Excerpt from Personal Recollections of General William T. Sherman As a soldier of the Union, General Sherman, by common consent, stands second only in a galaxy of great commanders such as no single cycle in the annals of time can parallel. This is the verdict of the most superficial reader and of the most diligent student of history. A reference to the official list of battles, skirmishes, and other contests, from April 15, 1861, to the close of the war, develops the astounding fact that for every day, including Sundays, of those four years there were at least three of these struggles. If in such a death grapple General Sherman rose to the highest rank among the victors, it cannot but be interesting to turn back to the circumstances of his parentage and scan the surroundings of his youth to find, if we can, the formative influences which moulded the plastic tendencies of his nature into the lofty and harmonious individuality which marked him out for eminent leadership. Both his father and grandfather had been learned in the law. His father not only mastered the intricacies of Coke and Littleton, but made himself familiar with whatever was worthy of reading outside of the books of the law, and was therefore fitted to shine in the domain of general literature as well as in the realm of technical jurisprudence. It was this gifted man who, when his third son was born, proposed to bestow upon him the name of a celebrated chieftain - as if seeing the child's future military career. Judge Sherman entertained a warm admiration for the celebrated Indian chief Tecumseh. This singular Indian was gifted with rare endowments, which gave him great prominence amongst his tribal allies, and a commanding influence over his followers of the forest. Nature had made him a soldier, and he was a statesman by intuition. Farseeing in plan, wary to win, sagacious to combine, and inflexible to execute, these qualities made him a formidable leader and also a dangerous opponent. He was not habitually ruthless or cruel in his warfare; on the contrary, many acts of mercy, of generous chivalric protection, are recorded of him that would grace the annals of the knight errantry of old. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.