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SHERMAN AS A STRATEGIST.

The most original Character developed by the War.--No Parallel for Sherman.--His nervous Energy the secret of his great Success. --Incidents illustrative of his great Energy.--Restlessness of Manner and nervousness of Expression in Conversation.--His bad Temper. --Appearance in Battle and under Excitement.--Vigorous Style as a Writer.--He ought to have been a War Correspondent rather than a General.--The Story of his Lunacy.--How it originated.--Method in his Madness.--Habit of Decision.--How he came to leave the Law and return to the Army.--His uncontrollable Temper nearly Ruins him.--The Quarrel with Halleck and Stanton.--Failure as a Tactician and Disciplinarian.--All his Battles Defeats.--Never won a Battle.--His great strategic Marches.--The Campaign of Atlanta his greatest Achievement.--Joe Johnston a Foeman worthy of his Steel.--Sherman's Egotism.--His dislike for Correspondents and independence of the Press mere Affectation.--Nicknames bestowed on him by the Soldiers.--An inveterate Smoker.--His personal Appearance Page 17

THOMAS AS A TACTICIAN.

Sherman and Thomas match Horses.--A Contrast drawn between them. --Methodical Habits of Thomas.--System necessary to his Existence. --Fury of his Anger when aroused.--Great Self-control and Coolness in Danger.--Illustrative Incidents of his Imperturbability. --Cold-blooded upon Principle.--He Studies to avoid the display of his Emotions.--Personal Description and Habits in Camp.--His tactical Ability.--Affection of his Soldiers for Thomas.--The Bayard of the Army.--His uniform Success as a Commander.--Thomas entitled to the Credit of Sherman's March to the Sea.--The Battles of that Campaign fought at Nashville by Thomas.--The Battle at Nashville his greatest Action 58

GRANT AS A GENERAL.

The proper Conception of his Character.--Grant a Combination of Sherman and Thomas.--Contrasted with Lee.--Resemblance between Grant and Sherman.--Energy of both.--Comparison between Grant and Thomas.--The Persistence and Tenacity of each.--Grant's Practicability and Magnanimity.--His Taciturnity.--His Idea of Strategy.--His numerous Battles the most successful and important of the War.--Campaign at Chattanooga and Knoxville.--The remarkable Campaign to the Rear of Richmond the most brilliant of the War.--His great Vice, a Habit of Smoking.--His great Weakness, a Love of Horses.--Grant and Sherman as Damon and Pythias.--His Generosity to his Subordinates.--Superiority to his principal Leaders.--What his Character in the Future will be 91

SHERIDAN AS A CAVALRYMAN.

The Union Cause rich in its Leadership.--The Rebellion very weak. --Sheridan one of the most able of our Leaders.--A Miracle of War. --An Inspiration rather than a General.--A "Fighting" General. --Reminiscences of his Youth.--His Career as a "belligerent Cadet" at West Point.--His Class-mates and their Success.--Sheridan and Hood compared.--Sheridan's early Career as a Lieutenant and Failure as a Quarter-master.--A Favorite with both Grant and Halleck.--Sheridan a Colonel of Cavalry.--His first Cavalry Victory.--Promoted Brigadier General of Infantry.--Repeated Defeats as a Commander of Infantry. --His Failures at Stone River and Chickamauga.--Success in Pursuit of Bragg from Tullahoma and at Chattanooga.--Promoted to the Command of all Grant's Cavalry.--His Success in this Capacity.--The Belligerent in his Organization.--Personal Appearance and Habits.--A modern Scipio 128

FIGHTING JOE HOOKER.

General Hooker a Cosmopolitan.--Naturally "a Fighting General." --Career in Mexico.--Difficulties in obtaining a Command.--His inspiring Presence.--Critical Account of his "Battle above the Clouds."--He manufactures the Clouds in order to fight above them. --His Weakness consists in his Disposition to criticise every thing. --His Candor.--Opinion of McClellan.--"The young Napoleon conducting War in order to get into the best Society."--Hooker's Vanity and Valor.--How he obtained a Command.--Sharp Criticisms in official Reports.--Hooker's Criticism on Sherman.--His untiring Energy.--The Title of Fighting Joe offensive to him.--How it was obtained. --Personal Description and Habits 165

RECOLLECTIONS OF ROUSSEAU.

