Sa-Sh: Schenck through Shields

Source: Scribner’s Dictionary of American Biography

SCHENCK, ROBERT CUMMING (October 4, 1809-March 23, 1890), congressman, soldier, diplomat, was a son of General William Cortenus Schenck and his wife, Elizabeth Rogers. The father, a descendant of Roelof Martense Schenck who came to New Amsterdam probably about 1650, had migrated from New Jersey to Ohio, where he served in the legislature and is said to have founded the town of Franklin. Here Robert was born. His father died in 1821, leaving the boy under the guardianship of General James Findlay [q.v.] of Cincinnati. Robert graduated from Miami University in 1827, remained there three years longer studying and teaching, was subsequently admitted to the bar, and commenced practising law in Dayton. On August 21, 1834, he married Rennelche W. Smith, whose sister was the wife· of his brother James Findlay Schenck [q.v.].

Robert Schenck's political career began in 1838 with a fruitless campaign for election to the legislature on the Whig ticket. More successful later, he assumed the leadership of his party in the Ohio House during the terms of 1841-43. In the national House of Representatives, 1843-51, he proved himself a vigorous Whig partisan, and upon the expiration of his fourth term in 1851 he was named by President Fillmore as minister to Brazil. Here he served until October 1853, acting with John S. Pendleton [q.v.], charge d'affaires of the United States to the Argentine Confederation, in negotiating commercial treaties with Uruguay (1852) and Paraguay (1853), which were never proclaimed, and two treaties with the Argentine Confederation, signed July 10 and 27, 1853. He failed, however, to secure from Brazil a treaty providing for the free navigation of the Amazon.

A strong anti-slavery man, Schenck was one of the first to urge Lincoln's nomination and was an active Republican campaigner in 1860. Appointed brigadier-general of volunteers May 17, 1861, he took part in the first battle of Bull Run, served under Rosecrans and Fremont in West Virginia, and was wounded at Second Bull Run in August 1862, his right wrist being permanently injured. On August 30 he was promoted major-general of volunteers. Eliminated from active fighting, he was assigned in December 1862 to the command in Baltimore, where his measures were not always popular (Richard H'. Jackson, To Robert E. [sic] Schenck, pamphlet, 1867, p. 3). In December of the following year he resigned his commission in order to sit once more in Congress.

In the House he disapproved strongly of Lincoln's moderation as shown in the Hampton Roads Conference (J. F. Rhodes, History of the United States, volume V, 1904, pp. 51-52, note). A master of invective and vituperation, he distinguished himself for the violence of his attack on such "Copperheads" as Fernando Wood, whom he called "a specimen of the snake family" (No Compromise with Treason; Remarks of Mr. Schenck ... April11, 1864, 1864) and for his opposition to President Johnson. He was chairman of the House committee on military affairs and later of the Ways and Means committee. He was an advocate of the contraction of the currency at the end of the war (Public Credit-Gold Contracts: Speech ... February 22, 1869, 1869).

Failing of reelection to Congress in 1870, Schenck turned again to diplomacy. He was appointed, February10, 1871, a member of the Joint High Commission between the United States and Great Britain and in that capacity signed the Treaty of Washington, May 8, 1871. On December 22 preceding he had been designated to succeed the discredited John Lothrop Motley [q.v.] as minister to Great Britain, and he traveled to his post in May 1871. Here he was called upon to conduct much of the routine business arising out of the Treaty of Washington and the arbitration of the Alabama claims. In spite of his failure to conclude a consular convention with Great Britain and to persuade Derby to support the United States in its demands on Spain for concessions in its Cuban policy (S. F. Bemis, The American Secretaries of State, volume VII, 1928, pp. 194-200), his record in London seems creditable, but in February 1876 he resigned under a cloud. He had allowed himself to be made a director of ·the "Emma" silver mine in Utah which in 1871 used his name in the sale of stock in Great Britain. He was reproved by the Secretary of State at that time, and the failure of the Emma Mine brought his resignation, which Grant reluctantly accepted. The committee on foreign affairs of the House, which investigated the incident, found no cause to impugn Schenck's integrity, but condemned such transactions by American diplomats (House Report No. 579, 44 Congress, 1 Session, 1876). After Schenck's resignation he returned to Washington to practise law, achieved a reputation as an authority on draw poker (he published Draw Poker in 1880), and died in that city in 1890. He was survived by three of his six daughters.

[A. D. Schenck, The Rev. Wm. Schenck, His Ancestry and His Descendants (1883); Robt. C. Schenck, U.S.A. (n.d.), pub. by order of Union Central Com., 3rd Congress District, Ohio; In Memoriam, General Robt. C. Schenck (n.d.), proceedings at memorial service in Dayton; Biographical Directory American Congress (1928); Beckles Wilson, America's Ambassadors to England (1928); W. A. Taylor, Hundred-Year Book and Official Register of the State of Ohio (1891); Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the U. S., 1871-76; L. E. Chittenden, The Emma Mine (1876); War Department records; instructions and dispatches to and from Brazil and Great Britain, in Department of State; Washington Post, March 24, 1890.]

E.W.S.



SCHOFIELD, JOHN McALLISTER (September 29, 1831-March 4, 1906), soldier, was born in Gerry, Chautauqua County, New York, the son of James and Caroline (McAllister) Schofield. His father, a Baptist clergyman, was then pastor of a church at Sinclairville, New York, but in 1843 he moved to Freeport, Illinois, and became a home missionary in Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri. Educated in the local public schools, John spent one summer as a surveyor on public lands in northern Wisconsin and one winter as teacher in a district school. In 1849 he was offered an appointment as cadet at West Point. He graduated in 1853 as No. 7 in his class and, having abandoned his original intention of studying law, accepted his commission as brevet second lieutenant, 2nd Artillery, with station at Fort Moultrie, South Carolina. Receiving in December his commission as second lieutenant in the 1st Artillery, he joined his battery in Florida, where it was serving in connection with Seminole Indian troubles. Promoted first lieutenant in 1855, he was ordered to West Point as assistant professor of natural and experimental philosophy. In June 1857 he was married to Harriet, daughter of Prof. W. H. C. Bartlett, his chief in the department of philosophy; she died in Washington about 1889, leaving two sons and a daughter. In 1860, without resigning his commission, he left West Point on a year's leave of absence and became professor of physics at Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri.

Relinquishing his leave at the opening of the Civil War, he was detailed as mustering officer for the state of Missouri; a few days later he was commissioned major in the 1st Missouri Volunteer Infantry and assisted in organizing that regiment. In June he became chief of staff to General Nathaniel Lyon [q.v.] in his operations in Missouri and served until Lyon's death at the battle of Wilson's Creek, August 10, 1861, when he assumed command of his volunteer regiment and reorganized it as artillery. He was offered a captaincy in the new 11th Infantry of the regular army but declined it and soon afterward was promoted to that grade in his own regiment. In November 1861 he became brigadier-general of volunteers and until the autumn of 1862 held various territorial commands. From October 1862 to April 1863 he commanded the "Army of the Frontier" engaged in field operations in Missouri. He was nominated as major-general of volunteers in November 1863 but, because of the tense political situation in Missouri and the opposition of certain factions, his nomination was not confirmed, and in March he reverted to his rank as brigadier-general. Since this brought him under the command of former juniors, he avoided embarrassments by applying for a new assignment and for a short time commanded a division of the XIV Army Corps in Tennessee. In May, having been appointed major-general, he returned to St. Louis as commander of the Department of the Missouri.

In February 1864 he assumed command of the XXIII Corps and of the Department and Army of the Ohio, with which he took part in Sherman's Atlanta campaign as one of the three army commanders. When Sherman started on his march to the sea, General George Henry Thomas [q.v.] was given command of all troops left in the west and began his concentration at Nashville, Tennessee. Schofield, with his own XXIII Corps and part of the IV Corps, covered this concentration against Hood's renewed attempt to invade Tennessee. Gradually retiring upon Nashville, Schofield's force fought the fierce battle of Franklin, which badly shattered Hood's army, and then rejoined Thomas to take part in the battle of Nashville, which definitely put an end to all danger from Hood. For his services in this campaign he was made brigadier-general in the regular army in November 1864 and brevet major-general in March 1865. The XXIII Corps was then moved by rail to Washington and by sea to the mouth of the Cape Fear River, where Schofield assumed command of the newly formed Department of North Carolina, his troops consisting of his own corps and the two divisions of General Albert Howe Terry [q.v.] from Fort Fisher. With this force he first occupied Wilmington, North Carolina, and then effected a junction with Sherman at Goldsboro, North Carolina, March 23, his command becoming the center grand division of Sherman's army in the operations against Johnston. He accompanied Sherman at the final meeting with Johnston on April 26, when the terms of surrender were agreed upon, and was designated as commissioner for execution of the details. He remained in command of the Department until the formation of a provisional state government in June.

At the close of the war he was offered command of a force, to be organized under the Mexican republican flag, replacing the fifty thousand men who had been concentrated on the Mexican border with a view to their possible use in connection with the Maximilian affair. Before anything had been done, however, the secretary of state proposed that he go to France, ostensibly on leave but actually as a confidential agent of the State Department to deal with Mexican affairs. He went to France, 1865-66, remaining until it had been decided that the French forces should be recalled from Mexico. Upon his return he was assigned to duty in Virginia, where his command was known as the Department of the Potomac, and later as the First Military District. In the spring of 1868, during the confusion incident to the impeachment of President Johnson, he was made secretary of war, but resigned upon Grant's inauguration. His duties, which had to do both with problems of reconstruction and of army reorganization, were most heavy and perplexing. While he was secretary he took steps toward the organization of a light artillery school at Fort Riley, Kansas, later the Mounted Service School and finally the United States Cavalry School. Leaving the War Department, he was promoted major-general and assumed command first of the Department of the Missouri and later of the Division of the Pacific. In 1872 he spent three months in Hawaii, accompanied by a navy officer and by an army engineer, to report upon the military value of the islands to the United States and made recommendations that led to the acquisition of Pearl Harbor as a naval base. From 1876 to 1881 he was superintendent of the United States Military Academy. While he was there he served as president of the board to review the case of General Fitz-John Porter [q.v.], dismissed from the service by sentence of a court martial for misconduct at the battle of Manassas. After a year's leave spent in Europe, he commanded successively the Divisions of the Pacific, of the Missouri, and of the Atlantic. In 1888, upon the death of Sheridan, he became commanding general of the army; promoted to the grade of lieutenant-general in February 1895, he was retired because of age in September. In 1891 he was married for a second time to Georgia Kilbourne of Keokuk, Iowa. His autobiography, Forty-Six Years in the Army, was published in 1897. He died in St. Augustine, Florida.

[See G. W. Cullum, Biographical Register Officers and Graduates U.S. Military Academy (3 ed., 1891), volume II; War of the Rebellion: Official Records (Army); Battles and Leaders of the Civil War (4 volumes, 1887-88); J. D. Cox, The March to the Sea (1906) and Atlanta (1909); obituary in New York Tribune, March 5, 1906. For the period after the war, the best source of information is Schofield's autobiography, Forty-Six Years in the Army (1897). information has also been supplied by Colonel R. M. Schofield of Honolulu, his son.]

