GEORGE C. RABLE
William T. Sherman and the
Conservative Critique
of Radical Reconstruction
Paradoxes abound. The avenging angel of
the Union whose army
made not only Georgia but the Carolinas
howl became the generous
conciliator after Appomattox. The
insecure general who loathed par-
tisan machination was sucked into the
maelstrom of Washington poli-
tics. The arch-enemy of the Confederacy
turned into the friend of
his fallen foes. A superb subject for
psychological analysis, William
Tecumseh Sherman was more than the
grizzled, red-haired genius of
modern warfare. Dubbed a "fighting
prophet" by his best biogra-
pher,1 this highly complex, lonely and
tragic figure became one of
the most acute and prophetic observers
of Reconstruction America.
There was nothing clairvoyant or
mystical about this very practical
man of affairs, a relentless organizer
and constant worrier. Sherman's
prescience about the problems of
Reconstruction grew out of his own
experience, and from the prejudices and
assumptions he shared with
his contemporaries, especially those
young midwesterners who had
filled the ranks of the federal armies.
He also embodied the conserv-
atism of the West Point-trained officer.
Intimate association with the
powerful Ewing family of Ohio imbued him
with a reverence for the
Union and a Whiggish distrust of
democracy. Yet Sherman's own
failures in business and his emotional
response to the crises of the
1850s exacerbated this natural
pessimism.2
George C. Rable is Director of American
Studies at Anderson College, Anderson,
Indiana. He presented an earlier version
of this essay at the Organization of American
Historians convention in Cincinnati,
Ohio, on April 8, 1983.
1. Lloyd Lewis, Sherman: Fighting
Prophet (New York, 1932).
2. Like many other West Point graduates
of the period, Sherman had found serv-
ice in the peacetime army both dull and
frustrating. Despite potent family connections
in Ohio, Sherman never quite discovered
his niche in the turbulent society of
antebellum America. A brief and
disastrous stint as a San Francisco banker, an unhap-
py law practice in Lawrence, Kansas, and
exasperating service as head of a military
academy in Alexandria, Louisiana, did nothing to
alleviate Sherman's moodiness and
sense of failure.
148 OHIO HISTORY
He surely viewed the sectional
controversy through the prism of
personal disappointment. Unhappy with
his continuing dependence
on the Ewings, bonds drawn more tightly
by his marriage to Ellen
Ewing, Sherman easily succumbed to
despair about his country's fu-
ture. Oblivious to the moral core of the
slavery question and sympa-
thetic to white southerners after his
many contacts with them in the
army, Sherman never understood the
complex factors producing sec-
tional conflict. He unreflectively
accepted the widely held notions
about white supremacy and believed that
slavery was vital to the
southern economy. After becoming
president of the Louisiana State
Seminary of Learning and Military
Academy in 1859, he had mildly
criticized the slaveholders' treatment
of the black field hands, but
he was no reformer. For Sherman,
abolition conjured up the specter
of racial amalgamation and the
transformation of the United States
into another Mexico.3
Hoping along with many other Americans
that sectional tensions
would somehow disappear, Sherman
considered the expansion of
slavery into the national territories to
be a dangerously theoretical
question. Along with Stephen A. Douglas
and other proponents of
popular sovereignty, Sherman argued that
the West could never be
slave country, a proposition that made
further discussion pointless.4
Even as secession became more likely, he
counseled moderation be-
cause the greater population and
economic strength of the northern
states made the triumph of free labor
inevitable.5
The cause of this unnecessary agitation
was the selfish ambition of
the politicans. "What in the devil
are you doing?" Sherman wrote
his brother John during the 1844
presidential campaign, "Stump
speaking! I really thought you were too
decent for that, or at least
3. Sherman to Thomas Ewing, Jr.,
December 23, 1859, Sherman to Ellen Ewing
Sherman, July 10, 1860, Walter L.
Fleming (ed.), General W. T. Sherman as College
President (Cleveland, 1912), 88, 241-42; W. T. Sherman, Memoirs
of Gen. W. T. Sher-
man (4th ed.; New York, 1890), I, 177; Sherman to John
Sherman, November 30, 1854,
Rachel Sherman Thorndike, (ed.), The
Sherman Letters: Correspondence Between
General and Senator Sherman from 1837
to 1891 (New York, 1894), 53-54. This
last
source is by far the best printed
collection of Sherman's political opinions, but is must
be used with caution. Because Thorndike
in many cases omitted large sections of let-
ters, in some instances containing
important comments that would have proved embar-
rassing if published, one must still
consult the original letters in the Library of Con-
gress.
4. Sherman to John Sherman, March 20,
1856, Thorndike (ed.), Sherman Letters,
55-56; Sherman to David F. Boyd,
September 30, 1860, Sherman to Ellen Ewing
Sherman, November 29, 1860, Fleming
(ed.), Sherman as College President, 290, 310.
5. Sherman to John Sherman, April 30,
November n.d., 1859, Thorndike (ed.),
Sherman Letters, 69-70, 77.
