Ohio History Journal

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.

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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.

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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.

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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,

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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

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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.

• 14
 

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.

• 15
 

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.

• 16
 

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.

• 17