O. L. S., Jr.



SCHURZ, CARL (March 2, 1829-May 14, 1906), minister to Spain, Union soldier, senator from Missouri, and secretary of the interior, was born in the little town of Liblar on the Rhine, near Cologne. He attended the gymnasium at Cologne (1839-46) and became a candidate for the doctorate at the University of Bonn in 1847. His father, Christian Schurz, was first a village schoolmaster and then embarked in business; his mother, Marianne Jussen, the daughter of a tenant farmer, was a woman of unusual force of character. Both made every sacrifice to help their son to the career of which he dreamed-a professorship of history. Fate in the form of the German revolutionary movement of 1848--49 intervened and altered Schurz's life as it marred or made the lives of many thousands of young Germans who beheld in the United States their ideal of popular government. Of these none was more ardent or more eloquent, and certainly none was more daring, than Schurz. At nineteen he was a leader of the student movement in his university, and was preaching its gospel to the peasants in his neighborhood through the columns of a democratic newspaper, and by word of mouth. His rare gift of oratory he discovered when he suddenly addressed, to great applause, a meeting in the university hall at Bonn to which he came without the slightest intention of speaking.

Profoundly influenced by Prof. Gottfried Kinkel of Bonn, one of the intellectual leaders of the struggle for democratic institutions, Schurz followed him in the abortive revolutionary movement upon Siegburg, on May 11, 1849: Thereafter he became a lieutenant and staff officer of the revolutionary army taking part in the final battles of the united rebel forces of Baden and the Palatinate at Ubstadt and Bruchsal, and those on the line of the Murg River in Baden on June 28-30, 1849. Sent by order into the fortress of Rastatt, just before it was surrendered, he was one of its defenders until the surrender more than three weeks later. Rightly expecting to be shot if captured, Schurz declined to deliver himself up to the conquering Prussians. With two companions he concealed himself for four days, finally escaping through an unused sewer which was their first place of refuge. (See Schurz's account, "The Surrender of Rastatt," Wisconsin Magazine of History, March 1929.) They crossed the Rhine and entered French territory, Schurz finally joining the large colony of German refugees in Switzerland.

There he might have stayed indefinitely had it not been for the plight of his beloved teacher, Kinkel, who had been captured, put on trial for his life, and sentenced to life imprisonment. After being treated as a common felon, Kinkel was at length transferred to the prison at Spandau, a fortified town near Berlin. In response to Frau Kinkel's appeals, Schurz undertook the liberation of her husband. Twice, with the aid of a false passport, he reentered Germany, where he was himself on the proscribed list. The necessary funds were furnished by friends of the Professor. After nine months of preparation and plotting with the complicity of a turnkey, Kinkel was lowered to the street from an unbarred attic window of the prison in the night of November 6-7, 1850. In a waiting carriage Kinkel and Schurz left the city by the Hamburg road, only to alter their course and drive straight to Mecklenburg. They were successfully concealed in Rostock until a tiny schooner conveyed them to England. To this day no single incident of the Revolution is better known in Germany; no other has in it more elements of romantic daring and unselfish personal heroism. Schurz went to Paris in December 1850, but in the summer of 1851 was expelled from France by the police as a dangerous foreigner. He resided in England until after his marriage there to Margarethe (or Margaretha) Meyer, of Hamburg, July 6, 1852. During this period he won the friendship of Mazzini and Kossuth and other great leaders of the democratic movement in Europe. America beckoned him, however. In August he set sail for the United States, following in the footsteps of many of his associates-in-arms of the brief campaign of 1849. He and his wife lived in Philadelphia until 1855.

Before definitely settling, Schurz spent months in traveling through the Eastern and Middle-Western portion of the United States, and set about acquiring that remarkable mastery of the English language which made it possible for him to make campaign speeches in English within five years after his arrival. In 1856 he purchased a small farm in Watertown, Wis., where an uncle's family had settled. Having espoused the anti-slavery cause with all the ardor and enthusiasm he gave to the revolution of 1849, Schurz was immediately drawn into Republican politics. Speaking in German, he campaigned for Fremont. The next year he was sent as a delegate to the Republican state convention which promptly nominated him for lieutenant-governor although he was not yet a citizen of the United States, a point that did not become pressing because he was defeated by 107 votes despite wide campaigning in both English and German. A year later, the campaign of 1858 found him speaking in Illinois for Abraham Lincoln and against Stephen A. Douglas. From that time on he was in demand for one campaign after another; in April 1859 he aided, by request, Senator Henry Wilson of Massachusetts in his fight against the Know-Nothing movement in that state, delivering one of his most famous speeches, "True Americanism" (Speeches, 1865, pp. 51-76), which helped to defeat a proposal to deny the ballot to foreign-born voters in Massachusetts for two years after federal naturalization.

Schurz was next put forward for the governorship of Wisconsin; the prize went, however, to another. He was then admitted to the bar and entered into a law partnership, but the anti-slavery cause and politics absorbed most of his time. Chairman of the Wisconsin delegation to the Chicago Republican convention of 1860 which nominated Abraham Lincoln, he and his fellow-delegates voted for Seward until the end. One of the committee which notified Lincoln of his nomination, Schurz spoke for him in Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York with great effectiveness among both natives and foreign-born. His greatest forensic effort-he considered it the greatest success of his oratorical career-was his speech in Cooper Union, September 13, 1860 (Ibid., pp. 162-221), which was devoted to a merciless critique of Stephen A. Douglas and was marked by sarcasm, humor, and his unusual power of clear exposition. It lasted for three hours and was received with the greatest enthusiasm. For all of these services, Lincoln, who had written to him on June 18, 1860, that "to the extent of our limited acquaintance, no man stands nearer my heart than yourself" (Speeches, Correspondence, I, 119), appointed Schurz minister to Spain, although he was in the midst of raising the 1st New York ("Lincoln") Cavalry of which he expected to be colonel.

Arriving at Madrid in July 1861, Schurz devoted himself, like Charles Francis Adams and other American representatives in Europe, to advancing and safeguarding the Union cause abroad, and gave all his leisure time to military campaigns and tactics which he had studied ever since his brief military experience in Germany. Finding, however, that the Northern cause was greatly weakened by the failure of the government to become clearly anti-slavery, and receiving no encouragement in this matter from Secretary Seward, Schurz returned to the United States in January 1862, to put his views before Lincoln. The latter received him kindly, but persisted in his policy of awaiting a more favorable public opinion at home. Schurz then sought to rouse the public for immediate emancipation and to that end delivered an address, previously read and approved by Lincoln, at Cooper Union in March 1862 (Speeches, 1865, pp. 240-68), which coincided with the President's request to Congress for authority to cooperate with any state which might adopt gradual emancipation. Schurz resigned as minister in April, was appointed brigadier-general of volunteers, and was given not a brigade, but a division, in Fremont's army on June 10, 1862, thus being placed in command of troops some of whom were veterans of a year's standing.

That Schurz took his military duties seriously, and soon won the respect of his officers and men for his ability and personal courage is beyond question. He was frequently complimented in dispatches, and on one occasion after his troops pas sed in review with the Army of the Potomac, Lincoln confirmed the press reports that "the division commanded by General Schurz impressed the Presidential party as the best drilled and most soldierly of the troops that passed before them" (Schurz, Reminiscences, II, 407). At the second battle of Bull Run, August 30, 1862, the new brigadier of two months' service and his division won high praise in one of the bloodiest and bitterest defeats of the Army of the Potomac, whose final withdrawal they covered. It was, however, the misfortune of this division and the corps to bear the brunt of Jackson's sudden attack at Chancellorsville. Badly placed by the corps commander, General O. O. Howard-despite repeated protests and warnings by Schurz-the division broke and retired in disorder before the overwhelming Confederate onrush, but was finally rallied in part to aid in preventing what threatened to be a complete disaster. For this the XI Corps; and especially its German regiments, was violently abused and charged with cowardice in the press of the entire country. There resulted a long controversy between Schurz and Howard, but the farmer's efforts to obtain a court of inquiry and justice for his troops failed. Again at Gettysburg, where, because of the killing of General Reynolds and the consequent advancement of General Howard, Schurz took command of the XI Corps, his troops bore the brunt of the Confederate attack upon the right wing. After heavy losses they retired in some disorder through the town to Cemetery Ridge, again in obedience to orders from Howard. Once more there were unwarranted charges that the Germans had: failed to stand their ground.

That Schurz was himself not held responsible for the Chancellorsville disaster appears from the fact that on March 14, 1863, he was promoted to major-general. After Gettysburg, the corps was transferred to the western field. Here Schurz again became involved in a controversy, this time with General Hooker. A court of inquiry subsequently found that his conduct had been entirely correct and proper. After Chattanooga the depleted XI and XII Corps were merged into a new XX Corps, and Schurz was appointed to command a corps of instruction at Nashville. Unable to brook the prospect of inaction, Schurz, after some months, asked to be relieved of his command, conferred with Lincoln, and then made many speeches on behalf of the President's reelection. The end of the war found him chief of staff to Major-General Slocum in Sherman's army. He resigned immediately after the surrender of Lee. Throughout his military service Schurz corresponded irregularly with Lincoln, a most unwise procedure but one welcomed by the President except on one occasion when he found it necessary to rebuke the General, which event, however,- did not interrupt their warm friendship (Schurz, Speeches, Correspondence, I, 211-13, 219-21). At best it was an anomalous situation; a political campaigner and intimate of the President had been put into a most responsible military command and was known to be in direct relations with the Commander-in-Chief. Had not Schurz displayed real soldierly capacity, and much discretion, the situation might easily have become an impossible one. Instead, he won the regard of Sherman, Hancock, and many others who ranked among the best of the Northern generals.

Before Schurz could decide upon his· next course of action, President Johnson asked him to visit the Southern states and to report at length to him upon conditions there. Schurz traveled from July to September 1865, and wrote a lengthy report that has extraordinary historical value to this day, because of its detailed analysis of the situation, its clarity of statement, and its vision (Speeches, Correspondence, I, 279-374). Since, however, Schurz thought the extension of the franchise to the colored people should be a condition precedent to the readmission of the Confederate states, his report was unwelcome to Johnson, who neither acknowledged its receipt nor allowed it to be published until Congress demanded it (Senate Executive Document No. 2, 39 Congress, 1 Session).

With this task accomplished, Schurz accepted an invitation from Horace Greeley to represent the New York Tribune as its Washington correspondent, in which capacity he observed the beginning of the struggle between Congress and the President over reconstruction. Resigning in the spring of 1866, Schurz next became editor-in-chief of the Detroit Post, then just established by leading Michigan Republicans. Here he remained only a year, when he became joint editor, with Emil Preetorius [q.v.], of the St. Louis Westliche Post, and one of the proprietors of this German-language daily. This third chapter in his journalistic career was also destined to be a short one. A delegate to the Republican National Convention which met to nominate Grant for the presidency in 1868, Schurz was at once chosen temporary chairman of the convention, and made the keynote address. He drew up the resolution in the platform calling for the removal of disqualifications upon "the late rebels" (Reminiscences, III, 284-85). As usual, he made many speeches in the campaign which followed. After a bitter contest between the Radicals and Liberals in the party, he was himself nominated for the United States Senate from Missouri, and duly elected by the legislature (Ross, post, p. 29). On March 4, 1869, two days after his fortieth birthday, he took his seat in Washington.

