two months before the American presidential election,
gave Lincoln’s campaign a boost and led to his reelec-
tion, which just weeks earlier had been precarious. Sher-
man then led more than 60,000 of his men in what
historians call “Sherman’s March to the Sea,” an advance
in which his men tore up railroads and destroyed civil-
ian and military buildings and supplies in an attempt to
destroy the Confederate infrastructure. On 22 Decem-
ber 1864, Sherman sent a telegram to President Lincoln
from Savannah, Georgia: “Via Ft. Monroe Va Dec. 25. I
beg to present you as a Christmas gift the City of Savan-
nah with 150 heavy guns & plenty of ammunition &
also about 25.000 bales of cotton.” The war in the South
was essentially over.
Moving north, Sherman’s troops marched into the
Carolinas and reached Virginia just as the Confederate
commander, General Robert E. lee, was surrendering
to Grant at Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia on 9
April 1865. General Joseph Johnston, the commander
against whom Sherman fought in the last months of
the war, surrendered to him on 26 April near Durham,
North Carolina.
Sherman’s career during the Civil War had been
connected with that of Grant, and this continued with
the peace thereafter. In 1866, Grant was promoted to
full general, while Sherman was promoted to lieuten-
ant general. Two years later, Grant was elected the 18th
president of the United States, and he named Sherman
as the commander of the American army, a post he held
until 1884. For many years, Sherman was urged to run
for political office, but he refused. He died in New York
City on 14 February 1891, a week after his 71st birth-
day. Although born in Ohio, he was buried in his adop-
tive hometown of St. Louis.
William Tecumseh Sherman is best known for two
things: his “March to the Sea,” which cut the Confed-
eracy in two, and his statement that “war is hell”—his
view of warfare as a brutal and horrible affair, not the
glorious pastime some young men believe it to be.
References: Lewis, Lloyd, Sherman: Fighting Prophet
(New York: Harcourt, Brace & Company, 1932); Mer-
rill, James M., William Tecumseh Sherman (Chicago:
Rand McNally, 1971); Miers, Earl Schenck, The General
Who Marched to Hell: William Tecumseh Sherman and His
March to Fame and Infamy (New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
1951); Wheeler, Richard, Sherman’s March (New York:
Crowell, 1978); Liddell Hart, B. H., “Sherman—Mod-
ern Warrior,” American Heritage 12, no. 5 (August 1962):
20–23, 102–106; Sherman to Lincoln, 22 December
1864, Abraham Lincoln Papers, Library of Congress,
Washington, D.C.; North, Bruce, “Sherman, William
Tecumseh,” in Encyclopedia of American War Heroes (New
York: Checkmark Books, 2002), 221–223.Slim, William Joseph, Viscount Slim (1891–
1970) British general
William Slim was born in the village of Bishopston, near
Bristol, England, on 6 August 1891, the son of John
Slim, a hardware salesman, and Charlotte Tucker Slim.
In 1903, when William was 12, the family moved to
the city of Birmingham, where John Slim tried to restart
his failing hardware business. William Slim received his
education at St. Philips Catholic School in Edgbaston
and King Edward’s School in Birmingham, joining the
Officers Training Corps (OTC) at the latter institution.
Slim had always wanted to join the army, but
his father could not afford to send him to Sandhurst,
the British military academy. For a time after leaving
school, he worked as a teacher, then joined the engi-
neering concern of Stewarts and Lloyds, for which he
was working as a clerk when the First World War began
in August 1914. He volunteered and was commissioned
in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment. Sent to Gallipoli,
the regiment saw heavy action in the battle of Sari Bair
Ridge (August 1915), and Slim was wounded during
the action. He returned to England to recuperate, and
it was not until 1916 that he was able to serve again. He
was sent to Mesopotamia in the Middle East, where,
despite still not being completely recovered, he saw ac-
tion in several battles, leading to his winning the Mili-
tary Cross and participating in the capture of the city
of Baghdad. Wounded again, he was sent to India to
recuperate.
When he was well enough, Slim was assigned to
British army headquarters in November 1917, pro-
moted to the rank of captain, and then transferred to
the Indian army in May 1919 following the end of the
war. He served at army headquarters, being posted to
the 1st Battalion, 6th Gurkha Rifles, in March 1920.
Serving in this unit until 1925, he was able to apply
some of the lessons he learned at Gallipoli and in Meso-
potamia to the Indian army. In 1925, he attended the
Indian Staff College in what is now Quetta, Pakistan,
studying under the tank warfare specialist ColonelSlim, williAm JoSeph, viScount Slim