Sherman and the Conservative Critique 149 |
|
had sufficient pride not to humble and cringe to beg party or popular favor." There was more here than a casual cynicism about politicians and their motives; Sherman was unalterably skeptical about the workability of democracy itself. He saw elected officials as far too de- pendent on the whims and caprice of unqualified and unstable major- ities. Believing the growing political acrimony could only lead to civil war, Sherman dourly predicted that in such a crisis, the politicians might well be replaced by military rulers.6 It is easy to overemphasize Sherman's conservatism; he was no doughface and could never become a copperhead. When criticizing political extremists, he blasted both the northern and southern vari- eties. His first loyalty lay with the Union; he described himself as
6. Sherman to John Sherman, October 24, 1844, August n.d., 1856, June n.d., 1860, Thorndike (ed.), Sherman Letters, 26, 63, 84; Sherman to Ellen Ewing Sherman, January 5, 1861, Sherman to John Sherman, February n.d., 1861, Fleming (ed.), Sherman as College President, 119-20, 330. |
150 OHIO HISTORY
"ultra" on secession.7 His
unionism was as blunt and unequivocal as
his distrust of politicians.
The war abruptly ended these musings.
Busy finding self-
confidence, battling newspaper reporters
and fighting the enemy,
Sherman had neither the time nor the
inclination for speculation on
political matters. He believed that
peace could only follow the total
defeat of the Confederate armies and
therefore criticized Lincoln's
generous 1863 reconstruction
proclamation as a conciliatory offering
that would only make the rebels fight
harder and longer. Sherman
did not share the popular belief in a
large reservoir of southern union-
ism. In a long mid-war letter to General
Henry W. Halleck, he argued
against efforts to reestablish civil
governments in the southern states
while the war dragged on. Prefiguring
the later march to the sea,
Sherman suggested that northern armies
penetrate every part of the
Confederacy, offering no protection for
civilians who stood in their
paths. For him, the only government in
the South was Ulysses S.
Grant's army.8 Although
Sherman conceded the enormous difficul-
ties of reconstructing southern society
and in some respects sounded
as radical as Thaddeus Stevens, he never
saw the need for the con-
tinuance of Draconian measures after the
Confederates had laid
down their arms.
The tiger in war lost his growl in the
spring of 1865. The famous sur-
render agreement with General Joseph E.
Johnston was the first sign
that Sherman still clung to his
conservative prewar opinions. The man
who transformed warfare had no stomach
for political, economic or
social revolution. Naively ignoring
northern concern for preserving
the fruits of victory, he signed a
surrender document that recognized
the existing southern state governments
and promised generous treat-
ment for Confederate leaders. For
Sherman, all the South had to do
was to repudiate slavery and she would
have an abundant labor sup-
ply and permanent security. Firmly
believing he had seized a great
opportunity to cement a lasting peace,
the general was shocked and
dismayed when President Andrew Johnson
and Secretary of War
Edwin Stanton rejected his
"convention" with Johnston. He grudg-
ingly admitted his error but blamed
Stanton for deliberately sabo-
taging this proposal and using the press
to destroy his reputation.9
7. Sherman to Ellen Ewing Sherman,
December 12, 1859, Sherman to Thomas
Ewing, Jr., December 23, 1859, Sherman
to G. Mason Graham, December 25, 1860,
Sherman to David F. Boyd, April 4, 1861,
Fleming (ed.), Sherman as College Presi-
dent, 77, 89, 318, 377.
8. Sherman to John Sherman, November 14,
1863, Thorndike (ed.), Sherman Let-
ters, 218-19; Sherman to Halleck, September 17, 1863,
Sherman, Memoirs,, I, 363-70.
9. Sherman, Memoirs, II, 356-57,
360-62, 365-67; Sherman to Joseph E. Johnston,
Sherman and the Conservative
Critique 151
Misinterpreting the physical destruction
and signs of abject sub-
mission around his North Carolina
headquarters, Sherman asserted
that the southern states would never
trouble the Union again.10 This
softer attitude toward the rebels left
little room for considering the
interests of the newly freed slaves.
Sherman and his western soldiers
had long been wary of New England
political radicalism, particularly
on the question of black suffrage. He
scoffed at northern fears of
resurgent Confederate political power,
but took more seriously con-
servative warnings about black
enfranchisement leading to riots and
bloodshed. As his brother Senator John
Sherman moved with his
usual caution toward endorsing black
voting in the South, the general
claimed that this was neither what his
men had fought for nor what
the northern public wanted.11
His rejection of black suffrage in part
stemmed from doubts about
the efficacy of military force in
reshaping southern society. This was
the crucial element in Sherman's
thinking, and it raises difficult ques-
tions for the modern student of
Reconstruction. Much of the revi-
sionist and neo-revisionist work on the
period rests on the assumption
that wise, more consistent and more
persistent efforts by northern
policymakers might have substantially
altered southern society.12 To
the extent that these policies would
have depended upon using more
soldiers, Sherman would have judged them
hopelessly unrealistic.
There were limits to how long the
southern states could be held in
political limbo. As Sherman cautioned
his brother John, "The well
disposed of the South must again be trusted-we
cannot help it."
The problem, of course, was the small
number of "well disposed,"
and Sherman certainly exaggerated the
good will and flexibility of
southern whites. He did nevertheless hit
on an essential truth: keep-
April 21, 1865, War of the Rebellion:
A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union
and Confederate Armies (128 vols.; Washington, D.C., 1880-1901), Ser. I, Vol.
XLVII,
Pt. 3, p. 266; Sherman to John Sherman,
December 28, 1865, William T. Sherman Pa-
pers, Library of Congress.
