Sherman : A Soldier's Life

Rating:
Summary: Unimpressive
Review: If you knew nothing about William T. Sherman you will find this book of some use. You will also find Sherman's life so boring that you will wonder why you ever wanted to know about him.

If you know about Sherman you will find this book slow and tedious. With the exception of the last chapter which does a good job reflecting on how Sherman was percieved after his death the book crawls.

It takes some real effort to make Sherman a boring person. Mr. Kennett takes the task and completes it with gusto.

It seems to me that if he changed the scope of the book a bit with more focus on particular parts of his life it might have worked. Instead he seems determined to allocate equal chunks to events that aren't equal. If he wanted to stress his time before the civil war, it would have worked as those parts of the book were its strength.

I can recommend Sherman as an interesting person, maybe as the General who should be commanding our current war. Mr. Kennett seems to take a moderate course, he can't make up his mind what kind of man or general Sherman is. This moderate course is unworthy of his subject. It's as if the book has no thesis.

If there was ever a book to get at the library instead, this is it.

Rating:
Summary: A solid biography covering all aspects of Sherman's life.
Review: If you want a good solid exciting biography of Sherman - this is your book. I'm tired of reading bloated biographies of
say 1000 pages. This book has a nice quick pace. Sherman would have liked that. It gives adequate coverage to Sherman's military and personal life as well as a nice perspective on his historical legacy.

Rating:
Summary: A Convincing Chronicle of a Complex Commander
Review: In his memoirs, General Norman Schwarzkopf revealed that when he was directing the Gulf War he kept before him on his desk a quotation from William Tecumseh Sherman: "War is the remedy our enemies have chosen. And I say let us give them all they want."

In SHERMAN: A SOLDIER'S LIFE, Lee Kennett, Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Georgia, paints a sympathetic but not uncritical portrait of William Tecumseh Sherman (1820-1891), the Civil War general who "made Georgia howl" and whose army destroyed Columbia, SC.

Sherman once said, "I must be judged as a soldier." Taking the man at his word, Kennett focuses on Sherman's military career. "Necessarily," he writes, "other aspects of the general's life can receive only limited coverage. . . . His military career was central to his being; his marriage, his domestic and social life--all else, in fact--had to be fitted in where the army left room."

Kennett's narrative follows Sherman from his birth in Lancaster (Fairfield County) Ohio, through his years at West Point, and his travels to Florida, South Carolina, California, Louisiana, Missouri, Washington, D.C., and New York.

We see Sherman at the debacle of the First Battle of Bull Run (Manassas, Va.); at the near-disaster at Shiloh (in southern Tenn.), where Grant and Sherman allegedly were surprised by a Confederate attack. We see Sherman's mistakes at the seige and capture of Vicksburg, Miss., and his tardy advance at the Battle of Chattanooga.

The zenith of Sherman's career (the Confederates called it his nadir) was the Georgia campaign, in which Sherman commanded the advance from Chattanooga to Atlanta, the capture of Atlanta, and the "Great March" from Atlanta to the Atlantic, linking up with the Union navy at Savannah, Ga.

Taking a page from the book of Ulysses S. Grant, who severed his logistical lifeline and lived off the land during the seige and capture of Vicksburg, Sherman did the same during his famous (or infamous, depending on which side of the Mason-Dixon Line one lived) march, cutting a fifty-mile-wide swath of destruction from Atlanta to the sea.

Sherman impressed one of his contemporaries as "a man of power more than any man I remember. Not general intellectual power, not Websterian, but the power which a flash of lightning suggests--as clear, as intense, and as rapid."

In spite of the author's statement, SHERMAN: A SOLDIER'S LIFE is much more than a military chronicle. Kennett traces Sherman's life both before and after the Civil War. And he includes a fascinating psychological profile, commenting on whether Sherman was a manic-depressive (Sherman certainly experienced extreme "highs" and "lows"). "In Sherman's case," writes Kennett, "there is another--and more likely--diagnosis: narcissistic personality disorder."

As a narcissist, Sherman was driven by an inner need for acceptance, respect, and praise; conversely, he was terrified by the prospect of failure and ridicule, and waged a long-standing war of words with the Fourth Estate, angrily charging that the press failed to understand him and appreciate his achievements.

Kennett argues convincingly that, although Sherman had the reputation of being rash and impetuous, at the core of his being was an entrenched conservativism, a conservativism reflected not only in his civilian business dealings but also in the strategies and tactics he used in warfare.

Kennett is eminently fair to Sherman without being obsequious; he is critical of Sherman without being malicious or vindictive. Sensible and scholarly, well-balanced and convincing, SHERMAN: A SOLDIER'S LIFE is an outstanding biography.

Rating:
Summary: Sherman
Review: Lee Kennet, observing that Shaerman said he must be judged as a soldier, declares that this will be the focal point of his biography, and then proceeds to do nothing of the sort.

