William Tecumseh Sherman was born in Ohio in 1820 and named Tecumseh (Shooting Star) after the Shawnee leader killed in the 1813 battle of the Thames. In 1836 he entered West Point, and in the years before the Civil War he spent much time in the Old South and the new West. In 1861 he resigned his position as superintendent of a Louisiana military academy and went north to join the Union forces. After defeat at Bull Run, he gained confidence with a victory at Shiloh and won Grant’s friendship and admiration. In his subsequent campaigns he earned the South’s enduring bitterness for his harsh attacks that helped wither the Confederacy’s economy and popular morale. Four years after the war Sherman was appointed commanding general of the army. His later years as army chief were devoted primarily to Indian campaigns in the West. He died in New York City in 1891.
