William Tecumseh Sherman (February 8, 1820 – February 14, 1891) was an American general who served the Union Army during the Civil War. He is most famous for creating the modern ideal of "Total War" (though later militaries would far outdo him in this regard; for instance, Sherman famously forbade his men from killing civilians, the Nazis didn't) and for his infamous March to the Sea from Atlanta, Georgia, to the port of Savannah, in which his men took everything that was even remotely useful to their war effort, and destroyed whatever wasn't; this included killing all the livestock they encountered, burning plantation houses, wrecking farming equipment, and freeing slaves.note In his later years, Sherman was considered as a nominee to run for President, but he flatly refused to even consider such a thing, saying "I will not run if nominated and will not serve if elected." His professionalism towards defeated Confederates was such that even those men who had directly opposed him greatly respected him, despite the general attitude of much of the South. In particular, General Joseph E. Johnston, who had led the unsuccessful campaign to stop the March to the Sea, served as a pallbearer at Sherman's funeral in February 1891; advised to wear his hat at the service to prevent illness, Johnston refused, saying "If I were in his place, and he were standing in mine, he would not put on his hat." (Johnston did in fact become sick and died a month later from pneumonia).
In pop culture, he is a man who brings about a lot of mixed feelings. To many in the South, he is seen as a monster who destroyed while his men raped, looted and pillaged Georgia and North and South Carolina, although this is somewhat hypocritical on their part, as Confederate general Jubal Early
conducted similar campaigns out of petty spite,note and Stonewall Jackson advocated using the exact same tactics to get the Union to surrender faster—and all before Sherman conducted his March. But to others, particularly in the North, he was a brilliant general with a pragmatic command manner who helped end the war quicker and ensured the Union's survival and slavery's end, along with General Grant and Abraham Lincoln.
Sherman was later involved with the Indian Wars starting in the wake of the civil war, where at one point he advocated pursuing the Sioux to the point of exterminating them all in a letter to Grant. He was appointed Commanding General of the US Army in 1869 after Grant became President, and with that role oversaw the native tribes' later defeat and their surrenders. In spite of this, he spoke out in opposition to Indian agents' mistreatment of the native people then living on the reservations. He also expressed contrition for his racist views in his later years and argued for enfranchisement of African-Americans. He never expressed regret for his March, though, bluntly declaring that the Confederates brought it upon themselves for starting the war in the first place.
Trope Namer for War Is Hell, from a speech that Sherman, disdainful of military glory, gave at a military academy's graduation ceremony. (On another occasion he also said "War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it.") He also has a tank named after him, the M4 Sherman medium tank, which became an icon of the American armored forces during World War II and into the mid-20th century.