PECULIARITIES OF VARIOUS GENERALS.

General Don Carlos Buell.--One of the greatest Generals, also one of the greatest Failures of the War.--Buell too methodical to be practical.--Weakness of his Army Organization.--Three Corps Commanders without Ability.--Perryville a Battle lost by Jealousy of our Commanders.--Quarrel between Buell and Governor Johnson of Tennessee.--The true Story of the proposed Evacuation of Nashville. --Thomas and Buell compared.--William Starke Rosecrans a great Failure.--His utter Incompetency.--His extreme Nervousness unfitting him for a Command.--His Campaign of Chickamauga one Series of Mistakes.--The Battle an unnecessary Slaughter.--The worst managed Battle of the War.--Rosecrans not on the Field.--Gordon Granger's Peculiarities.--His Predilection for artillery Fights.--His Resemblance to Joe Hooker.--Retort upon Sherman.--"Living off the Country."--His Opinion of Gideon Pillow and "painted Mules."--Grief at the Death of Captain Russell.--"Old Steady" Steedman one of the most positive Men of the War.--His Boldness and Impudence.--Daring Charge at Chickamauga.--His March from Chattanooga to Nashville to ask for Orders.--His Faith in Negro Troops.--Generals Wood and Negley the Victims of Chickamauga.--Military Character of each. --General Howard a Soldier on Principle.--His firm Faith in the Cause and its Success.--Methodical Turn of Mind.--Religious Habits and Training.--Mayor William H. Sidell as Sherman's Counterpart.--General John A. Logan the representative General of the Western Army.--His Readiness in Emergencies, and his great personal Daring.--General John W. Geary's adventurous Career.--His famous midnight Battle with Longstreet, and how he defeated him 242

SOME PECULIARITIES OF OUR VETERANS.

PAGE

WILLIAM T. SHERMAN 16

GEORGE H. THOMAS 58

ULYSSES S. GRANT 90

ROBERT E. LEE 95

PHILIP H. SHERIDAN 131

JOSEPH HOOKER 164

LOVELL H. ROUSSEAU 194

DON CARLOS BUELL 245

WILLIAM S. ROSECRANS 261

GORDON GRANGER 268

JAMES B. STEEDMAN 276

OLIVER O. HOWARD 299

JOHN A. LOGAN 307

JOHN W. GEARY 317

PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS

DISTINGUISHED GENERALS.

SHERMAN AS A STRATEGIST.

Of the few really great men who have been developed by the late war in this country, and who will leave a lasting impression on the minds of the people, William Tecumseh Sherman may be regarded as the most original. His name has been made more widely prominent, and his character more universally popular, than that of any other of our heroes; but it has been less in consequence of his brilliant success as a leader than by reason of his strongly-marked characteristics of person and mind. He is, without doubt, the most original and eccentric, though not the most powerful--the most interesting, though not the most impressive character developed by the rebellion. He is by far our most brilliant general, but not by any means the most reliable; the most fascinating, but not the most elegant; the quickest, but not the safest; the first to resolve, but not the most resolute. As a man he is always generous, but not uniformly just; affectionate by nature, but not at all times kind in demonstration; confiding, and yet suspicious; obstinate, yet vacillating; decided, but not tenacious--a mass of contradictions so loosely and yet so happily thrown together as to produce the most interesting combination imaginable. General Sherman's character has many beauties and virtues, but also many glaring defects and faults. His picture, as I have seen and studied it, possesses what the artists call "great breadth of light and shade," and is full of contrasts alternately pleasing and offensive, and which, in order to properly analyze the character, should be portrayed and described with equal force and impartiality. He is a character without a parallel among his contemporaries, though not without a contrast; and it is for the latter reason that I have chosen his character as the one upon which to base, as it were, the following estimates of the characters of his fellow-officers of the United States army, and not because I think, as may be supposed, that he deserves the first place in the rank of our great captains. The war lasted long enough to give the leaders, if not their proper places in popular estimation, at least their true linear rank in the army. General Sherman may be considered as first among the strategists of the war; General George H. Thomas as first among the tacticians; but Grant, combining the qualities of both tactician and strategist, must always be ranked as greatly the superior of both Thomas and Sherman.