He speedily found himself in the group of anti-Grant senators, joining Sumner in the defeat of Grant's plan to annex Santo Domingo, and opposing at many points the "spoils-loving and domineering partisans" of the President. On December 20, 1869,.years before the policy it outlined was adopted, Schurz introduced a bill to create a permanent civil-service merit system (Congressional Globe, 41 Congress, 2 Session, pp. 236-38). William A. Dunning and Frederic Bancroft have written in their addenda to Schurz's unfinished memoirs that his "whole conception of public policy was far above the play of merely personal and party interests"; and that his senatorial career was accordingly one of "exceptional seriousness and dignity" (Reminiscences, III, 317-18). He was at his best in his incessant attacks upon public corruption. The news that he would speak at a given hour usually crowded the public galleries. But the high rank he took and held in the Senate, and his national reputation as an orator and a leader, did not assure him reelection in 1875, for, because of the Republican split, the Democrats had gained control of the Missouri legislature. He was again compelled to turn to journalism and the lecture platform for support.

Schurz, who was disgusted with Grant and distrustful of the Democrats, had probably done more than any other leader to promote the Liberal Republican movement (Ross, pp. 44-50; Schurz, Speeches, Correspondence, II, 59-69, 254-60). He was the permanent president of the Cincinnati convention of 1872 that organized the new party and, although profoundly disappointed by the nomination of Horace Greeley and without hope of success, was active in the campaign. His speeches "were naturally against Grant rather than for Greeley" (Reminiscences, III, 352). In 1876, to the dismay and anger of many of his Liberal Republican associates, he supported Hayes, being assured that the latter was sound on the money question, would restore the South, and would promote civil-service reform (Speeches, Correspondence, III, 249-59; Reminiscences, III, 368). On March 4, 1877, Schurz entered the cabinet of Hayes as secretary of the interior. His secretaryship is still re membered because of his enlightened treatment of the Indians (much misunderstood at the time), his installing a merit promotion system in his department, his preservation of the public domain, and the beginning of the development of national parks.

On leaving the cabinet Schurz began his fourth venture into journalism. At the invitation of Henry Villard [q.v.], who had just purchased the New York Evening Post and the Nation, he became head of a triumvirate of remarkable editors comprising besides himself, Edwin L. Godkin and Horace White [qq.v.]. The brilliant chapter in journalism which they thus began ended in two and a quarter years, in the fall of 1883, because of differences as to editorial methods and policies between Schurz and Godkin (Nevins, pos t, pp. 455-56). The friendship of the three men remained unbroken; until his death Schurz was a valued counselor of the Evening Post. As an editorial writer it was plain that his style was often more oratorical than journalistic, and lacking in terseness. To both the Evening Post and to Schurz, because of his rousing speeches, was attributed to a considerable degree Blaine's loss of New York state in 1884, and the election of Cleveland to the presidency.

Schurz's final venture into journalism began in 1892, when in succession to George William Curtis he for six years contributed the leading editorials to Harper's Weekly. Their authorship was at first kept secret, as had been his contribution of many articles to the Nation, prior to its amalgamation with the Evening Post in 1881, notably some regular letters from Washington in 1872 and 1873. In 1898 his connection with Harper's Weekly was ended by his refusal to support the drift toward the war with Spain. When the war came Schurz warmly opposed it, as he did the annexation of the Philippines, declaring that fatal violence was being done the anti-imperialistic, peace-loving ideal of America, free from all entangling foreign alliances. He once wrote that foreign-born citizens were "more jealously patriotic Americans than many natives are," since they watch the progress of the Republic "with triumphant joy at every success of our democratic institutions, and with the keenest sensitiveness to every failure, having the standing of this country before the world constantly in mind" (Reminiscences, I, 120). This describes his own attitude toward his adopted country.

The latter years of his life Schurz gave to literary labor, to letters upon public questions, and to occasional public speeches. The latter were as always carefully memorized, were marked by a lofty tone, and, like those delivered in the Senate, were "emphasized by graceful diction, and impressive delivery" (Reminiscences, III, 318). An ardent admirer and supporter of Grover Cleveland, except occasionally, as in the matter of the Venezuelan episode of 1895, Schurz championed William J. Bryan in 1900 on the anti-imperialist issue, as he had opposed him on the free-silver question four years earlier. He was for years (1892-1900) president of the National Civil-Service Reform League, and of the Civil Service Reform Association of New York (1893-1906). In every mayoralty election in New York, in which he resided from 1881 on, he made his influence felt in the struggle for good government. Indeed, he held in his last years the unique position of a veteran statesman, a public-spirited citizen, and political philosopher, representing particularly a great group of his fellow-citizens, and battling uninterruptedly for his conception of an America minding its own business, and keeping aloof from foreign aggression and foreign involvements.

Carl Schurz was a man of great personal charm, of commanding presence, despite a very tall and rather lanky figure, of a gay, vivacious, and unusually happy spirit, which was never daunted by his bitter disappointments in the trend of domestic and foreign policy from 1898 on. Devoted to his family, an amateur pianist of talent, blessed with a great sense of humor, together with much playful irony, he took cheerfully those periods of his life when he went counter to public opinion, and willingly paid the price therefor. He remained until his death extraordinarily rich in friends and admirers. His wife died in 1876. Of two sons and two daughters, three survived him; all died without issue. Besides his speeches and unfinished reminiscences (see below), mention should be made of his admirable Life of Henry Clay (2 volumes, 1887), a notable essay on Lincoln in the Atlantic Monthly, June 1891 (also printed separately, 1891 and later), and a pamphlet, The New South (1885).

[There are Schurz papers in the Library of Congress, and there is a collection of private letters in the Wis. Historical Society Various editions of speeches and writings are: Speeches of Carl Schurz (1865); Frederic Bancroft, ed., Speeches, Correspondence and Pol. Papers of Carl Schurz (6 volumes, 1913); The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (3 volumes, 1907-08), containing, in volume III, "A Sketch of Carl Schurz's Political Career, 1869-1906," by Frederic Bancroft and W. A. Dunning; a German edition, containing letters not in the American, Lebenserinnerungen (3 volumes, 1906-12); Joseph Schafer, ed. and transl., Intimate Letters of Carl Schurz,  1841-1869 (Pubs. of the State Historical Society of Wis., Collections, Volume XXX, 1928). Among works about Schurz are: Anton Erkelenz and Fritz Mittelmann, eds., Carl Schurz, der Deutsche und der Amerikaner (1929); Otto Dannehl, Carl Schurz (1929); C. V. Easum, The Americanization of Carl Schurz (1929); Joseph Schafer, Carl Schurz, Militant Liberal (1930); C. M. Fuess, Carl Schurz, Reformer (1932). See also T. A. Dodge, The Campaign of Chancellorsville (1881); E. D. Ross, The Liberal Republican Movement (1919); T. S. Barclay, The Liberal Republican Movement in Missouri. 1865-1871 (1926); Allan Nevins, The Evening Post (1922); F. M. Stewart, The National Civil Service Reform League (1929); obituaries and comment, Evening Post (New York), May 14, 1906; New York Times, May 15, 1906; Nation (New York), May 17, 1906; Harper's Week1y, May 26, 1906.]

O. G. V.



SCOTT, ROBERT KINGSTON (July 8, 1826-August 12, 1900), Union soldier and governor of South Carolina, was born in Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, the son of Jane (Hamilton) and John Scott, a farmer. In 1842 the boy went to Stark County, Ohio, to seek educational advantages. In 1850 he went to California, where, for brief periods, he engaged in mining and the practice of his profession. After visiting Mexico and South America he settled in Florida, Henry County, Ohio, probably in 1851, to practise medicine. There he was married to Rebecca J. Lowry and had two children. Aid in the suppression of a cholera epidemic soon gave him considerable local prestige. Profitable investments in real estate enabled him to withdraw gradually from medicine and to engage in merchandising. On the outbreak of the Civil War, Governor Dennison appointed him a major with instructions to organize the 68th Ohio Infantry. In July 1862 he was. promoted to the rank of colonel. He received honorable mention for gallantry in action and commanded a brigade in Sherman's march to the sea. On  January 12, 1865, he was promoted to the rank of brigadier-general and at the end of the war was brevetted a major-general.

Returning to Ohio after the war, he was recalled into active service almost immediately and made chief of the South Carolina branch of the Freedmen's Bureau with the title of assistant commissioner. He served in that capacity until July 1868. The conservative press of South Carolina praised him for the wise and moderate manner in which he administered the affairs of the bureau. Popularity engendered by his services as the chief dispenser of the charity of the federal government led to his nomination, in March 1868, for governor by the newly formed Union Republican party of South Carolina. He was easily elected. In 1870 he was reelected by a large majority over Robert B. Carpenter, the candidate of an attempted coalition between Democrats and Republican reformers. As governor from July 1868 to November 1872 Scott was largely responsible for the scandals and disorders that characterized the introduction of Republican rule in South Carolina. His policies led to the increase of the public debt to thrice the amount it had been when he assumed office, and he concealed this fact from responsible investigators. When an attempt was made to impeach him, he stopped the proceedings by bribing the legislature with public funds. He was a leader in conspiracies to defraud the state of money by manipulating printing contracts and the stocks of the Blue Ridge Railroad. Provoking the formation of bands of the Ku-Klux Klan by the unscrupulous tactics through which he obtained reelection, he professed inability to suppress these organizations and called in the aid of Federal troops. It is probable that Scott would have made a competent governor under normal conditions. His previous record had been creditable and his inaugural address bespoke a desire for conciliation and constructive achievement. That he was not callous to the better interests of the state is attested by his endeavor at times to stem the tide of corruption by the use of the veto. But it would have been impossible for him to make his administration satisfactory to the whites in whose hands ultimately lay the control of the state's destiny. After a half-hearted resistance to the corrupt officials who surrounded him, he conveniently succumbed to their suggestions and personally profited from their acts. He was "subject alike to alcoholic and female allurements," and on one occasion the state officials paid an actress to induce the drunken governor to sign an issue of bonds (E. P. Mitchell, Memoirs of an Editor, 1924, p. 326).

On the expiration of his term of office he retired from politics and settled in Columbia as a real estate agent. He declared the experiment of negro suffrage a mistake and in 1876 supported the state Democratic ticket; but on the return of the Democrats to power in 1877 he prudently left South Carolina in the face of possible prosecution and returned to Henry County, Ohio. There he engaged in the real estate development for the rest of his life. On Christmas Day 1880 he killed Walter G. Drury, a young drug clerk, whom he believed responsible for making his young son drunk. On a plea of accidental homicide he was acquitted of the charges that grew out of this act. He died in Henry County.

[Men of Northwestern Ohio (1898); L. C. Aldrich, History of Henry and Fulton Counties, Ohio (1888); F. B. Heitman, H i st. Register and Dictionary of the U. S. Army (1903), volume I; F. B. Simkins and R.H. Woody, South Carolina during Reconstruction (1932); Report of the Joint Investigating Committee on Public Frauds .. Made to the General Assembly of S. C. ... 1877-78 (1878), esp. pp. 215-21, 271-76, 563, 587-92; Special Message of .. . Robert K. Scott, Governor ... in Reply to Charges Made Against Him (1872); Charleston Daily News, March 9, 1868, August 22, 1872; News and Courier (Charleston), December 29, 30, 1880; State (Columbia, South Carolina), August 15, 1900.]