10. Sherman to Salmon P. Chase, May 6,
1865, Official Records, Ser. I, Vol. XLVII,
Pt. 3, p. 411; Sherman to Ellen Ewing
Sherman, April 28, 1865, Mark A. DeWolfe Howe
(ed.), Home Letters of General
Sherman (New York, 1909), 349-50.
11. Sherman to Salmon P. Chase, May 6,
1865, Sherman to John M. Schofield, May
28, 1865, Official Records, Ser.
I, Vol XLVII, Pt. 3, p. 410-11, 586; Sherman to John
Sherman, August 3, 9, 1865, January 19,
1866, Thorndike (ed.), Sherman Letters, 252,
253-54, 262; New York Times, June
15, 1865.
12. See, for example, Michael Perman, Reunion
Without Compromise: The South and
Reconstruction, 1865-1868 (Cambridge, England, 1973); Michael Les Benedict,
"Pre-
serving the Constitution: The
Conservative Basis of Radical Reconstruction," Journal
of American History, LXI (June, 1974), 65-90; Herman Belz, "The New
Orthodoxy in
Reconstruction Historiography," Reviews
in American History, I (March, 1973), 106-13.
152 OHIO HISTORY
ing the southern states under military
control was at best a temporary
expedient. "It is a physical
impossibility," he warned, "for us to
guard the entire South by armies."
During the war, he had criticized
the policy of garrisoning captured
southern towns and had favored
throwing all available manpower into a
grand offensive to crush the
Confederate armies. He was now equally
emphatic in arguing that iso-
lated posts would provide little
protection for blacks or southern Un-
ionists. 13
These statements reflected a consensus
of opinion among army offi-
cers. Writing from Mississippi, General
Thomas J. Wood observed:
"No more absurd paradox can be
conceived than that of a Republic
holding a part of its own people in
permanent subjugation." Most
commanders in the South resented being
caught between rival politi-
cal factions and were anxious to leave,
even if that meant fighting In-
dians on the Great Plains. Some
supposedly radical generals, such as
John Pope, were equally frustrated in
contending with recalcitrant
conservatives and squabbling Republicans
at the same time.14
Impatient to remove the military from
the political arena, Sherman
welcomed President Andrew Johnson's
generous restoration policies
because they resembled the terms of his
original agreement with
Johnston. By early 1866, he openly
supported the President against
the "radical" Republicans whom
he accused of leading the country
toward another civil war. Although
Sherman had turned over aban-
doned and confiscated lands along the
South Carolina and Georgia
coast to the freedmen, he thought these
properties should revert to
their original owners after the war.
When President Johnson threw
down the political gauntlet to Congress
by vetoing the Freedmen's
Bureau bill, Sherman commented:
"The Republican Party has lost
forever the best chance they can ever
expect of gaining recruits from
13. Sherman to John Sherman, August
n.d., September 21, 1865, February 11, 1866,
Thorndike (ed.), Sherman Letters, 254, 256, 262;
James G. Randall (ed.), The Diary of
Orville Hickman Browning (2 vols.; Springfield, Illinois, 1925-1933), II, 29;
Sherman to
Henry W. Slocum, September 7, 1865,
cited in Charles E. Slocum, The Life and Serv-
ices of Major-General Henry Warner
Slocum (Toledo, Ohio, 1913), 326-27;
Sherman to
Willard Warner, January 16, 1866,
Sherman Correspondence, Tennessee State Library.
Sherman's conservative friends and
family reinforced these views by predicting that
the northern public would eventually
recognize the statesmanship of his agreement
with Joe Johnston. Henry Stanbery to
Sherman, May 11, 1865, Sherman Family Pa-
pers, University of Notre Dame Archives;
J. A. Campbell to Thomas Ewing, March 13,
1866, Ewing Family Papers, ibid.
14. George G. Meade to his wife, April
22, 1865, cited in James E. Sefton, The United
States Army and Reconstruction,
1865-1877 (Baton Rouge, 1967), 11;
Wood to Sher-
man, October 25, 1865, E. O. C. Ord to
Sherman, May 21, November 6, 1867, John
Pope to Sherman, June 29, 1867, Sherman
Papers, Library of Congress.
Sherman and the Conservative
Critique 153
the great middle class who want peace
and industry. The white men
of this country will control it, and the
negro, in mass, will occupy a
subordinate place as a race.15
Because their views so closely
coincided, Johnson saw Sherman as
a potentially useful ally. He summoned
the general to Washington in
October 1866 in the hope of displacing
Grant and making Sherman
general-in-chief and eventually
Secretary of War. "Both Grant and
I," Sherman nervously confided to
his brother, "desire to keep
plainly and strictly to our duty in the
Army, and not to be construed
as partisans." His sympathy for
Johnson's policies could never over-
come his aversion to the hothouse
political atmosphere of Washing-
ton. 16
When Johnson suspended Stanton in August
1867 and appointed
Grant Secretary of War ad interim, Sherman
immediately sensed
danger to his friend's reputation.
