This is the third and best Sherman biography that I've read. What stands out the most is the irony attached to this man.
His father named him Tecumseh after a great Indian chief. Yet Sherman headed the army that exterminated Native American Indians in the West after the war. He never had any use for these people considering them savages unable to assimilate into white society. Either kill them or isolate them he said.
He failed as a banker though mostly due to forces beyond his control. Yet his efforts both during and after the war with the building of the cross-country railroads led to banking domination of the country during the Guilded Age.
He was a family man though he spent about half of his married life apart from his wife Ellen. Yet his beloved son Tom turned against him and became a Catholic priest. His other son led a tough life and died in unfortunate circumstances in 1941. Father Tom struggled and lived until 1933.
He was working in Baton Rouge and liked the South except for the few who led the South out of the Union after Lincoln was elected. He did as much as anyone to destroy the slave states during the war. Yet before the war he considered settling in the South even in Northeast Alabama. He thought the South made a mistake in seceding and things should have continued as before in the country after Lincoln was elected. Slavery was not a moral problem in his mind. He mellowed somewhat in his old age, but not much.
As he torched Atlanta and rampaged on to Savannah and up into the Carolinas he personally freed a lot of slaves, yet he had no use for them. He got into trouble with the Secretary of War over his harsh attitude toward blacks. In a time when "everyone" was racist, he was more racist than most.
As the war ended, he negotiated a generous treaty with Confederate General Johnston which was repudiated by the administration. Ironic that Sherman destroyed the South in his last drive thru Georgia and South Carolina and yet was willing to let the South resume its place in the Union on generous terms. He would have been happy to let slavery continue if that could be arranged.
He hated the press yet he must have enjoyed his notoriety from the press. Surely his publicity boosted his considerable ego.
He always hated politics and politicians mainly because they wouldn't do what he thought should be done. It was probably for the best that he was not nominated and therefore did not serve.
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