林中斌 部落格 / Blog Chong-Pin Lin

The life of ‘the first modern general’

Thomas E. Ricks, International New York Times

accessed June 21, 2016

● 謝爾曼是美國內戰北軍戰勝的主要角色。他一再繞到敵人側翼再攻擊以致勝，有別於北軍主帥即他的好友格蘭特 (U.S. Grant) 的正面攻擊傷亡慘重的笨方法。

● 謝爾曼從Atlanta近軍穿過南方各州，不帶補給，不與總部華府聯絡，到達大西洋是北軍摧毀南軍意志的關鍵。他是調查好了所經之地農產富足，是兵一路好餐。三萬人部隊只折損103人!

● 謝爾曼戰前在南方大學任職，同情南方訴求但反對分裂國家，並警告南方友人北方戰力雄厚不是好惹的。他信箋預言南北內戰漫長而慘烈。一度情緒低落，想自殺。

● 他決定為北軍效力，以西點軍效畢業生和內政部養子身分晉見林肯總統，彈推委主將軍職，因為他要「熟悉情況」。

● 他數度傳聞拒絕競選總統。他的名言：「如果被徵召，我不競選；如果選上，我不就職。」這叫作「謝爾曼聲明」(The Shermanesque statement)

● 他的名言：「戰爭不是光榮。戰爭是地獄。」

● 他過世時，與他敵對的南軍將領 (General Joseph E. Johnstan)，為他抬棺。1891年2月冬季天氣寒冷下雨。朋友建議他戴帽子，Johnstan拒絕說：「如果我跟謝爾曼易位，他一定不會戴帽子為我抬棺。」Johnstan因此得肺炎，一個月後過世。

Sherman's birth family was Presbyterian and he was originally baptized as such. His foster family, including his future wife Ellen, were devout Catholics, and Sherman was re-baptized and later married in the Catholic rite. According to this son Thomas, who became a Catholic priest, Sherman attended the Catholic Church until the outbreak of the Civil War, but not thereafter. In 1888, Sherman wrote publicly that "my immediate family are strongly Catholic. I am not and cannot be." A memoirist reports that Sherman told him in 1887 that "my family is strongly Roman Catholic, but I am not." Sherman was buried at Calvary Catholic Cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri.

Funeral procession in New York

On 19 February, a funeral service was held at his home, followed by a military procession. General Joseph E. Johnston, the Confederate officer who had commanded the resistance to Sherman's troops in Georgia and the Carolinas, served as a pallbearer in New York City. It was a bitterly cold day and a friend of Johnston, fearing that the general might become ill, asked him to put on his hat. Johnston famously replied: "If I were in [Sherman's] place, and he were standing in mine, he would not put on his hat." Johnston did catch a serious cold and died one month later of pneumonia.

General Sherman's body was then transported to St. Louis, where another service was conducted on 21 February 1891 at a local Catholic church. His son, Thomas Ewing Sherman, a Jesuit priest, presided over his father's funeral mass. Sherman is buried in Calvary Cemetery in St. Louis.