulders through swamps previously considered impassable, or made roads for miles through the mud by corduroying them with rails and split trees.

The Confederate General Johnston said later, in the hearing of General Cox, concerning this part of the march, "he had made up his mind that there had been no such army since the days of Julius CÆsar."

"Whoever will consider," says General Cox, "the effect of dragging the artillery and hundreds of loaded army wagons over mud roads, in such a country, and of the infinite labor required to pave these roads with logs, levelling the surface with smaller poles in the hollows between, adding to the structure as the mass sinks in the ooze, and continuing this till the miles of train have pulled through, will get a constantly increasing idea of the work, and a steadily increasing wonder that it was done at all."

On Feb. 16 Sherman camped near an old prison bivouac opposite Columbia, called Camp Sorghum, "where remained," he says, "the mud-hovels and holes in the ground which our prisoners had made to shelter themselves from the winter's cold and the summer's heat."

When the army entered Columbia, they found a long pile of burning cotton-bales, which Sherman was told had been fired by General Wade Hampton's men before their departure. At night a high wind fanned these flames; and though Sherman's men assisted in trying to put out the fire, the heart of the city was burned—several churches, the old State House, hotels, and dwellings. About half the city was in ashes. Sherman gave the mayor five hundred cattle to feed the people, and one hundred muskets to preserve order after the departure of his army.

One lady saved her home from pillage by showing to the troops a book which Sherman had given her years before. The boys knew Uncle Billy's writing. They guarded her house, and a young man from Iowa tended her baby while she was receiving a social call from Sherman.

While in Columbia, a poem was presented to Sherman by Adjutant S. H. M. Byers of the Fifth Iowa Infantry, written while a prisoner in that city, where it was arranged and sung by the prisoners. It was entitled "Sherman's March to the Sea," beginning,—

Sherman at once attached Byers to his staff.

Several foundries, the factory of Confederate money, and the state arsenal at Columbia, were destroyed by Sherman before leaving. Charleston was evacuated Feb. 18, for fear of its falling into Federal hands; and Wilmington was captured by General Terry Feb. 22. At Cheraw a large number of guns and thirty-six hundred barrels of powder were taken; at Fayetteville a magnificent United States arsenal was destroyed by our men.

Two battles were fought at Averysboro and at Bentonville, Johnston now commanding the Confederates, our loss being over two thousand men in both battles. March 23 Sherman's army entered Goldsborough, N.C., after a march from Savannah of four hundred and twenty-five miles, across five large rivers, and innumerable swamps, in fifty days, the army being almost as fresh as when they started from Atlanta.

General Sherman then left his army under Schofield, and started for City Point, Va., to meet Lincoln and Grant on March 28. "When I left Lincoln," says Sherman,—this proved to be their last meeting,—"I was more than ever impressed with his kindly nature, his deep and earnest sympathy with the afflictions of the whole people, resulting from the war, and by the march of hostile armies through the South." He wanted no more blood shed, and was anxious for the men on both sides to return to their homes.

"Of all the men I ever met," said Sherman, "he seemed to possess more of the elements of greatness, combined with goodness, than any other."

Sherman returned to his army, and made ready for one more march, to meet Grant. He was to start April 10. However, April 6 Richmond fell, and Lee and his whole army surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House, Va., April 9, 1865.

Sherman's army were resting, April 11, at the end of the hour's march, when a staff-officer galloped along the lines, shouting, "Lee has surrendered!" The soldiers were wild with delight, and flung their caps at him, as they shouted, "You're the man we've been looking for these three years!"

A Southern woman came to the gate with her children as the columns passed, and, learning the reason of the commotion, looked at her little ones, while the tears fell down her cheeks, and said tenderly, "Now father will come home."

April 13 Johnston asked for a suspension of hostilities; on the evening of April 14 Lincoln was assassinated, to the great grief of the nation; April 18 a basis of agreement was effected between Sherman and Johnston, which was modified at Washington, so as to correspond with the terms made between Grant and Lee. On April 26 Johnston surrendered to Sherman his whole force, 36,817 men, and the troops in Georgia and Florida, 52,453, making 89,270 men. The march to the sea and through the Carolinas had helped, as Sherman believed it would, to end the Civil War.

There remained only for the closing scene the grand review of the Army of the West for six hours and a half along Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, May 24, the day following the review of the Army of the Potomac. Some of the division commanders, by way of variety, had added goats, cows, and mules, loaded with poultry, hams, etc. There were also families of freed slaves in the procession, the women leading the children. Each division was preceded by its corps of black helpers, with picks and spades.

In Sherman's farewell to his army he urged those who remained in the service to continue the same hard work and discipline which they had had in the past, and those who went to their homes "not to yield to the natural impatience sure to result from our past life of excitement and adventure," but to make a home and occupation in our grand, extensive, diversified country.

"Your general," he said, "now bids you farewell, with the full belief that, as in war you have been good soldiers, so in peace you will make good citizens; and if, unfortunately, new war should arise in our country, 'Sherman's Army' will be the first to buckle on its old armor, and come forth to defend and maintain the Government of our inheritance."

After the war Sherman was in command of the military division of the Mississippi, with headquarters at St. Louis. He took especial interest in the development of the Northern and Southern Pacific railroads. When Grant was made General, July 25, 1866, Sherman was made Lieutenant-General. In 1869 when Grant became President, Sherman was made General, with the provision that the office should go to no other person. Sheridan was made Lieutenant-General with the same provision.

