Memoirs of General William T. Sherman | Page 2

all the details. How much more likely will be the difference in
a great battle covering a vast space of broken ground, when each

division, brigade, regiment, and even company, naturally and honestly
believes that it was the focus of the whole affair! Each of them won the
battle. None ever lost. That was the fate of the old man who unhappily
commanded.
In this edition I give the best maps which I believe have ever been
prepared, compiled by General O. M. Poe, from personal knowledge
and official surveys, and what I chiefly aim to establish is the true
cause of the results which are already known to the whole world; and it
may be a relief to many to know that I shall publish no other, but, like
the player at cards, will "stand;" not that I have accomplished
perfection, but because I can do no better with the cards in hand. Of
omissions there are plenty, but of wilful perversion of facts, none.
In the preface to the first edition, in 1875, I used these words: "Nearly
ten years have passed since the close of the civil war in America, and
yet no satisfactory history thereof is accessible to the public; nor should
any be attempted until the Government has published, and placed
within the reach of students, the abundant materials that are buried in
the War Department at Washington. These are in process of
compilation; but, at the rate of progress for the past ten years, it is
probable that a new century will come before they are published and
circulated, with full indexes to enable the historian to make a judicious
selection of materials"
Another decade is past, and I am in possession of all these publications,
my last being Volume XI, Part 3, Series 1, the last date in which is
August 30, 1862. I am afraid that if I assume again the character of
prophet, I must extend the time deep into the next century, and pray
meanwhile that the official records of the war, Union and Confederate,
may approach completion before the "next war," or rather that we, as a
people, may be spared another war until the last one is officially
recorded. Meantime the rising generation must be content with
memoirs and histories compiled from the best sources available.
In this sense I offer mine as to the events of which I was an eye-witness
and participant, or for which I was responsible.
WILLIAM T. SHERMAN, General (retired).
St. Louis, Missouri, March 30, 1885.

MEMOIRS OF GENERAL WILLIAM T. SHERMAN.

CHAPTER I
.
FROM 1820 TO THE MEXICAN WAR.
1820-1846.
According to Cothren, in his "History of Ancient Woodbury,
Connecticut," the Sherman family came from Dedham, Essex County,
England. The first recorded name is of Edmond Sherman, with his
three sons, Edmond, Samuel, and John, who were at Boston before
1636; and farther it is distinctly recorded that Hon. Samuel Sherman,
Rev. John, his brother, and Captain John, his first cousin, arrived from
Dedham, Essex County, England, in 1634. Samuel afterward married
Sarah Mitchell, who had come (in the same ship) from England, and
finally settled at Stratford, Connecticut. The other two (Johns) located
at Watertown, Massachusetts.
From Captain John Sherman are descended Roger Sherman, the signer
of the Declaration of Independence, Hon. William M. Evarts, the
Messrs. Hoar, of Massachusetts, and many others of national fame. Our
own family are descended from the Hon. Samuel Sherman and his son;
the Rev. John, who was born in 1650-'51; then another John, born in
1687; then Judge Daniel, born in 1721; then Taylor Sherman, our
grandfather, who was born in 1758. Taylor Sherman was a lawyer and
judge in Norwalk, Connecticut, where he resided until his death, May 4,
1815; leaving a widow, Betsey Stoddard Sherman, and three children,
Charles R. (our father), Daniel, and Betsey.
When the State of Connecticut, in 1786, ceded to the United States her
claim to the western part of her public domain, as defined by her Royal
Charter, she reserved a large district in what is now northern Ohio, a
portion of which (five hundred thousand acres) composed the
"Fire-Land District," which was set apart to indemnify the parties who
had lost property in Connecticut by the raids of Generals Arnold, Tryon,
and others during the latter part of the Revolutionary War.

Our grandfather, Judge Taylor Sherman, was one of the commissioners
appointed by the State of Connecticut to quiet the Indian title, and to
survey and subdivide this Fire-Land District, which includes the
present counties of Huron and Erie. In his capacity as commissioner he
made several trips to Ohio in the early part of this century, and it is
supposed that he then contracted the disease which proved fatal. For his
labor and losses he received