General Sherman may be described as a bundle of nerves all strung to their greatest tension. No woman was ever more painfully nervous; but there is nothing of the woman's weakness in Sherman's restlessness. It is not, as with others, a defect of the organization; it is really Sherman's greatest strength, for from it results the brilliancy of conception and design which has characterized his strategic movements, the originality which has appeared in his views on political economy and the policy of war, and the overwhelming energy which is "his all in all," the secret and cause of his great success. From his extreme nervousness results the most striking feature of his character--a peculiar nervous energy which knows no cessation, and is resistless. It is not merely that energy and quickness of movement which naturally belongs to nervous organizations, but intensified a hundred fold. At the same time, it is energy without system, and oftentimes without judgment, but nevertheless always effective. General Sherman is the engine, but he is not always the engineer. He furnishes the motive power, but he frequently requires some person or thing to keep him to the track; in fact, he requires to be controlled and directed. He is untiring in his efforts; you can never dismay him with the amount or frighten him with the dangers of a task; and he hesitates at nothing, matters great and small receiving his attention. He is no believer in that too common fallacy that labor is a wearisome waste of the physical and vital powers; a punishment, not a privilege; and degrading, not elevating. Work is necessary to his existence, and hard, earnest work at that. Always a hard, earnest worker, he devoted, during the continuance of the war, but little time to sleep, and that little sleep was never sound. His active mind, I once heard him say to a fellow-officer, delights in preposterous dreams and impossible fancies, and, waking or sleeping, continues ever active in planning and executing.

Some former experience with, or, rather, observation of the general, had given me somewhat of the same opinion of his energy and earnestness. When he first assumed command at Louisville, Kentucky, in 1861, the agents of the New York Associated Press throughout the country were employed by the government in transmitting its cipher or secret messages, and correspondence between the various military commanders, by telegraph. In consequence of this arrangement, General Sherman frequented the office of the Louisville agency, in which I was at the time employed. He was always at this office during the evening, often remaining until three o'clock in the morning, when the closing of the office would force him to retire to his rooms at the hotel. During these hours he would pace the floor of the room apparently absorbed in thought, and heedless of all that was going on around him. He would occasionally sit at the table to jot down a memorandum or compose a telegram. He would sometimes stop to listen to any remark addressed to him by other occupants of the room, but would seldom reply, even though the remark had been a direct question, and would appear and act as if the interruption had but momentarily disturbed his train of thought.

In July, 1864, while besieging the enemy's position at Kenesaw Mountain, an incident occurred which may be given as illustrative of Sherman's energy. When the campaign opened he had published an order informing the army, in terms which were laughed at at the time as rather bombastic and slightly egotistical, that "the commanding general intended making the campaign without a tent," and during the greater part of the march his head-quarters actually consisted of nothing more than a tent-fly for the use of his adjutant general. He generally slept under a tree during dry weather, and in very wet weather in any convenient house. When the army was concentrated in the gorge of Snake Creek Gap, in which there was not a house of any character, General Logan "raised the laugh" on Sherman by sending him a tent to protect him from the rain, and which, owing to the terrible state of the weather, Sherman was compelled to use. But the greater part of the campaign was actually passed by Sherman without any other quarters than I have described as for the convenience of his adjutant general. Early one morning a regiment of troops passed his bivouac near Kenesaw Mountain, Georgia, and saw him lying under a tree near the roadside. One of the men, not knowing the general, and supposing him, from his jaded, weary, and generally dilapidated appearance, to be drunk, remarked aloud, "That is the way we are commanded, officered by drunken generals." Sherman heard the remark and instantly arose. "Not drunk, my boy," he said good-humoredly, "but I was up all night looking after your rations, and am very tired and sleepy." He soon after broke up head-quarters, and, passing the same regiment on the march, was received with loud and hearty cheers.

He makes his subordinates work, too, with the same zeal. When the rebels, in evacuating Resaca, succeeded in burning the railroad bridge over the Oostenaula River, he turned to Colonel Wright, his engineer in charge of railroads, and asked him how long it would take him to replace that bridge. Colonel Wright replied after a short calculation, during which Sherman showed his impatience at the delay in the answer, that he could rebuild it in four days.