Called again to Washington in Octo-
ber, Sherman made it clear that he had
no interest in supplanting
Grant.17 When Johnson
attempted to use Sherman as a cat's-paw
against Stanton, the general rejected
Ellen's advice to stand by the
President and escaped back to his
headquarters in St. Louis.18
The attempt to remove Stanton and the
subsequent impeachment
of Johnson signaled to Sherman a further
degeneration of the politi-
cal process. Though not enthusiastic
about Grant's acceptance of the
Republican presidential nomination, he
hoped that it would give the
country four years of peace and
sectional reconciliation. He strangely
viewed his friend as a bulwark against
what Grant described as
"contest for power for the next
four years between mere trading poli-
ticians."19
15. Sherman to John Sherman, November 4,
1865, February 23, 28, 1866, Thorn-
dike (ed.), Sherman Letters, 257,
263-65; Sherman to Oliver Otis Howard, May 17,
1865, cited in William S. McFeely, Yankee
Stepfather: General 0. O. Howard and the
Freedmen (New Haven, 1968), 18; Sherman to Andrew Johnson,
February 1, 11, 1866,
Sherman Papers, Library of Congress.
16. Sherman to John Sherman, October 31,
1866, January 8, 1867, Thorndike (ed.),
Sherman Letters, 279-82, 288.
17. Sherman to John Sherman, September
12, October 11, 28, 1867, Thorndike
(ed.), Sherman Letters, 294-95,
297-98; Grant to Sherman, September 18, 1867, Sher-
man Papers, Library of Congress; Randall
(ed.), Browning Diary, II, 161-163; Sherman
to Ellen Ewing Sherman, October 11,
1867, Sherman Family Papers, University of
Notre Dame Archives.
18. Sherman to Ellen Ewing Sherman,
January 15, 17, 1868, Ellen Ewing Sherman to
Sherman, January 16, 21, 1868, Sherman
Family Papers, University of Notre Dame Ar-
chives; Sherman to Johnson, January 18,
1868, Andrew Johnson Papers, Library of
Congress; Sherman, Memoirs, II,
424-32.
19. Sherman to John Sherman, February
28, 1868, Sherman to Grant, June 7, 1868,
Grant to Sherman, June 21, 1868, Sherman
Papers, Library of Congress; Sherman to
154 OHIO HISTORY
Grant's election meant promotion for
Sherman to the post of
general-in-chief and potentially placed
him in the center of debate
over the new administration's southern
policy. His letters to his Lou-
isiana friend David F. Boyd reveal a man
who had begun to look at
the ex-Confederates with a cooly
realistic eye. "Johnson," wrote
Sherman regretfully before the passage
of the Reconstruction Acts,
"has thrown himself into the breach
and if he had been sustained
by the people at the South he could have
made good his position,
but these multiplied instances of
violence proved by witnesses whom
we cannot discredit take from him all
chance of explanation." Even
sympathetic and moderate generals, he
complained, had not been
able to stop the shootings of Union men
and blacks. Until this
bloodshed ceased, it would be impossible
to "ward off the meas-
ures of extreme radicals." Sherman
advised southern white leaders
to treat the freedmen generously and
hoped the region's young men
would take the lead in ushering in a new
era of economic growth in
the South. Shortly before leaving for
Washington to assume his new
command, Sherman promised Boyd that the
Grant administration
would do all in its power to
"secure general peace and tranquility."20
This optimism failed to consider an
obvious difficulty. After years
of excoriating Washington and its
denizens, Sherman could hardly
be comfortable at that great seat of
intrigue and corruption. Never
adept at bureaucratic infighting, he was
no match for Secretary of
War John A. Rawlins in a struggle over
whether the War Department
bureaus would continue to operate independently
of the general-in-
chief. Grant had agreed to uphold
Sherman's authority, but under
pressure from Rawlins and Congress, the
President had reneged on
his promise. Sherman got along no better
under William W. Belknap
who became Secretary of War after
Rawlins' death. Seldom con-
sulted on military policy, Sherman
finally received permission to
change his headquarters to St. Louis,
his "harbor of refuge." There
he still fumed over the influence
exerted in Washington by men who
had never seen a battle and worried
about rumors that he had bro-
ken with Grant. Though convinced that
Belknap had set out to de-
Ellen Ewing Sherman, June 7, 1868, Howe
(ed.), Home Letters, 376-77; Sherman to Da-
vid F. Boyd, August 17, 1868, Boyd
Papers, Department of Archives and Manuscripts,
Louisiana State University. This
collection contains a substantial number of lengthy let-
ters in which Sherman makes extended and
perceptive comments on southern prob-
lems. Other than a few scattered references
in William Gillette's Retreat from Recon-
struction, 1869-1879 (Baton Rouge, 1979), scholars have not utilized these
important
papers.
20. Sherman to Boyd, January 25, 1867,
January 31, August 17, 1868, February 22,
1869, Boyd Papers.
Sherman and the Conservative
Critique 155
stroy him, Sherman refused to gloat over
the Secretary's downfall in
a scandal involving the sale of Indian
traderships, but the scars were
deep and permanent. Service as
general-in-chief, an office Sherman
contemptuously described as
"ornamental" and a "sinecure," was
the most frustrating phase of his army
service.21
Part of Sherman's agony resulted from
his growing disappointment
with Grant. He was outraged that
"the offices and favors of Govern-
ment will go to a class of hypocrites
and time servers who had no
manly pride or character to lose,"
and he denounced the undue in-
fluence of violent partisans such as
Benjamin F. Butler and John A.
Logan. Grant showed little inclination
to seek his general-in-chief's
advice, and Sherman made few attempts to
offer any. During a trip to
Europe in 1872, he admitted that the
President remained under the
spell of a cabal of designing senators
but still thought him preferable
to the eccentric and anti-military
Horace Greeley. Grant's second
term, however, completed Sherman's
disillusionment. "The Repub-
lican party," he complained to
brother John, "has been used by
those men in Washington who regard the
soldier as a dirty fellow
and only fit to lay the foundation for
the use of fancy chaps."22
Grant's declining popularity produced a
brief flurry of speculation
about a Sherman presidential candidacy
despite the fact that the
general had never indicated any
political ambitions or hesitated to
express his aversion to public life.