F.B.S--s.



SEDGWICK, JOHN (September 13, 1813-May 9, 1864), soldier, was born at Cornwall Hollow, Connecticut, the son of Benjamin Sedgwick, farmer and ardent churchman, and Olive (Collins) Sedgwick. The American progenitor of the family was Robert Sedgwick [q.v.]. His grandfather, Major John Sedgwick, was an officer in the American War of the Revolution. John Sedgwick, II, was a manly, robust boy, strong-willed, and a leader among his associates. He received his early education in the common schools of Cornwall, with a few months at an academy at Sharon, Connecticut, and some special instruction at the parsonage of the Rev. William Andrews. For two winters he taught school. Soon afterward he entered the United States Military Academy and was graduated with th e class of 1837. He was commissioned in the artillery, and for a decade saw service in the Seminole War, as sis t ed in moving the Cherokee Indians west of the Mississippi, served on the northern frontier during the Canadian border disturbances, and on various garrison assignments. In 1846 he joined General Taylor's army on the Rio Grande, and saw arduous service until transferred to Scott's army at Vera Cruz, Mexico. He took an active part in all the battles of the Mexican War leading up to the final assault upon the city of Mexico, and for his services at the battles of Churubusco and Chapultepec was brevetted captain and major, respectively. After about eight years of garrison duty, during which he was promoted to the rank of captain, he was honored by appointment as major of the newly organized 1st Regiment of Cavalry. He participated in the Utah Expedition of 1857-58, and in the warfare with the Kiowa and Comanche Indians, 1858-60.

At the outbreak of the Civil War Sedgwick was engaged in constructing the frontier post of Fort Wise, Colo. Quick promotion to the ranks of lieutenant-colonel, colonel, and brigadier-general of United States Volunteers followed, and he received the important assignments of a brigade and a division in the Army of the Potomac. He participated in most of the battles of McClellan's campaign on the Peninsula, including Glendale where he was severely wounded on June 30, 1862. He was promoted major-general of volunteers on July 4, 1862. He took a prominent part in the battle of Antietam, where he was again wounded, in the battle of Chancellorsville, and in the Rappahannock campaign, during which he commanded the V and the VI Corps. Soon afterwards he led his corps in the storming of Marye's Heights at Fredericksburg, Virginia, and in the battle of Salem Heights on May 3 and 4, 1863. Although not reaching Gettysburg until the second day of the great battle, he entered that contest also and took part in the pursuit of Lee's retiring army. In the subsequent Rapidan campaign he commanded the right wing of the Army of the Potomac with the V and VI Corps, and did brilliant service at the Rappahannock Station in the operations at Mine Run. In the Richmond campaign, still commanding the VI Corps, he was actively engaged in the battle of the Wilderness early in May 1864. A few days later at Spotsylvania, while personally directing the location of artillery, he was shot and killed by a Confederate sharpshooter. A painting of Sedgwick's death, by Julian Scott, hangs in the public library of Plainfield, New Jersey. He was buried in his native town in Connecticut, where an impressive monument was dedicated to him on May 30, 1892. In 1868, a bronze statue at West Point, and in 1913 an equestrian statue at Gettysburg, were unveiled with appropriate ceremonies. Sedgwick never married. Generous and affable, but withal a strict disciplinarian, this brilliant leader was affectionately known to his soldiers as "Uncle John."

[E. S. Welch, John Sedgwick, Major-General (1899); Correspondence of John Sedgwick (2 volumes, 1902-03); G. W. Cullum, Biographical Register ... U. S. Military Academy (1891); The Centennial of the U.S. Military Academy (1904), volume II; E. C. Starr, A History of Cornwall, Connecticut (1926); T. S. Gold, History Records of the Town of Cornwall (1904); M. T. McMahon, General John Sedgwick, Address before the Vermont Officers' Reunion Society, November 11, 1880 (1880); Hartford (Connecticut) Daily Courant, May 11, 12, 13, 17, 18, 1864.]

C. D.R.



SEYMOUR, TRUMAN (September 24, 1824-October 30, 1891), soldier, was born in Burlington, Vermont, the son of Truman and Ann (Armstrong) Seymour. His father was a Methodist minister. After two years, 1840-42, at Norwich University he was appointed a cadet in the United States Military Academy; he was graduated and appointed brevet second lieutenant, 1st Artillery, July 1, 1846. He served with distinction in the Mexican War and received the brevets of first lieutenant and captain for gallant and meritorious conduct at Cerro Gordo, Contreras, and Churubusco. From 1850-53 he was assistant professor of drawing at West Point. During this period he was married to Louisa, daughter of Robert W. Weir, professor of drawing at the academy. Rejoining his regiment at Fort Moultrie, South Carolina, he participated in the operations against the Seminole Indians in Florida, 1856-58.

As captain of artillery he took part in the defense of Fort Sumter, and was brevetted major for gallant conduct. He commanded a training camp at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in the autumn of 1861, served in the defenses of Washington as regimental commander and divisional chief of artillery, and was appointed brigadier-general of volunteers on April 28, 1862. In the Peninsular campaign, he was engaged at Mechanicsville, bore an important part in the defensive battle at Beaver Dam Creek, and skillfully covered the withdrawal to Gaines's Mill. He commanded a division at Malvern Hill, was engaged at Manassas, at South Mountain executed the decisive enveloping movement, and at Antietam led the advance of Hooker's corps in opening that battle. He was brevetted lieutenant-colonel and colonel of the regular army for gallantry at South Mountain and Antietam respectively. Transferred in November 1862 to the Department of the South, he commanded the assaulting column in the unsuccessful attack on Battery Wagner, Charleston harbor, July 18, 1863, and was severely wounded. Early in 1864 he was placed in command of the expedition to Florida and on February 20 was badly defeated near Olustee Station. On May 5, having been relieved and ordered north, he took command of a brigade of Sedgwick's corps during the battle of the Wilderness, and on the following day he was taken prisoner. Because of his kindness to Confederate wounded after Antietam President Davis directed that provision be made for his comfort. The order, however, was not fulfilled; Seymour was exposed, as a retaliatory measure, to the fire of the Federal batteries bombarding Charleston and was otherwise harshly treated (War of the Rebellion: Official Records, Army, 1 series, volume XXXV, pt. 2, p. 164; 2 series, volume VII, pp. 135, 185, 571). Exchanged on August 9, 1864, he commanded a division of the VI Corps in the operations in the Shenandoah Valley during November and December 1864, in the Richmond campaign, and in the siege of Petersburg. He handled his division at the battle of Sailor's Creek, April 6, 1865, with an energy and ability that won the commendation of General Sheridan. He was present at the capitulation of General Lee. He received three brevet commissions dated March 13, 1865, as major-general of volunteers, and brigadier- and major-general, United States army. After the war he reverted to his regular army rank of major of the 5th Artillery, and served in command of various posts along the Atlantic coast. After he was retired from active service at his own request, November 1, 1876, he lived at Florence, · Italy, where he died, survived by his wife. He was an artist of considerable talent. Brave and steady as a leader, he was modest and unaggressive in the promotion of his own ambitions. He won the regard of his subordinates by uniform courtesy and unfailing care for their welfare. He was, however, a man of strong prejudices with a tendency to impulsive action, which retarded the advancement his training, experience, and devotion would otherwise have merited.

[G. M. Dodge and W. A. Ellis, Norwich Univ., 1819- 1911 (1911), volume II; Twenty-third Annual Rebellion Assoc. Graduates of U.S. Military Academy, 1892; W. L. Haskin, The History of the First Regiment of Artillery (1879); G. W. Cullum, Biographical Register Officers and Graduates U. S. Military Academy, volume II (1891); War of the Rebellion: Official Records (Army); obituaries in Army and Navy Journal, November 7, 1891, and New York Times, November s, 1891; unpublished records of the War Department, 1840-91.]

T.F.M.



SHAFTER, WILLIAM RUFUS (October 16, 1835-November 12, 1906), soldier, said to have been the first white male child born in Kalamazoo County, Mich., was the son of Hugh Morris and Eliza (Sumner) Shafter, who went west from Windsor, Vermont. He attended the common schools of Galesburg, Mich., and at odd times helped on his father's farm and taught school. In 1861, while attending Prairie Seminary in Richland County, he enlisted for three years' Civil War service, and was commissioned first lieutenant, 7th Michigan Infantry. He took part in the battle of Ball's Bluff on October 21, 1861, and in the Peninsular campaign of 1862. He was brevetted lieutenant-colonel and years later (June 12, 1895) was granted a Medal of Honor for distinguished gallantry at Fair Oaks. He was promoted major, 19th Michigan Infantry, on September 5, 1862, saw service in the affair at Thompson's Station in March 1863, was taken prisoner and exchanged in the following May; and became lieutenant-colonel of his regiment on June 5, 1863. On April 19, 1864, he was appointed colonel, 17th United States Colored Infantry, and took part in the battles of December 15-16, 1864, in front of Nashville. He received, on March 13, 1865, the brevet of brigadier-general of Volunteers. With post-war reorganization, he was assigned to frontier duty with the 24th United States Infantry, April 14, 1869, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel, and ten years later was promoted colonel, 1st Infantry. He became brigadier-general, in 1897, and with the outbreak of the Spanish War was advanced to major-general of Volunteers.

Largely because of his rugged aggressiveness and ability to meet difficult situations, Shafter was given command of the important expeditionary force to Santiago de Cuba, and on April 29, 1898, established his headquarters at Tampa, Florida. On June 14 he sailed for Cuba, with a fleet of thirty-two transports, carrying some 819 officers and 15,058 enlisted men, in addition to teamsters, packers, clerks, and correspondents. A landing was effected at Daiquiri on June 22, the town of Siboney was taken the next day, and the engagement of Las Guasimas was fought June 24. After a more or less hasty reconnaissance of the Spanish defenses in front of the city of Santiago, the main attack was begun against the city, July 1, with a secondary attack by the division of Henry W. Lawton [q.v.] upon the outlying suburb of EI Caney. The battle was continued, July 2-3, with considerable loss to the American forces, and on the latter date Shafter demanded of General Jose Velazquez Tora!, the Spanish commander, the surrender of the city. This demand was refused, but owing to the almost total destruction of the Spanish fleet on July 3 Toral formally capitulated July 17. The surrender included some 23,500 combatants. During the armistice that preceded the final negotiations, the morale of the American troops was so seriously impaired by malaria and yellow fever that Shafter considered the advisability of withdrawing his troops to high ground, five miles from the city. However, August 8-25, he embarked some 25,000 men for Montauk Point, L. I., of which about eighty per cent. were ill upon landing in the United States. A man of large size, Shafter was so ill during certain critical days of the Santiago campaign as to be able to maintain contact with his advanced troops only through his staff-officers. Although he was subjected to considerable criticism from the press of the country in regard to alleged deficiencies in subsistence and equipment, much of this may be justly charged to the country's unpreparedness for an overseas expedition in the tropics, and to the world's ignorance of tropical diseases.