We have long excerpts from Sherman's letters, learn much of his business ventures and relationship with his wife, have interesting pyscho-history excursions into his personality, but his military career is decidedly secondary.

Sherman's San Fancisco banking career gets a chapter, but the actual battle of Shiloh is covered in three pages, much of it not even related to Sherman's role there. This pattern is repeated thoughout the book -- we get detailed examinations of Sherman's correspondence and field orders, but combat operations get the short end of the stick. Postwar, we get details on Sherman's banquet qppearances and philandering, but very little on operations against the Indians.

A small note: the maps are not helpful in any way.

There are lots of good biographies of Sherman, including the general's own memoirs. This one, claiming to focus on Sherman, the soldier, actually does nothing of the sort. It's a well-researched exercise in letters and psycho-history, but it doesn't give you the soldier at all -- false advertising.

Rating:
Summary: A Monumental Disappointment. . .
Review: Lee Kennett has accomplished the impossible: he's taken one of America's most celebrated and brilliant generals and made him seem like nothing more than an average commander and a less-than-average human being. After reading Kennett's biography, I'm left wondering why President Lincoln and General Grant, to name but a few, were so impressed with Sherman's capabilities as a soldier, and why the Confederate generals feared him as much as they did. Rather than portraying Sherman and his accomplishments in a fair light, Kennett seeks at every turn to diminish those accomplishments and the man who achieved him. Sherman, we are told, was at best a competent general, not the great strategist that his contemporaries and subsequent students of military history recognized him to be. Trouble is, Kennett doesn't back up his dismissive assessment of Sherman with any kind of analysis, impartial or otherwise. Instead, he gives short shrift to Sherman's accomplishments in the field, including the famed "March to the Sea" -- all topics that Kennett glides over with astonishing little detail. Instead, Kennett is content to engage in psychobabble of the worst kind: Sherman's behavior in America's greatest conflict, and indeed throughout his life, was nothing more, in Kennett's eyes, than repeated manifestations of a "narcissistic" personality disorder. I bought the book expecting a serious treatment of one of America's greatest generals and instead got a hatchet job (and an unconvincing one at that). Unless you are a Sherman hater, save your money for one of the other good biographies of Sherman or, better yet, his own memoirs. This book, I regret to say, is worthless.

Rating:
Summary: Edifying
Review: Lee Kennett has penned an edifying account of the life of one of our nation's foremost military commanders, and a pioneer of the Total Warfare doctrine that would come to be standard practice in the 20th Century.
We learn a great deal about Sherman's early military career (unlike other Civil War icons, he largely sat out the Mexican War in California), his uneven record as a businessman, his often strained familial relationships and his abhorrence of the press and politicians.
The high point of Kennett's account is the exposition on the "March to the Sea" and Sherman's campaign to wage war on Southern resources and infrastructure. While such tactics would become de rigueur in military circles, they were virtually unheard of in the "gentlemanly" warfare of the 19th Century.
We learn that at the Civil War's end, Sherman was a man reviled in both the South and the North. The South, because of his "scortched earth" trek through Georgia and the Carolinas, and the North because of the lenient terms of surrender he offered to Joe Johnston. It was only his close relationship with U.S. Grant that saved Sherman's military career and lead to his ascendance to Commanding General, a post he would hold for more than a decade. Kennett's work is biography, not military history. Therefore, readers looking for intricate detail on Sherman's battlefield exploits and tactical decision-making will come away disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: A good introduction to General Sherman
Review: Over the last few years several outstanding biographies have been written. Biographies that delve deep into their subject and bring that person and their entire family to life. This is not one of those books. This is not to say that Lee Kennett has produced a bad biography, just a biography that pales in comparison to some other works. Simply put, it is impossible to do a complete biography on a man as complex as William T. Sherman in a scant 353 pages. To write a reasonably detailed account of the, "Great March" alone would have taken more space than this whole book.

What Kennett has produced is a good quick scan of the General's life. The details of his campaigns and many other facets of his life have been left for others. As an example, he covers the battles around Atlanta in about two pages. Not much in the way of detail will be found on any of the battles that Sherman was involved in for the author has instead tried to deal with the personality traits that made Sherman into Sherman. Unfortunately, the search for Sherman the inner man is not all that successful. The author does make some interesting points but he never seems to really get into the soul of his subject. It would indeed be interesting if someone could really get into the soul of the man who devastated so much of the south and then turned around and attempted to give back to the south all it was about to lose.

On the whole, I found this an interesting book. It is the first time I have read about General Sherman in any detail, and I'm sure that those who have studied the General before will find this book lacking. However, for someone not very aquatinted with Sherman this is a fairly good book. I never quite felt that I knew, "Cump" but I did begin to feel as if I would like to know much more about him. That in itself is an accomplishment for Mr. Kennett for I, like many other sons of the south, was raised to detest that foul Yankee firebug.