From Nov. 10, 1871, to Sept. 17, 1872, General Sherman travelled abroad in Turkey, Russia, Austria, and Western Europe, and received distinguished honors. He kept full notes. After his return he published his memoirs in two volumes, which the Nation characterises as "one of the most noteworthy examples of self-revealing in the whole range of autobiography."

He received degrees from Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, and Princeton colleges. To Harvard college he sent a large picture of himself, which now hangs in the library. He was much sought after in social circles, and was an interesting speaker and writer. Once when speaking on the American flag to the pupils of the Packer and Polytechnic Institutes in Brooklyn, he said of the "Stars and Bars," the Confederate flag, "They cut out the blue. They left heaven out of their flag, and so were destined to defeat."

To the cadets at West Point he said: "When war comes you can have but one purpose—your country—and by your country I mean the whole country, not part of it." Everywhere he was outspoken, of simple manners, humorous, brave, unselfish, and comprehensive in mind and actions.

"The two or three great captains in any age," says the Nation, "are alike in the supreme qualities which make a general. They have the unruffled presence of mind which makes their intellectual operations most sure and true in the greatest and most sudden peril, and the true greatness which makes the most momentous decision and unhesitating action under vast responsibility, as if these were the every day work of their lives. The present generation has in our army seen two such, Grant and Sherman. It is doubtful if it has seen a third."

General Oliver O. Howard, who lost an arm under Sherman, writes, "Take him all in all, General Sherman was not only one of the greatest military geniuses in history, but a model of a kindly, generous, and faithful man in every position in life."

Sherman's soldiers idolized him. To them he was always "Old Tecums" or "Uncle Billy." He believed in fighting at the front. He said in his Memoirs: "No man can properly command an army from the rear. He must be at its front.... Some men think that modern armies may be so regulated that a general can sit in an office and play on his several columns as on the keys of a piano. This is a fearful mistake. The directing mind must be at the very head of the army—must be seen there, and the effect of his mind and personal energy must be felt by every officer and man present with it, to secure the best results."

General Sherman was strongly urged to become a candidate for the Presidency. He declined absolutely, as he did not wish its cares and duties; knowing also that the religion of his wife and children, Roman Catholicism, though he was not a Romanist, would cause opposition. His son, Thomas Ewing Sherman, though educated for the law, became a Catholic priest.

After retiring from the army, as the law requires at sixty-four years of age, though allowed full pay, thirteen thousand five hundred dollars yearly to the end of his life, Sherman removed to New York, living at 75 West Seventy-first Street. Here, in the midst of his children and grandchildren, he passed his last days happily. Of his four sons, Willie, Charles, Thomas, and Philemon Tecumseh, the first two died. Of his four daughters, Minnie, Lizzie, Ella, and Rachel, Minnie was married to Lieutenant Fitch, Ella to Lieutenant Thackara, and Rachel to Dr. Thorndike.

General Sherman was always partial to the West, and believed in its great future.

Mrs. Sherman died Nov. 27, 1888, and was buried in Calvary Cemetery, St. Louis, in a plot selected by herself and husband over twenty years before. Here their two sons and three grandchildren were also buried.

Early in February, 1891, General Sherman took cold, which resulted in his death from bronchial trouble and asthma, Saturday afternoon at 1.50, Feb. 14. He died without apparent pain, all his family about him, except the Rev. Thomas E. Sherman, his son, who was on his way home from Europe.

Though requesting that his body should not lie in state, the family were finally persuaded to allow the thousands of the General's friends to pass by the coffin in his own parlors from ten to four o'clock. There was deep and unfeigned sorrow. The funeral was one never to be forgotten. New York City was draped with mourning. All the shipping bore the emblems of grief, with flags at half-mast. Business was practically suspended and the streets crowded.

For two hours and a half, while bells were tolling, the great procession moved past, with inverted muskets, muffled drums, torn battle-flags, cavalry and artillery, all following the caisson with its heroic dead wrapped in the flag. The caisson in its funereal trappings was drawn by five black horses, three of these abreast. Two of the horses were ridden by artillerymen in blue uniforms, with black helmets and red plumes. Behind the caisson was a soldier leading a handsome black riderless horse, covered with black velvet, on whose back were Sherman's saddle and his riding boots reversed.

The great of the nation were present to do Sherman honor. Among the distinguished generals was Joseph E. Johnston from the South, who was also at the funeral of Grant, and for whom both the Northern generals had great respect and admiration.

As the funeral cortÈge passed along, appropriate selections were played by the bands. Gilmore's band electrified all hearts by the song turned into a dirge, composed for Sherman by Henry C. Work.

As the body was taken on board the ferry-boat, for the west, the Marine Band played the hymn:—

All along the route to St. Louis great crowds gathered at the stations, the old soldiers weeping like children. At Coshocton, Ohio, five hundred school-children stood near the train, and sang "Nearer, my God, to Thee." At Columbus, Ohio, at the depot, was a large picture of Sherman surmounted by an eagle, and underneath the words, "Ohio's son, the nation's hero."

At St. Louis in the midst of thousands, after a brief service by his son, General Sherman was laid to rest in Calvary Cemetery by the side of his wife, who had died a little more than two years previously. Richard Watson Gilder voiced the sentiment of the nation:

CHARLES H. SPURGEON.