Sherman squelched such talk with
stern finality, though that did not stop
the politicians from booming
his candidacy every four years. Grant
naturally welcomed this deci-
sion while disingenously praising his
friend's qualifications for the
office. Ironically, it was Grant's own
sad tenure that hardened Sher-
man's determination. "I have seen
it [politics] poison so many other-
wise good characters," he wrote to
brother John, "that I am really
more obstinate than ever. I think Grant
will be made miserable to the
end of his days by his eight year
experience."23
21. Sherman, Memoirs, II, 439-55;
Sherman to John Sherman, September 12, 1869,
July 8, 1871, October 23, 1874, November
17, December 29, 1875, March 10, 1876,
Thorndike (ed.), Sherman Letters, 328-29,
331-32, 340-41, 346-49; Sherman to Boyd,
June 30, 1874, Boyd Papers; Sherman to
John Sherman, December 6, 1875, March 4,
1876, William T. Sherman Papers, Library
of Congress.
22. Sherman to Matthew Carpenter, April
5, 1869, Sherman to John Sherman, Octo-
ber 23, 1870, October 23, 1874, William
T. Sherman Papers, Library of Congress;
Sherman to Ellen Ewing Sherman, June 13,
1872, Howe (ed.), Home Letters, 381.
23. Sherman to Lewis Dent, September 22,
1869, Sherman Papers, Library of Con-
gress; Grant to Sherman, June 14, 1871,
John Sherman, Recollections of Forty Years in
the House, Senate and Cabinet (Chicago, 1896), 373; Sherman to John Sherman, Au-
gust 18, 1874, Thorndike (ed.), Sherman
Letters, 340.
156 OHIO HISTORY
Though no one asked for his opinions on
reconstruction, Sherman
nevertheless watched southern affairs
with a jaundiced, albeit real-
istic eye. In addition to letters from
conservative acquaintances, he
received numerous reports of terrorism
against black and white Re-
publicans.24 Shocked by the
Ku Klux Klan outrages, Sherman re-
called the reign of crime and
vigilantism during his years in San
Francisco before the war. Refusing to
believe that ex-rebel soldiers
would commit such crimes, he blamed
Congress for imposing politi-
cal disabilities on southern leaders,
thus giving them a convenient
excuse for failing to stop the violence.25
Despite such logic-chopping, Sherman was
genuinely distressed to
see white southerners sit on their hands
while the Klan rode. The
continued persecutions of Union men and
blacks, he advised Boyd,
put great pressure on the administration
to interfere in southern elec-
tions. Sherman described the Ku Klux as
a serious threat to all law
and property and hoped southerners would
suppress night riding by
all legal means. Yet he would go no
further than to urge restraint, fully
expecting the southern states to return
soon to a position of influence
in the national councils.26
There was more than Sherman's natural
conservatism in these cau-
tious remarks. The influence of a group
of southern Democrats and
conservative Republicans, some former
army associates, is readily ap-
parent. They filled their letters to
Sherman with complaints about
radical rule in the South and weak
assurances that the extent of
southern disorders had been greatly
overblown. Senator Willard
Warner of Alabama, an Ohioan who had
served on Sherman's staff
during the war, solicited financial as
well as political assistance while
berating Grant for favoring his
arch-rival, carpetbag Senator George
E. Spencer, in the distribution of
federal patronage.27 After reading
one of Warner's lengthy and self-pitying
diatribes, Sherman must
have concluded that southern political
conflicts were simply battles
between greedy place-holders.
Indeed the general and his Ewing
relations accepted the Liberal
Republican critique of misrule in the
South and supported universal
24. A. S. Lakin to Sherman, January 15,
1870, Adelbert Ames to Sherman, October
19, 1869, Sherman Papers, Library of
Congress.
25. Sherman to John Sherman, March 21,
1871, ibid.
26. Sherman to David F. Boyd, March 27,
July 1, 1871, Boyd Papers.
27. H. W. Walter to Sherman, September
21, 1869, Lee N. Newcomber (ed.),
"'Think Kindly of Us of the South':
A Letter to William Tecumseh Sherman," Ohio
History, LXXI (July, 1962), 148-50; Walter to Sherman, August
16, 1869, Willard War-
ner to Sherman, June 15, 1868, February
9, 1872, January 18, 1873, Sherman Papers, Li-
brary of Congress.
Sherman and the Conservative Critique 157 |
|
amnesty as a first step toward ending the Ku Klux outrages. Since the impotency of the Republican state governments made it difficult for the nation to suppress crime in the South, Sherman admitted that "any southern citizen may kill or abuse a negro or union man with as much safety as our frontiersmen may kill an Indian." The violence and corruption in the southern states only reinforced old doubts about democracy. Sherman blamed an expanded electorate for pro- ducing goverment by the "ignorant and depraved" in both sections |
158 OHIO HISTORY
of the country. Any change in voting
procedures would be difficult,
he fatalistically believed, "in a
land doomed to try the dangerous ex-
periment of universal suffrage."28
There was more resignation than
resentment in these mugwumpish remarks
because Sherman was
much better at diagnosing the disease
than at suggesting a cure.