In October 1898 Shafter was assigned to command the Department of the East at Governors Island, New York, but in a few days was transferred to his old command, the Department of California and Columbia. He remained at San Francisco until retired from active military service as a brigadier-general, October 16, 1899, but retained command under his volunteer commission as a major-general, until June 30, 1901. By a special act of Congress, February 2, 1901, he was advanced to the grade of major-general on the retired list, July 1, 1901. After retirement, he made his home with a daughter, on a ranch near Bakersfield, Cal., where his death occurred on November 12, 1906, after but a week's illness. His funeral and interment with high military honors took place November 15, 1906, at the Presidio of San Francisco, and was attended by many distinguished persons and representatives of patriotic societies. His wife, Harriet Amelia Grimes, of Athens, Mich., to whom he was married September 11, 1862, had died in 1898. On August 22, 1919, there was unveiled at Galesburg, Mich., a bronze bust of Shafter, erected by the state of Michigan.

[H. H. Sargent, The Campaign of Santiago de Cuba (3 volumes, 1907); Stephen Bonsal, The Fight for Santiago (1899); J. D. Miley, In Cuba with Shafter (1899); John Bigelow, Reminiscences of the Santiago Campaign (1899); George Kennan, Campaigning in Cuba (1899); S. W. Durant, ed., History of Kalamazoo County, Mich. (1880); Michigan History Magazine, April July 1920, p. 485; Who's Who in America, 1906-07; Army and Navy Journal, November 17, 1906; San Francisco Examiner, November 13, 1906; San Francisco Call and San Francisco Chronicle, November 13, 16, 1906; information supplied by Shafter's daughter, Mrs. Mary Shafter McKittrick, of Los Olivos, Cal., and by Dr. G. N. Fuller, Sec. Mich. Historical Commission.]

C. D. R.



SHEPLEY, GEORGE FOSTER (January 1, 1819-July 20, 1878), Union soldier, military governor of Louisiana, federal judge, son of Ether [q.v.] and Anna (Foster) Shepley, was born in Saco, Maine. At the age of fourteen he entered Dartmouth College, graduating in 1837. After reading law for a time with his father and at Harvard, he began practice in Bangor in 1839 as the partner of Joshua W. Hathaway. In 1844 he moved to Portland where he became successively the partner of Joseph Howard and of John W. Dana. He was appointed, November 8, 1848, United States district attorney for Maine, but lost the position the following year with the change in national politics. President Pierce in 1853 and President Buchanan in 1857 reappointed him to the office, which he held until June 1861. As district attorney he attracted much attention in the murder case of United States vs. Holmes (26 Federal Cases, 349), when competent observers stated that his prosecution of the case suffered nothing from comparison with the defense conducted by George Evans [q.v.].

Shepley was a delegate at large to the National Democratic Convention in Charleston in 1860 and attended its adjourned session in Baltimore, supporting Douglas in the campaign. An acquaintance, begun at this convention, with Benjamin F. Butler, 1818-1893 [q.v.], led, after the outbreak of the Civil War, to the inclusion of the 12th Regiment of Maine Volunteers, of which Shepley was colonel, in Butler's New England division in th e New Orleans campaign. After the capture of that city, May 1, 1862, Butler appointed Shepley its military commandant; in June 1862 he became military governor of Louisiana, and in July was promoted to the rank of brigadier-general. He must in some measure share with Butler the responsibility for whatever dishonesty there may have been in the army's administration of New Orleans ("Letters from George S. Denison to Salmon P. Chase," Annual Report of the American Historical Association, 1902, volume II, 1903). After the election of Georg Michael Decker Hahn [q.v.] to the governorship, by the Unionist portion of the state, Shepley was assigned to the command of the district of Eastern Virginia, in May 1864. In 1865 he was chief of staff of the XXV Army Corps under General Weitzel and when the latter occupied Richmond, was appointed military governor of that city. Years afterward he contributed an article on " Incidents of the Capture of Richmond," to the Atlantic Monthly (July 1880). He resigned his commission July 1, 1865, and returned to the practice of law in Portland. On December 22, 1869, he was appointed circuit judge of the United States court. Equity and patent cases made up a large proportion of those in which he gave decision s. He had a quick comprehension of the intricacies of patents but his decisions contain for the most part merely a discussion of the case at hand rather th an a thorough review of principles. He was vehement and impetuous, and did not possess an exploring mind.

Shepley married on July 24, 1844, Lucy A. Hayes, who died in 1859; and on May 23, 1872, he married Helen Merrill. In 1877 he joined St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Portland. He died the following year of Asiatic cholera, after an illness of four days. His wife and two daughters survived him.

[Proc. of the Bench and Bar of the Circuit Court of the U. S., Dist. of Maine, September 28, I878, upon the Decease of Hon. George Foster -Shepley (1878); Daniel Clark, in Memorials of Judges Recently Deceased, Graduates of Dartmouth Coll. (1881); G. T. Chapman, Sketches of the Alumni of Dartmouth Coll. (1867); A. F. Moulton, Memorials of Maine (1916); James Parton, General Butler in New Orleans (17th ed., 1882), pp. 590-92; B. F. Butler, Autobiography ... Butler's Book (1892); Private and Official Correspondence of General Benj. F. Butler (5 volumes, 1917); M. C. C. Wilson, John Gibson . .. and His Descendants (1900); Daily Press (Portland, Maine), July 22, 1878.]

R.E.M.



SHERIDAN, PHILIP HENRY (March 6, 1831-August 5, 1888), Union soldier, was the third of six children of John and Mary (Meenagh) Sheridan, who emigrated to America from County Cavan, Ireland, about 1830. They lived for a time in Albany, New York, where, according to his own account, Philip was born. Hoping to provide a better maintenance for his growing family, the father took them to Somerset, Perry County, Ohio, where he sought work upon the canals and roads then under construction. The village school provided Philip with the most rudimentary kind of an education, and eve n this was interrupted when he became a clerk in a county-store at the age of fourteen. He was too young to follow the youths of Somerset when they enlisted for the Mexican War, a bitter disappointment which was mitigated only by his appointment to the United States Military Academy. On the day of registration, July I, 1848, Sheridan gave his age as eighteen years and one month, which would indicate that he had been born in 1830. With the aid of his roommate, Henry Warner Slocum [q.v.], he succeeded in passing the examinations, but his pugnacious tendencies soon brought him to grief. An altercation with a cadet-officer, who, Sheridan believed, treated him unjustly, reached a climax when Sheridan stepped from the ranks and pursued his superior with bayonet fixed. He was suspended from the Academy for a year, but subsequently was graduated with the class of 1853, number thirty-four in a class of forty-nine.

As a brevet second lieutenant, 1st Infantry, he served for a year along the Rio Grande River, and then, with the 4th Infantry, he saw arduous service against hostile Indians in the Northwest. In the spring of 1861, he received his captaincy in the 13th Infantry, and began his war service as quartermaster and commissary of Union troops in southwest Missouri and as General Halleck's quartermaster during the Corinth campaign. His aggressive spirit chafed, however, under the restrictions of staff duty, and he therefore welcomed his appointment as colonel of the 2nd Michigan Cavalry on May 25, 1862. In a little over a month, he won the stars of a brigadier-general for his signal victory at Booneville, Missouri, where he commanded a brigade. His subsequent service was brilliant; at Perryville, commanding an infantry division, he succeeded where others failed, and at Stone River, he practically saved the army of Rosecrans by his stubborn resistance to the Confederate advance. His well-merited promotion to the rank of major-general of volunteers followed on December 31, 1862. In the fall of the following year, Sheridan again distinguished himself in command of the XX Corps, Army of the Cumberland, at the sanguinary battle of Chickamauga. Some two months later in the battle of Chattanooga, his command swept up the heights and over the crest of Missionary Ridge in a magnificent charge which contributed largely to Grant's defeat of Bragg and brought Sheridan into favor with Grant. Accordingly, with the latter's promotion to the rank of lieutenant-general, he gave Sheridan command of all the cavalry of the Army of the Potomac, a corps consisting of three divisions, with about 10,000 men for duty.

Sheridan initiated a complete reorganization of his cavalry command with characteristic energy, and in a little over a month was actively engaged in the battles of the Wilderness, Todd's Tavern, Spotsylvania Court House, and Cold Harbor. Beginning on the morning of May 9, 1864, and continuing until May 25, Sheridan's corps raided the Confederate communications around Richmond, destroyed about ten miles of track on three important railroads, broke up telegraph communication, captured many trains of stores, and caused great alarm and apprehension in the Confederate capital. On May 28, he fought the battle of Hawes's Shop and, soon after, the battle at Trevilian Station. During the months of May, June, and July, he was engaged in successive raids against the Confederate lines, performing brilliant service and securing decisive results. Early in August 1864, Sheridan was placed in command of the Army of the Shenandoah, and received Grant's personal instructions to drive the enemy south and to destroy all supplies in the fertile Shenandoah Valley which might enable them to use it again as a base of operations. Sheridan prepared his plans with a caution which seemed almost dilatory to his superiors at Washington, and then, with forceful initiative, accomplished the defeat of Jubal Anderson Early [q.v.], at Winchester (Opequon) on September 19, and again at Fisher's Hill on September 22. As a reward, he was promptly promoted brigadier-general in the regular army. He then proceeded to lay waste the Valley, driving out its herds of domestic animals and virtually reducing its non-combatants to the state of starvation. For this, Sheridan was severely censured by Southern sympathizers, but in his eyes it was a matter of military necessity, the means calculated to be the most effective in bringing the war to an early end. For three years the Valley had sustained Confederate forces which had dealt out defeat after defeat to the Federal armies and it had supported the so-called "guerrilla bands," such as Mosby's Men, which had wrought so much damage within the Union lines.

Sheridan's little army was, however, surprised by Early at Cedar Creek, and all but routed on October 19, 1864. The commander, resting at Winchester en route to his army, was twenty miles from the scene. He made his famous ride to the battle-field-immortalized in verse by Thomas Buchanan Read [q.v.]-rallied his demoralized troops, reformed his retreating lines, and decisively snatched victory from defeat. As a fitting climax to this series of accomplishments, Sheridan was made a major-general in the regular army on November 8, 1864, and, with his veteran troops, received the thanks of Congress for their achievements in the Valley of the Shenandoah, and especially for the victory at Cedar Run. "Little Phil" as Sheridan was known to his soldiers, was indefatigable. He was actively engaged from February 27 to March 24, 1865, in a great raid from Winchester to Petersburg, in which he again defeated Early at Waynesboro. He cut three railroads and two canals, destroyed important Confederate depots of supplies, and left Lee's army with but a single line of railroad communication with the South. Of even greater military importance, perhaps, the strategic concentration of Sheridan's forces at Five Forks upon the successful conclusion of this raid, enabled him, on April 1, 1865, to turn the flank of the Confederate army, force it to evacuate Petersburg and to initiate the ill-fated retreat to Appomattox. In the resultant final operations of the War, which included Sheridan's successful engagement at Sailor's Creek, his command was thrown squarely across Lee's line of retreat, and the surrender of the Confederate army to General Grant followed.

