SKETCHES OF LEADING UNION GENERALS.

CHAPTER XXII.

457

THE LEADING GENERALS IN THE CAMPAIGN.

Sketches of Major-General William Tecumseh Sherman.-Major-General George H. Thomas.—Major-General Hugh Judson Kilpatrick.—Major-General Oliver O. Howard.-Major-General James Birdseye McPherson.

NEXT in extent of command, and its importance in the vast field of strife, was the Department of the Mississippi, under the command of that gifted and splendid officer, Major-General Sherman, in whose rare company of subordinate chiefs were Thomas, Howard, Schofield, McPherson, and Kilpatrick.

Brief biographies of these brave men, at this period of rest and yet of preparation for the decisive campaign of the war, will gratify a rational curiosity, and add a personal interest to the narrative of the momentous times.

WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN,

Whose ancestors came from England and settled in Stratford, Connecticut, in 1634, was born in Lancaster, Ohio, February 8, 1820. His father, an eminent jurist of that State, died in 1848, leaving the widow, an intelligent and devout woman, with eleven children. Honorable John Sherman, of the United States Senate, is a younger brother of William Tecumseh, whose Indian name was given him by his father, because he knew and admired the celebrated warrior after whom he called his son.

The Honorable Thomas Ewing, a resident of Lancaster, knew that his gifted and departed friend had not left the large family a fortune. It would therefore be no easy task to educate and start them in the world. And his errand then was to ask the mother to commit one of the boys to his home and care.

He said, with a playful earnestness, "I must have the

smartest of the lot; I will take no other, and you must select him for me." After a short consultation between the mother and eldest daughter, the choice fell upon "Cump." So it was decided that Mr. Ewing should take him to his house and educate him with his own children.

At the age of sixteen, Mr. Ewing, in his official position, had at his disposal the appointment of a cadet to the Military Academy at West Point, and determined to offer it to his "protégé." Tecumseh had a taste for military life, and gladly accepted the honor, entering the institution June, 1836.

In a letter, dated February 17, 1839, he writes:—

"Bill is very much elated at the idea of getting free of West Point next June. He does not intend remaining in the army more than one year, then to resign, and study law, probably. No doubt you admire his choice; but, to speak plainly and candidly, I would rather be a blacksmith. Indeed, the nearer we come to that dreadful epoch, graduation-day, the higher opinion I conceive of the duties and life of an officer of the United States Army, and the more confirmed in the wish of spending my life in the service of my country."

He graduated fifth in his class, June 30, 1840. The rebel General Beauregard was a classmate. Created second lieutenant in the Third Artillery, he repaired to Florida in the service of the regular army.

When Lieutenant Sherman reached the peninsula, the war there with the "exiles" and Seminoles had been in progress about five years.

In March, 1841, he went with his company to Fort Morgan, at the entrance of Mobile Bay.

Young Sherman was promoted to a first-lieutenancy November, 1841, and soon after, the war closed, followed by the removal of the "exiles" to the country beyond the State of Arkansas, where they joined the Creeks.

Lieutenant Sherman was next ordered to Fort Moultrie, on Sullivan's Island, in Charleston harbor. In this fortress he had an unexciting round of duty.

In 1845, he was for a time stationed at the arsenal in