The steady deterioration of the
administration's southern policy
confirmed Sherman's reservations about
the use of military force.
The President and Congress had
compounded the army's difficul-
ties by failing to provide the
instructions and troops necessary to
maintain order. Certainly many southern
Republicans discovered
first-hand the ineffectiveness of
federal garrisons against political ter-
rorism. Sherman initially favored the
use of martial law to crush night
riding but later had second thoughts.
This change of mind occurred
in part because no one in the
administration had consulted him
about sending more soldiers into the
South during the bitterly con-
tested and often bloody 1874 elections.
Sherman recognized as well
the unpopularity of stationing troops
near polling places and the politi-
cal repercussions in the North. Still
asserting that the southern peo-
ple would at some point have to govern
themselves without federal
assistance, he blamed the Union whites
and blacks for not fighting
for their own rights. The army was
simply too small to patrol the
South and fight Indians at the same
time. Sherman saw no reason for
propping up weak state governments with
bayonets and regretted his
inability to protect the troops from the
"dirty work imposed on them
by the city authorities of the
South."29
Sherman's views on these matters
reflected those of many officers,
and perhaps the enlisted men as well.
General George G. Meade,
while briefly in command of Georgia
affairs, pushed for the early res-
toration of civil government,
complaining of frequent partisan abuse
and the incessant requests for
intervention in political quarrels. Suc-
cessive commanders in the Division of
the South, Henry W. Halleck
and Irvin McDowell, telegraphed
Washington in frustration about
the lack of specific guidelines for the
employment of their forces. The
conservative Halleck clearly preferred
rigid restrictions on military in-
28. Thomas Ewing to John A. Bingham,
March 20, 1871, Bingham Papers, Ohio
Historial Society; Sherman to E. O. C.
Ord, March 18, 1871, Sherman Papers, Library
of Congress; Sherman to David F. Boyd,
April 24, 1870, March 27, 1871, September 27,
1872, Boyd Papers.
29. Sherman to C. C. Augur, March 18,
1871, Sherman Papers, Library of Congress;
Sherman to Regis de Trobriand, November
13, 1874, Marie C. Post (ed.), The Life and
Memoirs of Comte Regis De Trobriand (New York, 1910), 442-43; Sherman to David F.
Boyd, October 26, 1876, Boyd Papers;
Sherman to John Sherman, January 7, Febru-
ary 3, 1875, Thorndike (ed.), Sherman
Letters, 342, 344.
Sherman and the Conservative
Critique 159
volvement in civil disputes. Some
radicals generals, such as Adelbert
Ames in Mississippi, even when
describing with alarm the dangers to
black and white Republicans, parroted
this reluctance to use armed
force.30 Commanders such as
Philip Sheridan, who advocated a
firm response at the first sign of civil
disorder, were rare exceptions to
this consensus.
A series of letters between Sherman and
the temporary military
commander in Georgia, General Alfred H.
Terry, illustrates the grow-
ing impatience of army officers forced
to undertake what they saw as
both an unnecessary and thankless task.
In January 1870 Sherman
ordered Terry to protect citizens
against the Ku Klux Klan but left
any interference with the state
government to the general's judge-
ment. Yet he could not help but add his
opinion: "We of the Army
should keep out of this trouble and
simply execute the law so impar-
tially that our opponents even see that
we are governed by high prin-
ciple." Sherman more candidly
described to a visiting Savannah
businessman his contempt for Republican
governor Rufus Bullock,
adding that none of his soldiers had
ever supposed they were fight-
ing to "put the negro on an equal
footing with whites, in regard to
holding office." The irony, of
course, was that Congress had re-
manded Georgia to military control
because the legislature had ex-
pelled its black members. Terry shared
Sherman's hesitancy about
using troops and was furious about the
political pressures coming at
him from all directions. "I would
not again go through such a job of
this kind," he wrote angrily,
"even if it would make me a Marshal of
France." Agreeing with his superiors
that white conservatives must
eventually govern Georgia, Terry
complained of being "a sort of wet-
nurse to the negroes." In contrast
to his often expressed reservations
about political democracy, Sherman
concurred with Terry's opinion
that the ballot provided southern blacks
with all the protection they
needed.31
30. George G. Meade to John A. Rawlins,
October 31, 1868, House Executive Docu-
ments, 40th Cong., 3rd Sess., No. 1, pp. 79-82; Irvin McDowell
to Sherman, September
28, 1874, Letters Received, Adjutant
General's Office, Main Series, 1871-1880, Record
Group 94, National Archives (Microcopy 666, roll 169);
Henry W. Halleck to Adjutant
General, Washington, October 27, 1871, House
Executive Documents, 42nd Cong.,
2nd. Sess., No. 1, Vol. I, Pt. 2, p. 59;
Halleck to Adjutant General, Washington, Octo-
ber 24, 1870, House Executive
Documents, 41st Cong., 3rd Sess., No. 1, Vol. I, Pt. 2, p.
37; Adelbert Ames to Sherman, August 17,
1869, Sherman Papers, Library of Con-
gress.
