Sherman is not only one of the most important generals in the American Civil War, but also one of the most famous commanders in the military annals of the western world. He has become an almost mythical character in popular memory, the embodiment of grim-visaged, implacable war. Legend has him burning a sixty-mile-wide swath of desolation across the South, and southerners still confidently assert that their ancestors were burned out by Sherman and his vandal hordes. Sherman famously said, "War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it," and yet, even at his most destructive, he maintained strict limits on the degree of damage his soldiers could inflict. Sherman's wartime career makes a fascinating study of the degree to which the severity of war can be channeled, directed, and limited-especially as it relates to the current war in Iraq.
"With the clarity and lucidity of style that has become his hallmark, Steven Woodworth has given us a splendid brief biography of William T. Sherman. Concise without sacrificing important details, this book analyzes the qualities of personality and leadership that made Sherman a great general and an essential partner with Ulysses S. Grant to win the Civil War."
James M. McPherson, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Battle Cry of Freedom and Tried by Wa