Rating:
Summary: A good introduction to General Sherman
Review: Over the last few years several outstanding biographies have been written. Biographies that delve deep into their subject and bring that person and their entire family to life. This is not one of those books. This is not to say that Lee Kennett has produced a bad biography, just a biography that pales in comparison to some other works. Simply put, it is impossible to do a complete biography on a man as complex as William T. Sherman in a scant 353 pages. To write a reasonably detailed account of the, "Great March" alone would have taken more space than this whole book.

What Kennett has produced is a good quick scan of the General's life. The details of his campaigns and many other facets of his life have been left for others. As an example, he covers the battles around Atlanta in about two pages. Not much in the way of detail will be found on any of the battles that Sherman was involved in for the author has instead tried to deal with the personality traits that made Sherman into Sherman. Unfortunately, the search for Sherman the inner man is not all that successful. The author does make some interesting points but he never seems to really get into the soul of his subject. It would indeed be interesting if someone could really get into the soul of the man who devastated so much of the south and then turned around and attempted to give back to the south all it was about to lose.

On the whole, I found this an interesting book. It is the first time I have read about General Sherman in any detail, and I'm sure that those who have studied the General before will find this book lacking. However, for someone not very aquatinted with Sherman this is a fairly good book. I never quite felt that I knew, "Cump" but I did begin to feel as if I would like to know much more about him. That in itself is an accomplishment for Mr. Kennett for I, like many other sons of the south, was raised to detest that foul Yankee firebug.

Rating:
Summary: Better served elsewhere
Review: Probably closer to two and a half stars.

While someone new to Sherman will get something from this book, the best biography still is Marszalek's. The Sherman in this book comes across (at least to me) as a cardboard man at times, which, having read Marszalek's book (and others), I knew not to be the case.

Although the book covers his whole life and is over 400 pages, most of the important military aspects of his career (look at the subtitle) are given little coverage. A couple of pages each for Shiloh, Chattanooga, not much better for the Atlanta Campaign and the March to the Sea!

Analysis of Sherman's relationship with Grant is cursory, which is a pity, because this axis was the major factor in the Union's triumph in 1864-65.

I don't intend to keep my copy now that I have read it.

Rating:
Summary: Shorter Bio of Sherman unremarkable
Review: William T. Sherman seems to have a biography written of him every three years or so. There are currently four bios available, not to mention his own memoirs and more venerable books such as the volumes by Liddell Hart and Lloyd Lewis. He's an endlessly fascinating character, multi-faceted, complex, and as amazingly verbose. He had an opinion on most everything, and to use my wife's phrase, "never had an unuttered thought." Because of this he's great biography material, and historians have been interested in him a great deal as a result.

Those recent bios vary greatly in their treatment of their subject. John Marszalek's Sherman: A Soldier's Passion For Order is the culmination of that man's life, seemingly. Marszalek lived with Sherman for a great while, to the extent of naming a dog Cumpy (Sherman's childhood nickname), and it showed in that the book is still the longest and most exhaustive biography. He sees Sherman as a twisted soul, tormented by his inability to control the world around him, but able to deal with things once he gets in command of an army and is able to influence events to an extent. Michael Fellman's Citizen Sherman is more harsh and unforgiving. Fellman is a Canadian historian who looks at the American Civil War through relentlessly modern lenses, and sees racism, misogyny, elitism, and various other ills pretty much everywhere in 19th century America. He doesn't think much of Sherman. Stanley Hirshson's The White Tecumseh, on the other hand, is apparently a very forgiving portrait of what the author considers a great soldier (this is the one Sherman bio I haven't read). The author of the present book, Lee Kennett, falls somewhere between Marszalek and Hirshson. He handles Sherman pretty mildly, though he does make note of his foibles and prejudices (as expressed in things he wrote) in passing.

Most biographers of Sherman note that he wanted to be judged as a soldier, and then dutifully tell you that they will abide by his wishes. Kennett follows suit, but only sort of succeeds. Instead his book is largely a study of Sherman's personality, with a whole chapter devoted to this subject on the eve of the Civil War. The book is remarkably spare in terms of narratives of the actual battles themselves: instead there's a great deal of space devoted to the politics of the army 1861-1865. So the Meridian raid gets about a paragraph, and the battles around Atlanta are disposed of in a page or so.

The author also leaves things out, things that make it into some Sherman biographies. Perhaps the best-known anecdote is Joe Johnston killing himself by standing bareheaded at Sherman's funeral, and catching pneumonia. It's not here, and there are a number of other things that didn't make the book either. I know this is a short biography, but somehow I expected some of these things to make the book.

Several previous reviewers put this forward as an introductory biography of Sherman. One thing the book definitely is is neutral on the subject. Until now, the one neutral book was Marszalek, the longest, so I suppose this one, at half the length, is better. I don't consider a 352 page book an introduction to anything, however, and I can't say I agree here. Introductory books are 200 pages or so.

That being said, this isn't a bad book, and I can't come up with any reason to review it negatively. It's just not a particularly good one either.