After the war, Sheridan was entrusted with the highly responsible problem of administering the military division of the Gulf, fraught with unsettled conditions along the Mexican border. He combined considerable material and moral support to the Mexican liberals with strong demonstrations of American troops north of the Rio Grande River, and practically forced the French government to withdraw its support of Maximilian (see Memoirs, post, II, pp. 210 ff.). Early in 1867, the Reconstruction Acts were passed, and Sheridan was made military governor of the fifth military district, Louisiana and Texas, with headquarters at New Orleans-an appointment entailing many difficult as well as delicate problems of administration, incident to the bitterness engendered by post-war conditions. His policies were characterized by severely repressive measures in the interest of Reconstruction in the South, a cause to which Sheridan was thoroughly, if sternly, devoted, and although he was strongly supported by General Grant, the disapproval of President Johnson event4ally brought about his relief from this duty and his transfer to the department of the Missouri. In this new sphere of action, he embarked upon military operations against the Cheyennes, Comanches, Arapahoes, and Kiowas, and finally forced these hostile Indians to settle upon the reservations which by treaty had been allotted them. On March 4, 1869, President Grant appointed him lieutenant-general, and assigned him to command the division of the Missouri.

Sheridan went abroad in 1870-71, during the Franco-Prussian war, to visit the German armies in the field, met Bismarck, von Moltke, and the German emperor, and witnessed the great battle of Sedan. After a year's absence, he returned to resume command of his military division, with headquarters in Chicago. He was tentatively selected by the president to command the American forces in 1873, when an invasion of Cuba was seriously considered in connection with the Virginius affair. Two years later he was again sent to the city of New Orleans to settle disturbed conditions which culminated in political rioting. He was placed in command of the western and southwestern military divisions in 1878, and in 1884 he succeeded General Sherman as commander-in-chief of the army. On June 1, 1888, Congress bestowed upon him the highest military rank, that of general. The last months of his life were occupied by the writing of his Personal Memoirs (2 volumes, 1888), the preface being signed only three days before his death at Nonquitt, Massachusetts, where he had gone with his family in the hope of restoring his failing health. His funeral, with imposing military and civil honors, took place in Washington, D. C., and he was interred in the National Cemetery at Arlington. He was survived by his widow and by four children, three daughters and a son. He had been married to Irene the daughter of General D. H. Rucker, later quartermaster-general of the army, June 3, 1875, while stationed in Chicago.

Sheridan was a short, slight man, of unprepossessing bearing in his later years, and even of ungainly appearance in his earlier. A pronounced reserve which characterized him at all times did not affect the magnetic quality of his personality which so impressed his military subordinates. Always just and considerate in his dealings with his men, and assiduous in promoting the health, personal comfort, and general welfare of his troops, he won from them a complete and enthusiastic confidence. When the battle waged hottest, Sheridan was at his best cool, exact, self-possessed, the dashing and brilliant leader of men willing to follow him anywhere. He was never a profound student of military science, but his natural aptitude for command led him always to execute with great success the two rules upon which he acted: to take the offensive whenever possible, and to wring the last possible advantages from a defeated enemy. It may be noted, however, that Sheridan rose to his conspicuous military position only near the end of the war, and that his greatest successes were won from a numerically inferior and poorly mounted foe.

[Personal Memoirs of P. H. Sheridan (2 volumes, 1888); Joseph Hergesheimer, Sheridan (1931); W. H. Van Orden, General Philip H. Sheridan (1896); John McElroy, General Philip Henry Sheridan (1896); G. W. Cullum, Biographical Register U. S. Military Academy (1891); J. H. Wilson, Biographical sketch in Twentieth Annual Reunion, Association Graduates, U.S. Military Academy (1889); The Centennial of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York (1904), volume II; Adam Badeau, Military History of U. S. Grant (1881), volume III; Horace Porter, Campaigning with Grant (1897); Washington (D. C.) Post, August 6, 1888.]

C. D. R.



SHERMAN, THOMAS WEST (March 26, 1813-March 16, 1879), soldier, was born in Newport, Rhode Island, the son of Elijah and Martha (West) Sherman. He was a descendant of Philip Sherman, who emigrated to America about 1633 and moved in 1638 to Rhode Island, where he settled; at Portsmouth. After attending the public schools; Sherman saw no prospect of further education, since his parents were in humble circumstances. At eighteen, when his father disapproved of his centering his hopes on West Point and a soldier's career, he walked to Washington and appealed to President Jackson, who was so impressed by this show of determination and self-reliance that Sherman got his cadetship. He was graduated, July 1, 1836, and commissioned second lieutenant, 3rd Artillery. In 1838, after two years' active service in the Florida War, he became first lieutenant and served in the Indian Territory, assisting the Cherokee transfer. Then came four more years of the Florida hostilities, service at Fort Moultrie, South Carolina, and recruiting duty. Promoted captain in May 1846, he served with Taylor's army in the Mexican War, in which he commanded a battery at Buena Vista, rendered conspicuous service, and received the brevet of major. He served at Fort Trumbull, Connecticut, and Fort Adams, Rhode Island, from 1848 to 1853, when he was assigned to frontier duty in Minnesota. In 1857- 58 he assisted in quelling the disturbances in Kansas. While there he married Mary, daughter of Governor Wilson Shannon [q.v.]. Returning to Minnesota, he commanded an expedition to Kettle Lake in 1859 whereby the Sioux were restrained from war.

At the outbreak of the Civil War he was ordered to duties in connection with the defense of Washington. He was promoted major and lieutenant- colonel in the regular army, and brigadier- general of volunteers in rapid succession, and was placed in charge of an expedition to take and hold bases on the southern coast for the use of the blockading fleet. He occupied Port Royal Harbor, South Carolina, after a naval bombardment, November 7, 1861, and later seized Bull's Bay, South Carolina, and Fernandina, Florida. His management of this enterprise was marked by skill and judgment. In 1862 he was assigned to the command of a division of Halleck's army, then operating against Corinth. His manner of exercising authority, however, resulted in complaints from some of his subordinate s which led to his relief and assignment to the Department of the Gulf. After serving in command of troops above New Orleans from the fall of 1862 to January 1863, he commanded a division in the expedition against Port Hudson, Louisiana. On May 27, 1863, he was wounded while gallantly leading an assault on the Confederate works and afterwards lost his right leg by amputation. Promoted colonel, 3rd Artillery, he returned to duty after nine months' sick leave in command of a reserve brigade of artillery and of Forts Jackson and St. Philip, Louisiana. From 1864 to 1866 he was successively in command of the defenses of New Orleans, of the Southern Division of Louisiana, and of the Eastern District of Louisiana. All these duties he performed with marked energy and efficiency in spite of his physical handicap. He was brevetted brigadier-general, United States Army, for gallant and meritorious service at the capture of Port Hudson, and major general of volunteers for like services during the war. He was mustered out of volunteer service in 1866. After the war he served in command of his regiment at different stations on the Atlantic seaboard until November 1870; soon afterward he was retired from active service as major-general. He died at his home in Newport, Rhode Island, his wife's death having preceded his by a few days; one son survived them. He was an officer of unquestioned ability, but his long career in the old regular army of the Indian frontier in some ways unfitted him for handling volunteers not inured to its iron discipline, and his ingrained training and positive personality sometimes produced friction that lessened the value of his military knowledge and experience. [New England Historical and Genealogical Register, volume XXIV (1870), p. 163; G. W. Cullum, Biographical Register Officers and Graduates U. S. Military Academy, volume I (1891); Battles and Leaders of the Civil War (4 volumes, 1887-88); War of the Rebellion: Official Records (Army), esp. 1 series, volume VI (1882), volume XVI (1886), pt. 2; Harper's Weekly, November 30, 1861; W. E. Birkhimer, "The Third U. S. Artillery," Journal Military Service Inst., March 1893; J. H. Smith, The War with Mexico (2 volumes, 1919); Army and Navy Journal, March 15, 22, 1879; Appletons' Annual Cyclopedia, 1879; New York Tribune, March 17, 1879.] T. F. M.



SHERMAN, WILLIAM TECUMSEH (February 8, 1820-February 14, 1891), Union soldier, was born at Lancaster, Ohio, the third son and sixth child of Charles Robert and Mary (Hoyt) Sherman. The family had been in America since about 1634 when Edmund Sherman came from Dedham in Essex, England, to Boston, Massachusetts, with his son, Samuel, and a cousin, the progenitor of Roger Sherman [q.v.]. Another son was John Sherman, 1613-1685 [q.v.]. Tecumseh's grandfather, Taylor Sherman, of Norwalk, Connecticut, had served as a commissioner to settle land titles in the Western Reserve, receiving some Ohio lands as compensation. Attracted by these lands, his son, Charles Robert, moved West in 1811, and entered upon the practice of law at Lancaster. He became judge of the state supreme court in 1823 and served until his sudden death in 1829. Most of his eleven children were then distributed among relatives, friends, and neighbors to be cared for, and Tecumseh was welcomed into the family of Thomas Ewing, 1789-1871 [q.v.], who was indebted to the boy's father for helping him begin his career as a frontier lawyer. The red-haired lad, known intimately as "Cump," had been named by his father after the noble Shawnee chief, Tecumseh [q.v.], but under the influence of his devout Catholic wife, Thomas Ewing permitted him to be baptized with the name of William Tecumseh. Ewing never formally adopted him.

A sound education at a local academy was interrupted suddenly when the boy was "notified" to prepare for West Point (Memoirs, post, I, 14). Ewing secured an appointment for his charge in 1836, and Sherman was graduated number six in the class of 1840. He was assigned as second lieutenant, 3rd Artillery, on field service in Florida, and became a first lieutenant in 1841. The following year he was stat ion ed at Fort Moultrie, South Carolina, where his duties left ample time for him to begin the study of law. During his first leave in 1843 in Lancaster, he became engaged to Eleanor Boyle Ewing (called Ellen), the daughter of his guardian. Returning from this leave, he traveled down the Mississippi River and began an acquaintance with Georgia which, supplemented by a tour of three months in 1844 and a detail at the Augusta arsenal in 1845, provided him a valuable knowledge of the countryside. During the Mexican War he was aide to Philip Kearny and later adjutant to Richard Barnes Mason [q.v.], but he saw so little action that he submitted his resignation and was persuaded to withdraw it only when Persifor Frazer Smith [q.v.], in command of the new division of the Pacific, made Sherman his adjutant-general. He was relieved in January 1850 to carry dispatches east for General Scott. On May 1, after an engagement of seven years, he was married to Ellen Ewing in Washington, D. C., an event of great social importance in the capital because of the position of the bride's father.

