William Tecumseh Sherman

Birth Date

1820-02-08

Death Date

1891-02-14

Gender

Race Description

White

Entity Type

Person

U.S. Army soldier. Lancaster, Ohio, native. Married to Eleanor Boyle Ewing Sherman. Graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, in 1840. Breveted captain as administrative officer in California during the Mexican-American War. Resigned U.S. Army in 1853. Banker in San Francisco, California, from 1853 to 1857. Attorney in Fort Leavensworth, Kansas. Superintendent and professor of engineering at the Louisiana Seminary for Learning and Military Academy from 1859 to 1861. President of a street car company in St. Louis, Missouri in 1861. Commissioned a colonel of the 13th U.S. infantry in May 1861. Promoted to brigadier general in August 1861. Commander of U.S. forces in Kentucky in October 1861. Served in the Western Theatre in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi. Promoted to major general in May 1862. Commander of the Army of the Tennessee. Commander of all U.S. forces in the Western Theatre in 1864. Received the surrender of Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston's command at Duraham, North Carolina, on April 26, 1865. Appointed commander of the Military Division of the Mississippi in June 1865.

Eighth Manuscript Census of the United States (1860), Population Schedules, Louisiana, Rapides Parish, p. 84.
Ezra J. Warner, Jr., Generals in Blue: Lives of the Union Commanders (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1964), 441-444.
"William Tecumseh Sherman (1820-1891)," Find A Grave, Memorial 951, accessed January 12, 2018, http://www.findagrave.com/memorial/951.

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