brigadier-general of volunteers, Sherman was in August sent to Kentucky to serve under General Robert Anderson. In October he succeeded to the command of the department. On the 26th of October he reported that 200,000 men would be required for the Kentucky campaign. He was relieved of his post soon afterwards in consequence, but the event justified Sherman’s view. He was soon re-employed in a minor position, and, at the head of a division of new troops, accompanied Grant’s army to Pittsburg Landing. At the battle of Shiloh Sherman’s gallant conduct gained him promotion to major general. His appreciation of Grant, and his sympathy with the chagrin he suffered after this battle, cemented the friendship between the two. He took part in Halleck’s advance on Corinth, Mississippi, and at the close of 1862 led the Mississippi column in the first Vicksburg campaign. He suffered defeat at Chickasaw Bayou, but the capture of Fort Hindman, near Arkansas Post, compensated to some extent for the Vicksburg failure. In Grant’s final Vicksburg campaign Sherman commanded the XV. corps and the right of the investing line, and after the surrender he was sent to oppose General Johnston in the country about Jackson, Miss. In July he was made a brigadier-general in the regular army. When, after Rosecrans’s defeat at Chickamauga, Grant was placed in supreme command in the west, Sherman succeeded to the command of the Army of the Tennessee, with which he took part in the great battle of Chattanooga (q.v.). He had already prepared for a further advance by making an expedition into the heart of Mississippi as far as Meridian, destroying railways and making impracticable, for a season, the transfer of military operations to that region; and on Grant becoming general-in-chief (March 1864) he was made commander of the military division of the Mississippi, including his Army of the Tennessee, now under McPherson, the Army of the Cumberland, under Thomas, and the Army of the Ohio, under Schofield. Making detachments for garrisons and minor operations in a theatre of war over 500 m. wide, he assembled, near Chattanooga, his three armies, aggregating 100,000 men, and began (May 1864) the invasion of Georgia. After a brilliant and famous campaign of careful manoeuvre and heavy combats (see American Civil War), Sherman finally wrested Atlanta (q.v.) from the Confederates on the 1st of September. His able opponent Johnston had been removed from his command, and Hood, Johnston’s successor, began early in October a vigorous movement designed to carry the war back into Tennessee. After a devious chase of a month Hood moved across Alabama to northern Mississippi. Sherman thereupon, leaving behind Thomas and Schofield to deal with Hood, made the celebrated “March to the Sea” from Atlanta to Savannah with 60,000 picked men. After a march of 300 m. Savannah was reached in December. Railways and material were destroyed, the country cleared of supplies, and the Confederate government severed from its western states. In January 1865 Sherman marched northwards again, once more abandoning his base, towards Petersburg, where Grant and Lee were waging a war of giants. Every mile of his march northwards through the Carolinas diminished the supply region of the enemy, and desperate efforts were made to stop his advance. General Johnston was recalled to active service, and showed his usual skill, but his forces were inadequate. Sherman defeated him and reached Raleigh, the capital of North Carolina, on the 13th of April, having marched nearly 500 m. from Savannah. Lee’s position in Virginia was now desperate. Hood had been utterly defeated by Thomas and Schofield, and Schofield (moved 2000 m. by land and sea) rejoined Sherman in North Carolina. With 90,000 men Sherman drove Johnston before him, and when Lee surrendered to Grant Johnston also gave up the struggle. There was much friction between Sherman and the war secretary, Stanton, before the terms were ratified, but with their signature the Civil War came to an end.
Sherman had the good fortune to learn the art of command by degrees. At Bull Run his brigade was wasted in isolated and disconnected regimental attacks, at Shiloh his division was completely surprised owing to want of precaution; but his bravery and energy were beyond question, and these qualities carried him gradually to the front at the same time as he acquired skill and experience. When therefore he was entrusted with an independent command he was in every way fitted to do himself justice. At the head of a hundred thousand men he showed, besides the large grasp of strategy which planned the Carolinas march, besides the patient skill in manoeuvre which gained ground day by day towards Atlanta, the strength of will which sent his men to the hopeless assault of Kenesaw to teach them that he was not afraid to fight, and cleared Atlanta of its civil population in the face of a bitter popular outcry. Great as were his responsibilities they never strained him beyond his powers. He has every claim to be regarded as one of the greatest generals of modern history.
