He resigned his position after Louisiana seceded in January 1861.įor several months, he worked as the president of a St. He repeatedly warned his Southern friends of the dangers they faced taking on the more prosperous, industrialized North, but to no avail. Sherman was not an ardent opponent of slavery, but he was vehemently against the idea of Southern secession over the issue.
He was a popular headmaster and was very fond of the friends he made there.
Sherman returned to the South in 1859, when he accepted a position as superintendent of the Louisiana State Seminary of Learning and Military Academy (now Louisiana State University). Sherman’s bank failed in 1857, and he briefly moved to Kansas, where he practiced law. Sherman became a banker, but was overwhelmed by the frenetic pace of San Francisco, a city teeming with an influx of speculators. He resigned his commission in 1853, but remained in California with his growing family. He spent several years there as an administrative officer, eventually rising to the rank of captain.īut with little combat experience, Sherman realized future advancement was unlikely. Instead, he was stationed in Northern California, which was just on the verge of the California Gold Rush. Unlike many of his West Point classmates, Sherman did not see action in the Mexican-American War. This first introduction to life in the South left a lasting favorable impression. He was stationed in Georgia and South Carolina, and fought in the Second Seminole War in Florida. He excelled in the academic side of his training, but was dismissive of West Point’s strict set of rules and demerits, a trait he would carry with him throughout his military career. Sherman graduated in 1840, ranked sixth in his class. There he met and befriended several future military leaders who he would fight alongside – and against – during the Civil War. When Sherman was 16, John Ewing secured him a position at the U.S. Several of his Ewing foster siblings also rose to prominence. Senate and later served as both secretary of the treasury and secretary of state. An elder brother became a federal judge, and younger brother John Sherman was elected to the U.S. Sherman was not the only successful member of his family. Sherman later married his foster sister, Ellen Ewing, and the couple had eight children. Sherman, nicknamed “Cump,” was raised by John Ewing, a family friend who was an Ohio senator and Cabinet member. Most of the Sherman children were fostered out to live with other families. The death of Sherman’s father when he was 9 left his mother a poor widow with 11 children. With an unusual middle name received from his father, a prominent lawyer and judge who admired the Shawnee chief Tecumseh, William Tecumseh Sherman was born February 8, 1820, in Lancaster, Ohio.
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