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Sherman and Lee apparently never met each other. However they share many of the same views.Both had great admiration for General Grant:“Sir, if you ever presume again to speak disrespectfully of General Grant in my presence, either you or I will sever his connection with this university.”… Robert E. Lee’s words to a faculty member at Washington College in Lexington, Virginia after the faculty member had spoken insultingly of Ulysses S. Grant. Lee was the president of Washington College after the Civil War. Washington College would later honer Robert E. Lee by changing its name to Washington and Lee University.“Grant stood by me when I was crazy, and I stood by him when he was drunk, and now we stand by each other.”“I will accept no commission that would tend to create a rivalry with Grant. I want him to hold what he has earned and got.”William Tecumseh ShermanBoth shared the view of the cruelty and horrible nature of war.“What a cruel thing is war; to separate and destroy families and friends, and mar the purest joys and happiness God has granted us in this world; to fill our hearts with hatred instead of love for our neighbours, and to devastate the fair face of this beautiful world!”Robert E. Lee writing to his wife Mary in late December 1862. The Battle of Fredericksburg was fought December 11-15, 1862. Fredericksburg was a Confederate victory with great loss of men for the Yankees.“War is at best barbarism…Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot, nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell.”…William Tecumseh Sherman. These words are from his June 19, 1879 address to the Michigan Military Academy.Both share similar views of how their Congress and quartermasters supplied their armies:“I have been up to see the Congress and they do not seem to be able to do anything except to eat peanuts and chew tobacco, while my army is starving.”… General Robert E. Lee venting his frustration with the Confederate Congress. In March 1865, Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia badly needed supplies, but was not getting them. The end was near:“If you don’t have my army supplied, and keep it supplied, we’ll eat your mules up, sir.”…General Sherman’s warning to an army quartermaster before the departure of Sherman’s army from Chattanooga and heading toward Atlanta.Lee and Sherman had differing views on the cause of the war and the moral blame:“A Union that can only be maintained by swords and bayonets has no charm for me. If the Union is dissolved and government disrupted, I shall return to my native state and share the miseries of my people, and save in defense will draw my sword on none.”… Robert E. Lee, in a letter written on January 23, 1861, from Fort Mason, Texas:“Three years ago by a little reflection and patience they could have had a hundred years of peace and prosperity…Last year they could have saved their slaves, but now it is too late…Next year their lands will be taken…and in another year they may beg in vain for their lives.”…General Sherman in January, 1864 regarding the situation of the Rebels. Lee surrendered to Grant on April 9, 1865 and the Civil War was over. Happily, Sherman is wrong here with his time estimate of the continuation of the war.Ironically it was not Lee or Grant that Sherman most admired in the Civil War. It was Nathan Bedford Forrest:“That devil Forrest… must be hunted down and killed if it costs ten thousand lives and bankrupts the Federal treasury.”…Sherman referring to Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest:“After all, I think Forrest was the most remarkable man our Civil War produced on either side.”…After the Civil War, Sherman made these comments about Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest.

Union General William Tecumseh Sherman may be the most misunderstood military leader in American history.Branded a mansion-pillaging, city-burning bogey-man by Confederate apologists for slavery long after the war, careful objective historians know better. Nevertheless, conventional wisdom depicts him arrogantly ordering the wanton destruction of the homes of innocent civilians while he steals all their possessions and implements a ruthless “scorched earth” policy, etching a swath of devastation throughout the South.Mostly wrong. One of 11 children in a suddenly-impoverished family, he attended West Point, where he was a bright, popular, happy-go-lucky cadet, graduating only sixth in the class due to his many demerits for pranks. After a solid army career, he was a successful businessman and lawyer, but became happiest when we worked in the South. First Superintendent of a Louisiana military academy that became LSU, he sympathized with slave-owners but strongly believed in the perpetual Union established in the founding documents of the USA. Sherman very accurately predicted the long course of a civil war that would wear down and destroy the slave-owner society, warning friends on both sides that attacking the Union to protect slavery will bring a long and bloody struggle.He distinguished himself at the First Bull Run battle and was personally appointed General by Lincoln, but a did not want high responsibility. Soon afterwards, he fell into deep depression over the stress of non-combat administrative authority over entire states … just what he didn’t want. Combat roles with his close friend U. S. Grant invigorated him. Note: Sherman had seniority in grade above Grant, but treated him like a beloved elder brother and mentor.Later, Grant persuaded Lincoln to allow Sherman to run free in an independent raid of his own design. Sherman’s plan was his personal strategy to end the war ASAP.He invaded Alabama and Georgia with three armies totaling about 100,000 men … with few supplies and no telegraph contacts with higher command or DC (both secretive and sneaky). Adroitly maneuvering, feinting and shifting routes, he moved swiftly, seizing supplies from local warehouses, liberating slaves and destroying railroads. He carried a copy of the 1860 tax records, to identify where most food and valuable assets (like cotton sold for guns and powder) were stored, which he appropriately confiscated or burned. Destroying food to be used by the rebels and smashing their infrastructure, he waged “hard war” on their breadbasket while barely having to fight at all.Although blamed for “burning Atlanta” (a slur from the slavery-supporting Gone with the Wind), Sherman’s troops only fired the military and government buildings there. When they arrived in the GA state capitol of Columbia, Sherman’s troops tried to put out the fires started by the retreating Confederate defenders wanting to deny the Union access to the valuable cotton stored there. His troops were permitted to be particularly destructive to the South Carolina public facilities, since they initiated war by firing on Fort Sumter and were first to secede; but he stunned North Carolina with the gentleness of his conquest and occupation. When Confederate generals fled the Carolinas, they left their families entrusted to the personal care of Sherman. So, he joked that the same people who publicly assail him as a vicious brute are perfectly happy to place their loved ones under his protection. After Lincoln’s assassination, Sherman gave special protections to the citizens of occupied Raleigh NC. Not a monster.The “lost cause” apologists of the 1880s who began spinning myths to re-write history to glorify the futile defense of the pro-slavery society found a handy demon in Sherman. He certainly did bring war to the South in a personal way, saying, “War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it…”Sherman pioneered the “total war” concept, acting firmly but fairly. He was beloved by his soldiers, who called him “Uncle Billy” and who could always rely on him. Liddell Hart ranked him with Napoleon and Rommel for his strategic vision, logistical excellence and maneuver warfare expertise. Patton studied Sherman’s campaigns and modeled his modern approaches accordingly.Sherman was not a malicious beast but was an unapologetic clear thinker seeking to end war as quickly as possible with as few deaths as possible.

I read one of the biographies written of Sherman. He left the army out of frustration and entered business(es) which did not succeed. Supporting his family was an understandable concern and he did not meet with good fortune - they struggled. He'd finally found a calling when he became (competently) the Superintendent of a military academy in Louisiana only to have the Civil War break out. Offered a commission in the Confederate army, he declined, had to resign as Superintendent and moved his family back up north.It's suggested that his wife and her affluent and strong-willed father - who was also Sherman's foster father - brought great pressure to bear upon him to rejoin the army. The war was on, he was a West Point graduate, and it would be a living - which he'd had great trouble making since he'd left the army.The biography of Sherman stressed his need for order and a desire to create order where disorder seemed to reign. Not Fort Sumter in April but the Camp Jackson affair in May- a struggle in Missouri where he was living with his family - a violent struggle between pro and anti-slavery citizens - was said to have provided a riper ground on which his wife and father-in-law's entreaties fell.