Sherman served as captain in the subsistence department for a year and a half, and th en resigned his commission on September 6, 1853, to become a partner in a branch bank of a St. Louis concern in San Francisco, California. Business prospered for a while, but the period of severe depression caused the bank to close in the spring of 1857. He then represented the firm in New York for a short time, but the parent bank itself failed in October, and Sherman voluntarily assumed a heavy personal financial responsibility for losses to friends who had given him money to invest for them. His efforts to return to the army failed and he established a partnership with Thomas and Hugh Boyle Ewing [q. v.], practising law in Leavenworth, Kansas. He lost the only case he tried. Contact with the garrison at Leavenworth increased his eagerness to rejoin the service, but after other attempts failed he applied for and received the post of superintendent of a new military college about to be opened at Alexandria, Louisiana, now Louisiana State University. He was conspicuously successful in this work, in which he was engaged from October 1859 until January 18, 1861, endearing himself to his co-workers, and winning many friends. Before the secession of Louisiana compelled him to resign he was even offered a high commission in the Confederate army. He later accepted the presidency of a St. Louis street railway. This was a very trying time for Sherman. Failure had dogged his footsteps; his industry, his honesty, his recognized abilities for mastering innumerable details had in the army, in finance, in education, in industry-availed him nothing. He had been forced, time after time, to accept the tactful hospitality of the Ewing household for his family, and had often held off with some difficulty his particular bete noir-the management of the Ewing salt-works in Ohio, a means of livelihood which Thomas Ewing had offered him again and again out of genuine kindness.

The prospect of war between the Union and the South caused Sherman real anguish. He regarded the preservation of the Union and the integrity of the Constitution with the same fervor-almost religious-as did Thomas Ewing, from whose fire it had probably been kindled. He also loved the South and her people. Everything must be done to avert war; if it came, it must be brought to a conclusion as swiftly as possible, and the South must be returned to the fold with no further punishment than the sufferings which the actual conflict would mete out to her. Here lies the spring of Sherman's action from the day he parted from his Southern friends; the key to his prophetic views on the proportions of the war, to the ruthless march through Georgia, to his liberal peace terms, and to his consistent opposition to Congressional reconstruction.

At last when the regular army was increased in May 1861, Sherman was appointed colonel of the new 13th Infantry, and in July was assigned to command a brigade in General McDowell's army. With this command he shared in the disaster of Bull Run. He was advanced to the rank of brigadier-general of volunteers a month later, and became second in command in Kentucky to Robert Anderson [q.v.], inheriting the thankless job of trying to hold the state with little more than home guards when Anderson's poor health forced him to relinquish it. His anxiety over the raw recruits for whose lives he was responsible preyed upon his mind at this time, and his nervous temperament led him to overestimate the difficulty of his position, the forces of the enemy, and the number of troops required-although, as it was proved later, the last was moderate enough. His efforts to keep newspaper reporters out of his lines in the belief that the enemy learned valuable information from this source unfortunately aroused the enmity of the press, so that the rumour that Sherman's mind was giving way spread quickly t0 officials and to the public. Buell was sent to assume command in Kentucky and Sherman went to Missouri to report to Halleck. He was received with coldness and suspicion and so bitter was his resentment that he even contemplated suicide. Shortly after he returned from leave, he was assigned to the District of Cairo, Grant's former command. After the capture of the forts, he joined Grant with a division of volunteers and took a prominent part in the battle of Shiloh and the advance to Corinth. The frightful carnage at Shiloh again gave the newspapers a chance to strike at Sherman, and they reported that the Federals had been surprised in their camps. True it is, that sufficient preparation had not been made, and it may be supposed that Sherman's experience in Kentucky made him very wary of the camp rumour that Johnston's army was moving against him (see Lewis, post, p. 218 ff.). Sherman's command, however, was vigorous and he had four horses shot from under him during the battle. He was promoted major-general of volunteers with rank from May 1, 1862.

In July 1862, Grant succeeded Halleck in charge of the western armies and sent Sherman to Memphis to place it in a state of defense. Sherman suppressed guerrilla warfare, established civil authority on a firm basis, organized a charity drive, and would have brought the cotton trade under control had not Federal authorities obstructed him. Pillaging was strictly forbidden to his soldiers. The Mississippi was now open as far down as Memphis, and as far up from the mouth as Port Hudson. The only strong points remaining were Vicksburg, on the first high ground below Memphis, and the fortified naval base at Fort Hindman, or Arkansas Post, on the Arkansas River, which threatened the western flank of any advance. Grant proposed to move against Vicksburg. He, himself, was to hold Pemberton at the Yalobusha where the general advance of November 24 had pushed him, and Sherman was sent down the river to take Vicksburg. Raids on his communications, however, forced Grant to fall back and release Pemberton, and rendered Sherman's expedition hopeless. After fruitless attempts at an assault he reembarked his troops on January 2, 1863, and turned them over to General McClernand, who had arrived with orders from the president to command the forces on the river. These forces were reorganized into the Army of the Mississippi, with two army corps, one of which Sherman commanded. At Sherman's suggestion, McClernand, with the assistance of Porter's gunboat flotilla, proceeded to the capture of Arkansas Post, then returned to the Mississippi. Grant reorganized the whole force into the Army of the Tennessee, with four corps, Sherman retaining his own, the XV, and moved down the river to open his amphibious campaign which led to the surrender of Vicksburg on July 4, 1863. For his distinguished service in this campaign Sherman was made brigadier-general in the regular army.

In September, Sherman, with his own corps and other troops, was sent back to Memphis and thence eastward to the relief of Chattanooga. Grant's advancement to supreme command in the west placed Sherman in command of the Army of the Tennessee, but strong forces had to remain at Vicksburg and Memphis, so that he could assemble for the Chattanooga operation but little more than he had with him. His command was moved across the rear of Hooker's and Thomas' troops, already in position, and formed the left element of the general movement of November 24, which raised the siege of Chattanooga. The next day Sherman's advance had reached Ringgold, when he was recalled to move to the relief of Knoxville. Starting at once, without waiting for his transport to join him, he reached Knoxville on December 6 only to find that Longstreet had raised the siege and gone back to Virginia. He then placed his troops in winter quarters along the Tennessee River. This campaign, for which he received the thanks of Congress, had been fought under conditions extraordinarily distressing to Sherman. His son and namesake, nine years old, who had been with him during the quiet period after Vicksburg, died of typhoid fever at Memphis as the expedition was starting. In January he went down to Vicksburg to conduct an expedition against the Confederate base at Meridian. Arranging with Banks at New Orleans for a feint toward Mobile, he moved out with four divisions to Meridian, which he reached without serious opposition. After destroying the arsenal and depots he returned to Vicksburg.

The great event of the spring of 1864 was the appointment of Grant as lieutenant-general commanding all the armies. He went east in March, turning over his command to Sherman; McPherson succeeded to the command of the Army of the Tennessee. Grant's opinion of these two great lieutenants was expressed in a letter thanking them as "the men to whom above all others" he was indebted for his successes (Sherman, Memoirs, 1875, I, 399). The combined plan for 1864 called for an advance by Meade's Army of the Potomac against Lee and Richmond, and an advance by Sherman against Johnston and Atlanta. Sherman is sued orders for a concentration about Chattanooga, and moved his headquarters to that place late in April. His field force consisted of the Armies of the Cumberland (Thomas), the Tennessee (McPherson) and the Ohio (Schofield)-in all about 100,000 men. Opposed was Johnston with some 60,000. His first care was to assure his supply. His base was Nashville, 150 miles north, with one single track railway, open to raids, and poorly supplied with rolling stock. He took complete possession of this road, cut off all civilian traffic, reduced military supplies to the strictest essentials, impounded all rolling stock coming in from the north, in spite of the complaints of the northern railways, and reduced field equipment and rations to a minimum. By these stringent measures he succeeded in accumulating a reserve of supplies sufficient to permit him to commence operations by May 5, the date set by Grant.

Johnston was at Dalton, holding Buzzard Roost Gap, where the railway crossed Rockyface ridge. Sherman moved Thomas and Schofield directly against Buzzard-Roost, and McPherson around Johnston's left through Snake Creek Gap. McPherson passed through the Gap on May 9, but failed to take Resaca or to cut the railway. Johnston then fell back upon Resaca. Leaving a detachment of the railway, Sherman moved around by McPherson's route and on May 15 took Resaca and reopened his rail communications. He then followed on to Kingston and established an advanced depot there. Johnston fell back into the rugged hills behind Allatoona Pass. Sherman moved westward off the railway again and pushed up toward the Allatoona-Kenesaw Mountain line. Allatoona Pass was occupied on June I. Progress was now slow. Johnston was entrenched in a strong position. Every advance against it was covered by hasty field works-not as a defensive, but as an offensive weapon. Violent assaults upon Kenesaw at the end of June failed, but a new extension of Sherman's right forced the abandonment of that position. Johnston fell back to the Chattahoochee. Schofield effected a crossing beyond Johnston's right, which forced him to give up the river line on July 9 and retire to the line of Peachtree Creek, immediately covering Atlanta. Here Johnston was relieved by Hood. Sherman extended his left, swinging around Atlanta by the north and east and drew violent attacks from Hood. The defenses of Atlanta being too strong for an assault, Sherman opened a regular siege, then worked his force around by his own right, west of the city, and cut the railways to Montgomery and Macon. Hood evacuated Atlanta on the night of September 1. This victorious campaign won Sherman his promotion to the rank of major- general in the regular army, August 12, 1864. He at once ordered the removal of the civil population from Atlanta, and proposed to Hood an armistice for this purpose. After some correspondence, in which Hood attempted without success to represent the proceeding as barbarous, it was carried out (Memoirs, II, n7 ff.).

Sherman had in mind from the fir st a further movement from Atlanta to some point on the seacoast. After correspondence with Grant, the plan took definite shape. Thomas and Schofield were sent back to hold Hood and to protect Tennessee. On November 15, after destroying installations of military value, the army of 62,000 men marched out of Atlanta, breaking all communications, and disappeared for a month. The "march through Georgia” centered upon Sherman one of the bitterest controversies of the Civil War. His purpose was to break the resistance of the South by cutting off the supply of her armies and Georgia was the only untouched source of supply. The army was under orders to live off the country, to destroy war supplies, public buildings, railroads, and manufacturing shops. Foraging was strictly defined, and the destruction of private property was authorized only upon the order of the highest commanders and when some act of violence impeded the progress of the army. The execution of the orders, however, was extremely difficult to control. The army was in the pink of condition and in a holiday mood. Thousands of stragglers, negro and white, so-called "bummers," or soldiers detached from their own regiments, fringed the marching ranks and considered themselves under no orders. Wheeler's Confederate cavalrymen, also, committed acts for which the Federals were held responsible -by an undiscriminating countryside. Many acts of pillage did occur, and it appears obvious that Sherman's discipline was not strict enough, a judgment which his own men rested upon him (see Hitchcock, post, p. 86). Under no illusions whatsoever as to the terrible effects of his march (see Home Letters, p. 298), Sherman contended that wanton destruction was prevented in so far as possible, and that there was no serious personal violence to noncombatants. The principle that the war could be terminated soon by bringing it home to a civilian population by the destruction of goods rather than life was a tenet to which Sherman clung. Aside from condemnation and acclaim, it is on the basis of his deliberate exploitation of this principle that he has been called the first modern general (see Hart, preface). On January 10, 1865, Sherman received for the second time the thanks of Congress

The city of Savannah was occupied on December 21. On the first of February began the march northward through the Carolinas--a march in comparison to which, as Sherman said, that through Georgia was child's play. In seventeen days the army reached Columbia, forcing the evacuation of Charleston. That night Columbia was burned, and Sherman was charged with having ordered the burning. His orders were, however, to destroy only war materials and public buildings (see Lewis, post, p. 501). The evidence, reviewed by a nonpartisan, indicates that the evacuating troops set cotton on fire, that a hi g h wind fanned it, that the citizens distributed liquor too liberally, that negroes and released Union prisoners itching for revenge applied the torch further, but that the officers adopted drastic measures to save the city (see Hart, post, p. 366 ff.). Johnston, commanding the Confederate forces in the Carolinas, was unable to make any effective resistance. On March 22 Sherman effect ed a junction at Goldsboro with Schofield's corps. While his troops were being resupplied, he made a hasty trip by sea to visit Grant's headquarters at City point on the James River, and there held the consultation with President Lincoln which so impressed up on him the government's plan for a liberal peace (Home Letters, p. 336). Sherman then moved upon Raleigh, but Lee had surrendered on April 9, and now Johnston also made overtures for surrender. On April 17 the two generals met, and liberal terms were granted by Sherman. In his eagerness to put an end to the war he inserted in his draft terms which were political in their nature and beyond his province. This fact, however, was explicitly recognized in the agreement signed, which, in effect, was merely an engagement by the generals to do their utmost to secure approval by their respective governments. But the feelin g at Washington was bitter by reason of the assassination of Lincoln, and the agreement was repudiated with a vigor and discourtesy which deeply offended Sherman. At the final grand review in Washington, he publicly refused to shake hands with Secretary Stanton, although he became reconciled later.