31. Sherman to Alfred H. Terry, January
14, June 29, 1870, Terry to Sherman, June
20, July 2, 1870, Sherman Papers,
Library of Congress; Sherman to Terry, January 12,
1870, Senate Executive Documents, 41st
Cong., 2nd Sess., No. 41, p. 6; Entry for Janu-
ary 17, 1870, Edward G. Anderson Diary,
Southern Historical Collection, University of
160 OHIO HISTORY
The chronic problems of Louisiana
reinforced this skepticism and
completed Sherman's disaffection from
the administration's south-
ern policies. He had kept in close
contact with his old friend David
Boyd, the new president of the Louisiana
State Seminary, and had
visited the state several times since
the war. Under pressure from
Congress to reduce expenditures, Sherman
had ordered the closing
of several army posts in 1871, leaving
northern Louisiana without a
garrison. As the state descended toward
political chaos after the
disputed election of 1872, Sherman
opposed Grant's support for Re-
publican governor William Pitt Kellogg
but counseled his conserva-
tive friends to avoid violence. His
official position remained a legalis-
tic one, obeying the orders of his
superiors with a singular absence of
enthusiasm. In any new political or
military conflict, he confided to
Boyd, "I would stand aloof."
Sherman consistently refused to com-
mit his opinions to writing, beyond
expressing sympathy for the citi-
zens of Louisiana in a most general way.32
Correspondence from Louisiana
conservatives lambasting Kellogg
undoubtedly influenced the general's
private sentiments.33 After the
organization of the White League and an
attempted coup against the
governor in September 1874, Sherman
quietly hid behind the Presi-
dent's proclamation restoring Kellogg to
power and refused to encour-
age the insurrectionists. Yet when Phil
Sheridan sent soldiers into
the statehouse in January 1875 to
prevent a Democratic takeover of
the House of Representatives, Sherman
complained to his brother
that most officers could not understand
why they should protect a
state government from the state's own
citizens. He divided responsi-
bility for the debacle between the
cowardly southern Republicans
who refused to fight for their own
rights and the Grant administra-
tion which left generals to flounder
about without specific orders.34
This new firmness in the government's
policy left Sherman more
North Carolina; Terry to Sherman,
January 19, 1870, Letters Received, Adjutant Gen-
eral's Office, Main Series, 1861-1870,
Record Group 94, National Archives (Microcopy
619, roll 752).
32. Joseph G. Dawson, III, Army
Generals and Reconstruction: Louisiana, 1862-1877
(Baton Rouge, 1982), 107-108; Sherman to
David F. Boyd, December 4, 1872, January
6, April 4, May 20, July 28, 1873, Boyd
Papers.
33. Samuel H. Lockett to Sherman,
December 12, 1872, David F. Boyd to Sherman,
September 16, 1874, D. Cresswell to
Sherman, November 13, 1874, Sherman Papers,
Library of Congress.
34. Sherman to David F. Boyd, September
21, 1874, February 18, 1875, Boyd Pa-
pers; Sherman to John Sherman, January
23, 1875, Sherman Papers, Library of Con-
gress; Sherman to John Sherman, February 3, 1875,
Thorndike (ed.), Sherman Let-
ters, 343-44; Irvin McDowell to James A. Garfield, January
27, 1875, Garfield Papers,
Library of Congress.
Sherman and the Conservative Critique 161 |
isolated and powerless. Placing great hopes in a change of adminis- tration, he warmly approved Republican presidential nominee Ruth- erford B. Hayes as a man who "was with us heart and soul in the Civil War." Although he believed Democratic candidate Samuel J. Tilden to be an honorable man, by the eve of the election, there was an unusual tone of bloody-shirt waving in Sherman's political com- ments. "Should Tilden be elected," he wrote Ellen in alarm, "the Southern politicians, who are strong passionate men, will demand a full share of the honors and emoluments of government, and may lord it over us who were their enemies. The passions and sorrows of war are not healed enough for us to bear such .... Republicans have made mistakes but have not sanctioned crime."35 This rare outburst was in fact nothing more than a fit of temper. As opposed as ever to using military force to achieve political ends, he had telegraphed the commander in South Carolina: "If you want anything, say so. I want all measures to originate with you. Get along with the minimum force necessary, but you shall have all we can give
35. Sherman to John Sherman, February 1, 1876, Thorndike (ed.), Sherman Let- ters, 347; Sherman to David F. Boyd, July 14, 1876, Boyd Papers; Sherman to Ellen Ewing Sherman, November 2, 1876, Howe (ed.), Home Letters, 386. |
162 OHIO HISTORY
you if you need them." When
disputed returns from South Carolina,
Florida and Louisiana made the outcome
of the election uncertain,
Sherman dreaded having the army caught
in the political crossfire.
This uncertainty threw Sherman into a
severe depression, leading
him to curse the politicians for their
betrayal of the public interest
and to talk wildly about the possibility
of a second, even more
bloody, civil war.36
In contrast to these fiery outbursts,
federal troops stood quietly
near the statehouses in Columbia, South
Carolina, and New Orleans,
Louisiana, nervously watching for the
first signs of political warfare.
Sherman disapproved "very much to
have our soldiers used in con-
nection with a legislative body but
orders coming from the President
have to be obeyed. They form a bad
precedent, but thus far have
prevented a collision of arms between
inflamed partisans." The com-
mander of the Division of the Atlantic,
General Winfield Scott Han-
cock, an avowed Democrat, accused the
Grant administration of
illegally sending troops into the South
for political purposes and cau-
tioned Sherman against military
intervention in the election dead-
lock. Sherman blandly responded that he
naturally had to carry out
the instructions of the
commander-in-chief, but he agreed with Han-
cock on the necessity for maintaining
the army's neutrality. Fervently
hoping that Congress would resolve the
impasse before inauguration
day, Sherman bitterly observed that the
generals had already had
too much recent experience in dealing
with rival state governments
without having to adjudicate the claims
of competing presidential
claimants.37
News from the South must have had a
calming effect on Sherman.
