Citizen Sherman

Some men panic in the face of war, others embrace its horrific challenges. But none embraced war as ferociously or with as much cold calculation as William Tecumseh Sherman. It was Sherman who both articulated and practiced the relentless scorched-earth policy that broke the heart of the Confederacy. He succeeded in large measure because, better than any other Union general, he fully grasped the essence of psychological warfare and could enact his own deep-rooted rage with ruthless clarity.This biography is much broader than an analysis of Sherman's wartime genius, however. Michael Fellman illuminates the emotional as well as the intellectual, ideological, and occupational lives of this extraordinary, but at the same time representative, Victorian American.Fellman's boldly argued and gracefully written study merits the attention of anyone interested in its brilliant and volatile subject. -- Gary W. Gallagher in the New York Times Book ReviewSomehow, the key to the sherman riddle has until now eluded biographers. Now Fellman, whose best-known previous book offered the finest history yet written on Civil War guerrilla fighting in the border state of Missouri, has offered as gripping and original a life story as has yet been produced on Sherman. It is most compelling book. Convincing argued and elegantly written, it takes its place as the definitive modern study of the Civil War's most feared fighter. -- Harold Holzer in the Chicago Tribune.There appears to be nothing written by or to Sherman that Fellman hasn't read and analyzed, no scrap of existing evidence that he hasn't looked at. He makes a persuasive case and he does it in a fascinating and readable way. The innerSherman that emerges isn't necessarily a man you would invite home for dinner, although he would doubtless be charming and endlessly interesting. Here is a famous and furious man, brilliant, insightful, garrulous, complicated, tightly wound, energetic, aggressive, salty, angry