Sherman took up his first post-war station at--St. Louis in command of the Division of the Mississippi. He lent great assistance in the construction of the transcontinental railway and in controlling and mollifying the Indian opposition accomplished, in his own opinion, more of permanent value than during the war (Hart, p. 420). In the reorganization of the army, Grant became general and Sherman succeeded him as lieutenant-general on July 25, 1866. Soon afterward, he was called to Washington to take temporary command of the army, the President proposing to send Grant on a diplomatic mission to Mexico, escorting the minister accredited to President Juarez. Grant objected to this, considering it a political maneuver to get him out of Washington and Sherman was designated for the mission: The mission went to Mexico but failed to find Juarez; it constituted, however, a part of the diplomatic pressure exerted upon France for withdrawal of support to Maximilian. Upon Grant's inauguration as president, Sherman became general commanding the army on March 4, 1869. Schofield, then still secretary of war, issued an order the next day to settle the long-standing quarrel of the commanding general and the heads of the staff departments, by placing them under his orders. Rawlins, however, who now became secretary of war, saw this as a diminution of the importance of his office, and rescinded the order. Although he had favored the system announced by Schofield, Grant refused to interfere. Sherman was deeply hurt by this and after a year spent on leave in Europe, 1871-72, moved his headquarters to St. Louis.in 1874. A compromise having been reached, he returned to Washington in 1876, although the political chaos of Washington had always distressed him. He was untiring in the exercise of his command up to the moment of his retirement. One of his most important contributions to the army was his establishment of the school at Fort Leavenworth in 1881 which, under various names and forms, has had a continuous existence ever since, and has developed into the most influential agency of the service in shaping doctrine and training methods.

He retired from active service on November 1, 1883, established himself in St. Louis, and remained there until 1886, when he moved to New York City. Repeated efforts were made to draw him into political life, especially in the Republican convention of 1884, when only his positive veto prevented a definite move for his nomination for the presidency. He established no business connections, but lived quietly and at leisure. His correspondence was very large, and he was in frequent attendance at military reunions and celebrations, besides being in constant demand at private social affairs. He died of pneumonia in New York City at the age of seventy-one and was survived by six of his eight children. At the end, while unconscious, Sherman received the last rites of the Catholic church, but had never been a member. Ellen Sherman had died three years before, deeply absorbed to the last in her Catholic charities. Sherman was tall and erect, with sharp, dark eyes, reddish hair and beard, and deeply lined face·. His features were grave and severe in repose, but animated and expressive in conversation, of which he was no mean master. His mind was extraordinarily quick; it flashed from premise to conclusion so rapidly that his associates could not follow, and even he himself seemed unconscious of the process. This rapidity, together with his nervous temperament, gave him the reputation of an erratic, even of a mentally unbalanced, genius--a reputation totally foreign to the fact. He was a cordial and devoted friend, his relations with Grant, in particular, being of the 'most intimate and confidential character. In public as well as in private address, in his letters and in the Memoirs, first published in 1875, his characteristics were strikingly displayed. The famous statement, "war ... is all hell," was made by Sherman in a speech at Columbus, Ohio, on August 11, 1880, and was reported in the Ohio State Journal of the following day. Augustus Saint-Gaudens [q.v.] modeled a bust of Sherman during the last years of the testy old general's life. The magnificent equestrian statue in Central Park, New York City, grew out of the first effort.

[Sherman and Ewing papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress; T. T. Sherman, Sherman General. (1920); Memoirs of General William T. Sherman (2 volumes, 2nd ed. revised, 1886); M. A. DeWolfe Howe, ed., Home Letters of General Sherman (1909); R. S. Thorndike, ed., Sherman Letters, Correspondence between General and Senator Sherman (1894); Lloyd Lewis, Sherman-Fighting Prophet (1932); B. H. Liddell Hart, Sherman-Soldier, Realist, American (1929); W. L. Fleming, General W. T. Sherman As College President (1912); Henry Hitchcock, Marching with Sherman (1927); J. F. Rhodes, "Sherman's March to the Sea," American History Review, April 1901; Ferdinand von Meerheimb, Sherman's Feldziug in Georgien (1869, Berlin); Boston Evening Transcript, February 14, 1891. See also a critical estimate of the Memoirs in an article by W. B. Stevens in Missouri History Review, January 1931.]

O. L. S., Jr.



SHIELDS, JAMES (May 12, 1806-June 1, 1879), soldier, senator from Illinois, Minnesota, and Missouri, was born in Altmore, County Tyrone, Ireland, the son of Charles and Katherine (McDonnell) Shields. Trained in a hedge school and later in an academy and by a retired priest from Maynooth, he received a good classical education, supplemented by some teaching in tactics and swords play. Probably in 1822 he sailed by way of Liverpool for Quebec and was wrecked on the Scottish coast with only two other survivors. As a tutor, he earned a livelihood in Scotland until he obtained a berth on a merchantman and about 1826 arrived in New York harbor. He settled in Kaskaskia, Illinois, where he taught French, read law, fought in the Black Hawk War, and practised Democratic politics and law. In 1836 he was elected a member of the legislature. As state auditor, he helped correct the disordered finances of the state brought to the verge of bankruptcy by the panic and canal building, but not without sharp criticism in the Whig press. As a result of anonymous charges in the newspaper, traced to the Misses Todd and Jayne, later the wives of Abraham Lincoln and Lyman Trumbull, he challenged to a duel Lincoln, who shouldered some responsibility. The matter was compromised on explanations from the latter, and the principals became permanent friends. In 1843 Shields was named to the supreme court by Governor Thomas Ford, whose manuscript History of Illinois he edited and published later, in 1854. As a jurist, he was honest, industrious, and surprisingly detached in delivering decisions that were marked by common sense and some legal erudition. He was renamed by the legislature for a full term in 1845, but he resigned soon to accept President Polk's appointment to the commissionership of the general land office in Washington.

With the outbreak of the Mexican War he resigned and was commissioned brigadier-general of Illinois volunteers on July 1, 1846. At Cerro Gordo he was dangerously wounded, was brevetted a major-general, and cited by General Scott for his gallant conduct there. At Churubusco, after initial mistakes of some importance (Smith, post, pp. 115-17, 384), he led the charge of New York Irish and South Carolina volunteer s that is commemorated in the painting in the national Capitol. In July 1848 his brigade was disbanded, and he returned to Kaskaskia and Belleville to build up his law practice, but he was soon appointed governor of Oregon Territory. This position he resigned immediately to accept an election to the federal Senate. A Whig Senate found a technicality in that he had not been a citizen the required number of years and declared his election void. He, however, was reelected for the same term and served from October 27, 1849, to March 3, 1855. Martial in carriage, scrupulously neat, urbane and courteous of manner, graceful and humorous in debate, he was well informed because of his ability, experiences, and his command of Latin, French, and Spanish. In temper he was sharp and somewhat arrogantly independent. Something of a demagogue, he was intentionally candid. A strict party man, he had the courage to disagree with fanatics on either side of the slavery issue and to fight for a free California, land grants for veterans, railroad construction, and agricultural education. In 1855 he was defeated for reelection by Lyman Trumbull in a legislature in deadlock between himself and Lincoln.

A Douglas appointee to distribute Sioux half-breed scrip, he went to Minnesota Territory, where he settled down on his land grant. He did much to stimulate an Irish movement into the region by organizing the townships of Shieldsville, Erin, Kilkenny, and Montgomery in Lesueur and Rice counties and by establishing with Alexander Faribault the town of Faribault. Elected to the federal Senate, on the admission of Minnesota, he drew the short term that expired March 3, 1859, and a Republican legislature failed to reelect him. He went to San Francisco, where in 1861 he married Mary Ann Carr, the daughter of an old friend in Armagh, Ireland, by whom he had three surviving children. Settled in Mazatlan, Mexico, as manager and part owner of a mine, he sold his interest and offered his services to Lincoln, when he learned that Fort Sumter had surrendered. Appointed as a brigadier- general of volunteers on August 19, 1861, he campaigned in the Shenandoah Valley, where he won recognition at Winchester and at Port Republic. He resigned his commission on March 28, 1863, and retired to San Francisco, where he was appointed a state railroad commissioner. In 1866, he was in Carrollton, Missouri. There he entered politics again, campaigning against the "ironclad oath," losing an election to Congress when a canvassing board cast out the votes of two counties, and supporting the Liberal-Republican candidates of 1872. He lectured for religious, Irish, and charitable causes such as Southern relief during the cholera epidemic. Serving in the legislature, he promoted an act for a railroad commission to which he was afterward appointed. He was elected to fill out an unexpired term in the federal Senate from  January 27, 1879, to March 3, 1879, but lack of health forced him to decline being a candidate for reelection. He died at Ottumwa, Iowa, while on a lecture tour, and was buried with simple Roman Catholic rites at St. Mary's Cemetery in Carrollton, Missouri, where in 1910 a colossal statue was erected to his memory. In 1893 his statue was placed in Statuary Hall in the national Capitol by Illinois and, in 1914, Minnesota, at the insistence of the Grand Army of the Republic, raised a memorial in the state capitol.

[W. H. Condon, Life of Major-General James Shields (1900); H. A. Castle, "General James Shields," and John Ireland, "Address at the Unveiling of the Statue of General Shields," Minnesota Historical Society Collections., volume XV (1915); New York Freeman's Journal and Catholic Register, May 4, 1861, June 7, 14, 1879, January 1, 1887; Journal of the American-Irish Historical Society, volume IX (1900), volume XIV (1915); Studies (Dublin), March 1932; W.W. Folwell, A History of Minnesota (1924), volume II; J. H. Smith, The War with Mexico (2 volumes, 1919); date of birth from statement concerning original family records in Castle, ante, p. 71 r.]

R. J. P.



Source: Dictionary of American Biography, Volumes VIII-IX, Edited by Dumas Malone, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1930.