"Sir," exclaimed the general, hastily, "I give you forty-eight hours, or a position in the front ranks."

The bridge was forthcoming at the proper time.

This nervousness of Sherman's organization has naturally produced a peculiar restlessness of manner and admirable vigor of expression. He talks with great rapidity, often in his haste mingling his sentences in a most surprising manner, and accompanying his conversation by strange, quick, and ungraceful gestures, the most common of which is the knocking of the ashes from his cigar with the little finger of his left hand, frequently knocking at it until ashes and light too are gone.

"And shall we keep it after that?" asked Ewing.

"I say, Ewing, don't call for help until you actually need it." General Frank Blair, and others of the Army of the Tennessee who were standing near Sherman, laughed at this in such a manner as left the impression on the minds of others, as well as myself, that on some former occasion General Ewing had called for help before General Sherman thought that he really needed it.

It is recorded of Sherman that, on witnessing from the top of a rice-mill on the Ogeechee River the capture of Fort McAllister by General Hazen's forces, and the successful termination by that capture of the "march to the sea," he exclaimed, imitating the voice of a negro, "Dis chile don't sleep dis night," and hurried off to meet General Foster and complete the junction of the two armies.

While endeavoring to fill up his d?p?ts at Chattanooga and Knoxville preparatory to the campaign against Atlanta, Sherman was asked by members of the United States Christian Commission for transportation for their delegates, books, tracts, etc., for the army. His reply is very characteristic of the man: "Certainly not," he wrote; "crackers and oats are more necessary to my army than any moral or religious agency." As this incident shows, Sherman is not a very firm believer in the utility of Christian or Sanitary Commissions, or aid societies generally. He thinks female nurses about a hospital or an army a great nuisance. He once alluded contemptuously to the efforts of a large number of ladies at Louisville, Kentucky, to send clothing, lint, sweetmeats, etc., to his troops, but was induced, in lieu of discouraging their efforts, to take steps to properly direct them. He met the ladies by agreement in one of the public halls at Louisville, now known as Wood's Theatre, and made an address to them. He went among the lambs with all the boldness and dignity of a lion; but the rough, uncouth manner of him who had frowned on thousands of men melted in the presence of a few hundred ladies. They found that, though "he was no orator as Brutus is," he could talk very tenderly of the soldier's wants, very graphically of the soldier's life and sufferings, and very gallantly of woman and her divine mission of soothing and comforting.

During the campaign of Atlanta communication with the rear was very much obstructed, the news correspondents found many difficulties in forwarding information, and telegrams to the press seldom reached New York. During the movement around Atlanta Sherman was applied to directly by the news agent at Louisville for the details of the movement. In reply the general telegraphed, "Atlanta is ours, and fairly won;" following up the expression, which has already passed into song, with a brief and graphic report of the flank movement around Atlanta and the battle of Jonesborough. This report is one of the most admirable narratives I remember to have ever read, and at the time of its publication I wrote for the Herald, of which I was then a correspondent, a long criticism of it. The letter never appeared, however, for the reason that I endeavored to show that, successful as he had been, Sherman had mistaken his vocation as a general, and ought to have been a war correspondent. I suppose Sherman would have been mortally offended at such language, particularly as he affected to hold correspondents and editors in contempt; but undoubtedly he would have been invaluable to the New York Herald or London Times in such a capacity, and could have made more money, if not more reputation, in that capacity than as a major general. He has lately declared that he does not believe he will ever have occasion to lead men again, and I advise him by all means to go into the newspaper business. Any of the principal papers of New York will be glad to give him double the pay of a major general to act in the capacity of war correspondent.

