Michael Fellowman. Citizen Sherman: A Life of William Tecumseh Sherman. New York: Random House, 1995. 415 pages. Michael Fellman, Professor of History at Simon Frazer University in British Columbia, delves into the psychological, social, cultural, and ideological influences which shaped the life of William Tecumseh Sherman. Based on the vast numbers of letters and writing left by Sherman, his family, and professional colleagues and associates, Fellowman writes an interpretative history on the dark factors which made Sherman’s life enigmatic. Fellman describes the death of Sherman’s father and his subsequent “adoption” into the home of the wealthy lawyer Thomas Ewing as the traumatizing element of Sherman’s early life. Sherman never got over the separation from his real family. This led to fear of betrayal and abandonment, bouts of depression, and rage in the adult Sherman. Ewing secured an appointment to West Point for Sherman without consulting him beforehand. Sherman did not like being forced to account himself to his stepfather, therefore wanting independence from the Ewing family. Ironically, Sherman, after a prolonged engagement, marries Ellen Ewing, his stepsister, forever cementing the unwanted ties to the Ewing clan. The Sherman/Ewing marriage was a complex one. They lived apart most of their married lives for a variety of reasons including employment, religion, money, and Ellen’s devotion to her father. Religion was always the bane between them. Ellen was devoutly Catholic. Sherman was a Jeffersonian deist, who professed “no particular creed, believing firmly in the main doctrines of the Christian religion, the purity of morals, the almost absolute necessity of its existence and practice among all well regulated communities, to assure good will amonst all.” Sherman, like Ulysses S. Grant, was not a success in the army nor in business before the Civil War. He had resigned his commission in the Army after a series of dead-end assignments and sought a career as a banker, lawyer, and finally as the superintendent of the as-yet unbuilt Louisiana State Military College. Sherman flourished as the superintendent of the Louisiana Military College. Always speaking his mind freely, Sherman had several opinions on the matter of seccsion. He did not admire the southern aristocratic set seeing them as rich spoiled backward men living a life that no longer existed. His views on slavery were indifferent in a large part because he did not see Blacks as human. He wrote his brother John, “Negros free won’t work tasks, of course and whites cannot bear labor during the southern summers” (p. 70). He did not believe in democracy thinking a military dictatorship was preferable to mob rule. Fellman makes reasonable attempts to cast light on the motivations of a man responsible for such statements as "My aim then was to whip the rebels, to humble their pride, to follow them to their inmost recesses, and make them fear and dread us." Sometimes the conclusions Fellman poses leave questions as to what standard and evidence does he base his judgment of Sherman, concluding that: Through his transformation in war, Sherman had sublimated his terribly destructive self-doubts into a fatalistic, almost transcendent commitment to battle. He had evolved from the protection of Grant’s wing into a moral free agent who created and imposed his own war-universe. He had found moral affirmation through organized violence, learning that war could provide a legitimate, even constructive outlet for his primal rage. He had discovered a deeply spiritual martial vocation at the expense of the Southern people. Citizen Sherman is written well., engaging to read and informative. But at the end of the book, the paradox of Sherman remains. He was full of rage yet loving to his children, devoted to his wife yet unfaithful, rude to the press and others but charming on many levels, ruthless in war but forgiving in peace. Citizen Sherman necessitates the gleaning of more information on Sherman from other sources. Back to Cry Havoc #40 Table of Contents Back to Cry Havoc List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2002 by David W. Tschanz. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com