Citizen Sherman - Life of William Tecumseh Sherman (Paperback)

The battles of the Civil War become background scenery in this long, sober examination of the mind and personality of "Cutup" Sherman, 19th-century American military icon. William Tecumseh Sherman's father named him after a famous Indian chief. At age nine, after his father died, he was taken into the politically powerful Ewing family of Lancaster, Ohio. He sailed through West Point, married a Ewing daughter, drifted through a mediocre military career and a disastrous business one. He returned to the Army but suffered a near nervous breakdown in the early months of the Civil War. Then, after he and Grant won the Battle of Vicksburg, Sherman transformed himself into the most successful and ruthless American general of his age. He was also an outspoken racist, a compulsive womanizer, an oppressive father, and a man with strongly held antidemocratic political views. He court-martialed a civilian newspaper reporter who had written a viciously unfair article about him. In relating the life of the man best known for his ultradestructive 1864 march through Georgia, Fellman (History/Simon Fraser Univ., Canada; Inside War, not reviewed) concentrates on sketching a psychological portrait rather than on blow-by-blow descriptions of Sherman's military exploits. He uses his voluble subject's many letters, speeches, and writings to burrow deeply into his mind. This leads to several intriguing hypotheses involving the relationship between the fear of failure resulting from Sherman's early early debacles and his later success on the battlefield. Fellman's fixation on Sherman's psyche, however, also results in some facile, largely unconvincing psychological analyses. These include discussions about Sherman's "self-love" and the contention that Sherman feared "exposing himself entirely to himself" because "there were energies and conflicts inside of him that were frightening even to himself." A fresh, needed reinterpretation of Sherman the man, but a bit overwritten and sometimes off-base in its psychologizing. (Kirkus Reviews)

Some men panic in the face of war, others embrace its horrific challenges. But none embraced war as ferociously or with as much cold calculation as William Tecumseh Sherman. It was Sherman who both articulated and practiced the relentless scorched-earth policy that broke the heart of the Confederacy. He succeeded in large measure because, better than any other Union general, he fully grasped the essence of psychological warfare and could enact his own deep-rooted rage with ruthless clarity.

This biography is much broader than an analysis of Sherman's wartime genius, however. Michael Fellman illuminates the emotional as well as the intellectual, ideological, and occupational lives of this extraordinary, but at the same time representative, Victorian American.

Fellman's boldly argued and gracefully written study merits the attention of anyone interested in its brilliant and volatile subject". -- Gary W. Gallagher in the New York Times Book Review

Somehow, the key to the sherman riddle has until now eluded biographers. Now Fellman, whose best-known previous book offered the finest history yet written on Civil War guerrilla fighting in the border state of Missouri, has offered as gripping and original a life story as has yet been produced on Sherman. It is most compelling book. Convincing argued and elegantly written, it takes its place as the definitive modern study of the Civil War's most feared fighter". -- Harold Holzer in the Chicago Tribune.

"There appears to be nothing written by or to Sherman that Fellman hasn't read and analyzed, no scrap of existing evidence that he hasn't looked at. He makes a persuasive case and he does it in a fascinating and readable way. The innerSherman that emerges isn't necessarily a man you would invite home for dinner, although he would doubtless be charming and endlessly interesting. Here is a famous and furious man, brilliant, insightful, garrulous, complicated, tightly wound, energetic, aggressive, salty, angry, and racist. Here is a man who is grudge-bearing, yet often kind; insecure, yet positive about what the war was about, how to win it, and how it would end". -- Washington Post Book World.

"A penetrating study of the psychological makeup of a brilliant, troubled, and troubling man.... one of the most enigmatic and controversial figures in American history", -- William S. McFeely in the Boston Globe.

"A vivid portrait of a fiery personality and a troubled, sometimes dark soul. Lively, compelling, and provocative, it will stir controversy. It speaks with loud assurance where others might tread cautiously. It raises the sort of questions should ask more often". -- Brooks Simpson in the Journal of American History.

General

Imprint:	University Press of Kansas
Country of origin:	United States
Series:	Modern War Studies
Release date:	April 1997
First published:	April 1997
Authors:	Michael Fellman
Dimensions:	229 x 152 x 26mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback
Pages:	486
ISBN-13:	978-0-7006-0840-9
Categories:	Books > Humanities > History > General Books > History > General Promotions
LSN:	0-7006-0840-0
Barcode:	9780700608409

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