Until Sherman had developed his practicability, this peculiarity of expression and manner were accepted as evidences of a badly-balanced mind. It will be remembered that in his early career a report was widely circulated to the effect that he was a lunatic; but the origin of this story, if properly stated, will redound to his credit, as evincing admirable foresight and sagacity. The true origin of this report is as follows: Sherman succeeded General Robert Anderson in command of the Department of the Ohio on October 13, 1861. Up to that time about ten thousand United States troops had been pushed into Kentucky. The Western governors were under a promise to send as many more, but were slow in doing so. General A. Sidney Johnston, the rebel commander at Bowling Green, was endeavoring to create the impression that he had about seventy-five thousand men, when he really had only about twenty-eight thousand. In this he succeeded so far as to cause it to be supposed that his force largely exceeded Sherman's. Sherman urged upon the government the rapid re-enforcement of his army, but with little effect. The troops did not come, for the reason that the government did not credit the statements of the perilous condition of Sherman's army. So repeated and urgent were Sherman's demands for re-enforcements, that at last the Secretary of War, Mr. Cameron, visited Louisville in order to look into the situation of affairs. An interview took place at the Galt House at Louisville, Sherman, Cameron, and Adjutant General Thomas being present. Sherman briefly explained the situation of affairs, stated his own force and that of the enemy, and argued that re-enforcements were necessary to hold Kentucky, to say nothing of an advance. "My forces are too small for an advance," he said--"too small to hold the important positions in the state against an advance of the enemy, and altogether too large to be sacrificed in detail." On being asked how many men were required to drive the enemy out of the state, he answered, without hesitation, "Two hundred thousand." The answer was a surprise to the two officers, which they did not attempt to conceal. They even ridiculed the idea, and laughed at the calculation. It was declared impossible to furnish the number of men named. Sherman then argued that the positions in Kentucky ought to be abandoned, and the army no longer endangered by being scattered. This was treated more seriously, and vigorously opposed by Cameron and Thomas. They declared the abandonment of Kentucky was a step to which they could not consent. Subsequently they broached a plan which had been devised for dividing the Department and Army of the Ohio into two; one column to operate under Mitchell from Cincinnati as a base against Knoxville, and the other from Louisville against Nashville. To this Sherman was strongly opposed. Satisfied by the persistence of Cameron on this point that the government was not disposed to second his views of conducting the affairs of the Department, Sherman asked to be relieved and ordered to duty in the field. Cameron gladly acquiesced in his wishes, and he was relieved by Buell, November 30, 1861.

On the same evening of the famous interview between Cameron and Sherman, the latter paid his customary visit to the Associated Press-rooms at Louisville. Here, while still in a bad humor over the result of the interview, he was approached by a man who introduced himself as an attache of a New York paper, and asked permission to pass through the lines to the South in the capacity of a correspondent. Sherman replied that he could not pass. The correspondent, with unwarrantable impertinence, replied that Secretary Cameron was in the city, and he would get a pass from him. Sherman at once ordered him out of his department, telling him that he would give him two hours to make his escape; if found in his lines after that hour he "would hang him as a spy." The fellow left the city immediately, and on reaching Cincinnati very freely expressed his opinion that the general was crazy. A paper published in that city, on learning the story of the interview between Cameron and Sherman, which soon became public, employed the fellow to write up the report which was thus first circulated of Sherman's lunacy. His opinion that two hundred thousand men were required to clear Kentucky of rebels was quoted as proof of it by this man, and thus the story came into existence.

Subsequent events revealed the fact that Sherman did not much exaggerate the force necessary to carry on the war in the central zone of the field of military operations. Although we have never had a single army numbering two hundred thousand men in the West, much larger armies have been necessary to the accomplishment of the campaign of the Mississippi and Tennessee Rivers than any person other than Sherman thus early in the war imagined. The army of Grant at Fort Donelson and Shiloh, combined with that of Buell, was not over eighty thousand men. That of Halleck before Corinth numbered exactly one hundred and two thousand. Sherman left Chattanooga in May, 1864, with one hundred and twenty thousand men, the largest army ever gathered in one body in the West. At the same time, he had under his command at different points on the Mississippi River and in Kentucky an additional force of about fifty thousand, while the forces operating under other commanders in the West would, if added to his, make a grand total of two hundred and fifty thousand men operating on the Mississippi River, every one of whom was necessary to the conquest and retention of the Mississippi Valley.

Sherman may have been at one time crazy, but his madness, like Hamlet's, certainly had marvelous method in it. Such lunatics as he have existed in all ages, and have, when as successful as himself, been designated by the distinctive title of "genius," in contradistinction to men of medium abilities. Not only Shakspeare, but Dryden, seems to have encountered such madness as Sherman's, and to have appreciated the truth that

"Great wits are sure to madness near allied, And thin partitions do their bounds divide."

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