Conservatives there appeared much more
interested in completing
the overthrow of the remaining
Republican state governments than in
fighting for Tilden.38 Sherman
endorsed General C. C. Augur's pas-
sive response to a Democratic takeover
in New Orleans and made no
reply to the desperate pleas for help
from frightened southern Re-
publicans. He welcomed David Boyd's
friendly assurances of south-
ern cooperation with Hayes and, throwing
his usual caution aside,
36. Sherman to Thomas H. Ruger, October
14, 1876, House Executive Documents,
44th Cong., 2nd Sess., No. 30, p. 14; New
York Herald, November 9, 1876; Sherman to
David F. Boyd, November 16, 1876, Boyd
Papers; Lewis, Sherman, 623.
37. Sherman to Winfield Scott Hancock,
December 4, 1876, January 2, 1877, Sher-
man to John Sherman, January 19, 1877,
William T. Sherman Papers, Library of Con-
gress; Hancock to Sherman, December 28,
1876, Samuel J. Tilden Papers, New York
Public Library.
38. John M. Bacon to Sherman, November
18, 1876, David F. Boyd to Sherman,
January 24, February 16, 1877, Sherman
Papers, Library of Congress.
Sherman and the Conservative
Critique 163
predicted the beginning of an "era
of good feelings."39 For Sherman
at least, Reconstruction was over.
These words provided a hollow epitaph
for a flawed and tragic ex-
periment. Sherman should have known that
such a tumultuous era
could not so quickly fade from memory.
During an earlier crisis in
Louisiana, he had known better, advising
the impetuous Sheridan
that "the causes that disturb the
South are duplicated and will
hardly disappear till a new generation
is born and reach maturity."40
This statement was in retrospect overly
sanguine, but that fact hardly
diminishes Sherman's stature as a
perceptive and prophetic observer
of the Reconstruction period. Sherman
had long recognized a salient
fact missed by many of his
contemporaries and later historians: the
United States army at the end of the
Civil War had its own social and
political character, its own set of
values, its own esprit. Though sol-
diers might temporarily garrison the
South and quell disorders, the
army was no malleable instrument for
social revolution. Sherman's re-
actionary political views, his racial
prejudice and his endemic pessi-
mism had allowed him to see the limits
of military power and ulti-
mately the limits of reconstruction
itself. Yet a man who so clearly
analyzed part of the dilemma failed to
see the other half-that black
freedom was an unavoidable consequence
of the Union victory. To
that question Sherman offered no answers,
only conundrums. Often
right for the wrong reasons, Sherman
provides little comfort for those
searching for a less tragic conclusion
to the tragic era.
39. Dawson, Army Generals and
Reconstruction, 250, 256; David F. Boyd to Sher-
man, March 11, 1877, Sherman Papers,
Library of Congress; Sherman to Boyd, Janu-
ary 23, March 4, 9, 1877, Boyd Papers.
40. Sherman to Philip H. Sheridan,
January 2, 1875, Sheridan Papers, Library of
Congress.
GEORGE C. RABLE
William T. Sherman and the
Conservative Critique
of Radical Reconstruction
Paradoxes abound. The avenging angel of
the Union whose army
made not only Georgia but the Carolinas
howl became the generous
conciliator after Appomattox. The
insecure general who loathed par-
tisan machination was sucked into the
maelstrom of Washington poli-
tics. The arch-enemy of the Confederacy
turned into the friend of
his fallen foes. A superb subject for
psychological analysis, William
Tecumseh Sherman was more than the
grizzled, red-haired genius of
modern warfare. Dubbed a "fighting
prophet" by his best biogra-
pher,1 this highly complex, lonely and
tragic figure became one of
the most acute and prophetic observers
of Reconstruction America.
There was nothing clairvoyant or
mystical about this very practical
man of affairs, a relentless organizer
and constant worrier. Sherman's
prescience about the problems of
Reconstruction grew out of his own
experience, and from the prejudices and
assumptions he shared with
his contemporaries, especially those
young midwesterners who had
filled the ranks of the federal armies.
He also embodied the conserv-
atism of the West Point-trained officer.
Intimate association with the
powerful Ewing family of Ohio imbued him
with a reverence for the
Union and a Whiggish distrust of
democracy. Yet Sherman's own
failures in business and his emotional
response to the crises of the
1850s exacerbated this natural
pessimism.2
George C. Rable is Director of American
Studies at Anderson College, Anderson,
Indiana. He presented an earlier version
of this essay at the Organization of American
Historians convention in Cincinnati,
Ohio, on April 8, 1983.
1. Lloyd Lewis, Sherman: Fighting
Prophet (New York, 1932).
2. Like many other West Point graduates
of the period, Sherman had found serv-
ice in the peacetime army both dull and
frustrating. Despite potent family connections
in Ohio, Sherman never quite discovered
his niche in the turbulent society of
antebellum America. A brief and
disastrous stint as a San Francisco banker, an unhap-
py law practice in Lawrence, Kansas, and
exasperating service as head of a military
academy in Alexandria, Louisiana, did nothing to
alleviate Sherman's moodiness and
sense of failure.