When Grant became full general in 1866 Sherman was promoted lieutenant-general, and in 1869, when Grant became president, he succeeded to the full rank. General Sherman retired, after being commanding general of the army for fifteen years, in 1884. He died at New York on the 14th of January 1891. An equestrian statue, by Saint Gaudens, was unveiled at New York in 1903, and another at Washington in the same year.
Sherman’s Memoirs were published in 1875 (New York). See also Rachel Sherman Thorndike, The Sherman Letters (New York, 1894); Home Letters of Gen. Sherman (1909), edited by M. A. De Wolfe Howe; S. M. Bowman and R. B. Irwin, Sherman and his Campaigns: a Military Biography (New York, 1865); W. Fletcher Johnson, Life of William Tecumseh Sherman (Philadelphia, 1891); Manning F. Force, General Sherman (Great Commanders series) (New York, 1899).
SHERMAN, a city and the county-seat of Grayson county, Texas, U.S.A., 64 m. by rail N. by E. of Dallas and 9 m. S. of
Denison. Pop. (1890) 7335; (1900) 10,243, of whom 2131 were
negroes; (1910 census) 12,412. Sherman is served by the
St Louis & San Francisco (Frisco System), which has car shops
here, the St Louis & South-Western, the Gulf, Colorado & Santa
Fé, the Missouri, Kansas & Texas, the Texas & Pacific, and the
Houston & Texas Central railways, and by electric lines connecting
with Denison and Dallas. In the city are Austin College
(Presbyterian, 1850; removed from Austin to Sherman in
1876) for men, Carr-Burdette College (Christian, 1894) for girls,
North Texas Female College and Conservatory (Methodist
Episcopal, 1877) and Saint Joseph’s Academy (Roman Catholic)
for girls. Sherman is situated on a ridge 720 ft. above sea-level
between the Red river and the Trinity river, near a fertile part of
the Red River Valley, in which the principal industries are
the growing of cotton, Indian corn, wheat, oats, potatoes and
alfalfa, and stock raising. The city contains cotton gins and
compresses, and has various manufactures; in 1905 the value
of factory products was $2,841,066 (94·4% more than in 1900).
The municipality owns and operates the waterworks and the
electric lighting plant. Sherman was settled in 1848 and was
chartered as a city in 1895.
SHERRY, originally the name of wine coming from Xeres
(Jerez de la Frontera), near Cadiz, Spain, and now the general
name of the strong white wines, the lower grades excepted,
which are made in the south of Spain (see Wine). The early
form of the word in English was “sherris” (abbreviated from
“sherris-wine” or “sherris-sack”), which was taken to be a
plural, and “sherry” was formed as a singular by mistake.
’S HERTOGENBOSCH (’sBosch, or den Bosch, French Bois-le-Duc), the capital of the province of North Brabant, Holland, at the confluence of the rivers Dommel and Aa, which unite to form the Dieze, and a junction station 2912 m. S.S.E. of Utrecht and 2712 m. W.S.W. of Nijmwegen by rail. It is connected by steam tramway with Helmond (21 m. S.E.) and by the Zuid-Willem’s canal with Maastricht (60 m. S. by E.). Pop. (1900) 32,345. ’s Hertogenbosch is a well-built city and contains several churches. The Roman Catholic cathedral of St John, the Janskerk, with its interior in a state of preservation rare in Holland, is one of the finest architecturally in the country. Occupying the site of a much earlier building, of which there are remains, the present church with its fine choir was built in the middle of the 15th century. The 15th-century font, the pulpit (1570), the organ (1617), and the early Gothic Lady
