Chapter Five MILITARY CAMARADERIE, SOUTHERN ARISTOCRACY, PROSPECTIVE MATRIMONY
“Why don’t I leave the Army? You ask. Why should I?” Thus responded Sherman from Fort Morgan, Mobile Point, as he addressed Ellen’s query in early April 1842. “It is the profession for which my education alone fits me.” Probably thinking of the possibility of war with Great Britain over the control of Oregon territory, a clash with Mexico about Texas, or further conflict with Native Americans, he declared that “all appearances indicate the rapid approach of a time when the soldier will be required to do his proper labor, when a splendid field will be spread before him.” There was “every reason” to remain a soldier. “Moreover, I am content and happy,” professed the young lieutenant, “and it would be foolish to spring into the world barehanded and unprepared.” Sherman’s closing words on the subject cited the experience of officers who had gone before, men who, for whatever reason, had left the army only later to characterize their decision as “the most foolish act of their life.”1
He then turned to religion, which Ellen had again recommended to him. Indeed, he said she spoke “so liberally and feelingly upon the subject” that he felt compelled to reply. His answer, as he surely was aware, could not have been to her liking. Straightforwardly he responded, as noted earlier, that for the past six years since first leaving Ohio for West Point, he had neither practiced nor professed any religious creed. Believing “in good works rather than faith” as the basis of “all true religion,” Sherman saluted Christianity and Catholicism, yet simultaneously refused to elevate the wisdom “revealed in Scripture” above the principles “taught by the experience of all the ages and common sense.”2
Quickly moving away from religion, Sherman proceeded to describe his life at Mobile in detail. Fort Morgan lay on the east side of the entrance to Mobile Bay, situated near the end of a narrow, east–west peninsula. It was well positioned to guard the waterway into the port city, located about forty miles to the north. However, as Sherman recalled in his memoirs, the fort had not been occupied for several years, was filthy, and “little or no stores” were to be found. As quartermaster and commissary, he proceeded at once to rectify the latter situation.3
Journeying to Mobile on a schooner, Sherman quickly “procured all essentials for the troops, and returned to the post.” Within a short time he and his peers had put the fort “in as good order as possible; and had regular guard-mounting and parades.” As on the Atlantic coast of Florida, he discovered that Gulf coast seafood was very fine. “We found magnificent fishing with the seine on the outer beach, and sometimes in a single haul we would take ten or fifteen barrels of the best kind of fish, . . . pompinos, red-fish, snappers, etc.” Still, army life at Fort Morgan proved dreary and boring, “a desolate state,” he lamented, “of . . . woe-begone bachelors.”
Then “the young ladies of Mobile” staged a surprise invasion. Having prevailed upon some male friends to provide water transportation, a large number of women, Sherman said, “landed at our wharf, marched boldly into the very heart of the citadel and carried the fort by storm.” He was pleased. After conducting a tour of the fort for the women—the guns, embrasures, casemates, etc.—the soldiers were invited on board the ladies’ ship, where a band provided music, and wine and refreshments were available. Continuing with his military analogy, Sherman declared the women “played their batteries so well that they prevailed upon five out of the seven officers to go up to the city with them, myself among the number.” While three men returned to the fort after only a day, Sherman spent six days there, as did one other.
“A more delightful time you could not imagine,” he enthused to Ellen. “It would take a volume to name the ladies,” and record their “kindness . . . their beauties and accomplishments.” He claimed that “we were invited everywhere and the bright button [a reference to his army uniform and its eye-catching buttons] was a passport at all times to the houses of the best [people].” In addition to young women, who seemingly constituted the chief attraction, Sherman found the city generally pleasing, as he enjoyed hot-air balloon ascensions, theatrical performances and painting exhibits, along with parties and balls. He thought “the beautiful streets of hotels, stores, shops, etc. . . . as gorgeously ornamented as New York.” That was a notable compliment, when one remembers the high esteem in which he held that city.4
Sherman’s posting at Fort Morgan lasted a mere three months, but as often as possible he journeyed into Mobile, even if prices there were so expensive that “only millionaires can flourish.” Sherman possessed a great advantage, however, because of the presence of Cornelia Bull, a cousin on his mother’s side of the family. She was married to a wealthy merchant, living in a fine house “about two miles out in the country,” and Sherman considered her “a most charming woman with a family of three lovely children.” Cornelia and her husband “insisted upon my making it my home,” he wrote, “whenever I should visit Mobile.” He described to Ellen the pleasures that he experienced there: “roses of every hue and shape, and size and color” adorning the latticed portico, the arbor of shade trees, the “delightful” horseback rides, “the strawberries and cream”—all composing “an air of quiet and home” that was “a perfect paradise to me.” But most of Sherman’s time was spent, not in “the most beautiful suburbs and country seats” of Mobile, but rather in the desolate fortress at the entrance to the bay.5
Surely he welcomed orders taking his regiment to Fort Moultrie at Charleston harbor. Most military personnel considered it a choice posting. Nevertheless, Sherman knew he would miss his cousin and his friends in Mobile. Sailing first to Pensacola in early June, and from there embarking for Charleston, he declared that “the weather was hot, the winds light, and we made a long passage; but at last reached Charleston harbor . . . and took post in Fort Moultrie” on Sullivan’s Island. There he would be stationed for four years, a period when he acquired a store of valuable information about the South—particularly the Deep South. The knowledge proved quite helpful some twenty years later, during the Civil War. He once blurted, “I knew more of Georgia than the rebels did.” That boastful statement, although doubtless angering many Confederate sympathizers when they learned of it, was hardly an exaggeration.6
THERE WAS NO BLINKING at the fact that the famous and cosmopolitan port of Charleston proved enticing to many army men. Since it was easily accessible by steamboat, which ran the short distance to and from Fort Moultrie four times a day, military personnel could often be found in the beautiful heart of the city. Also, the village of Moultrieville lay close by the fort; this small town served as a summer resort for wealthy Charlestonians. During Sherman’s time there, Charleston was a proud, aristocratic city of 30,000 inhabitants. Located in the southeastern portion of South Carolina, at the confluence of the Ashley, Cooper and Wando Rivers, the city exercised leadership in the public opinion of the South that was, in Sherman’s words, “far out of proportion to her population, wealth, or commerce.”7
From the first Sherman, who all his adult life held to an unwavering nationalism, found the politics of Charleston repugnant. The picturesque city had developed into the hotbed of “Southern rights.” Previously, he observed in reference to the “nullification” crisis during Jackson’s presidency, “the inhabitants had almost inaugurated civil war.” The doctrine of nullification of a United States law by a single, disgruntled state, and the veneration of John C. Calhoun’s ideas, were deeply disturbing to him. With pronounced disdain he viewed the young men of Carolina as snobbish indolents, “worthless sons of . . . proud . . . families,” boasting of “their state, their aristocracy, . . . their patriarchal chivalry and glory.” He pronounced it “all trash.”8
As for military duties, Sherman found a mostly simple and easy life. Four companies of the Third Artillery, totaling about 250 men, made up the garrison. Since the Third Artillery was headquartered at Fort Moultrie, the regimental commander, Colonel William Gates, resided there, as well as the regimental band of about fifteen instruments. Other companies of the Third Artillery were spread up and down the Atlantic coast. Sherman’s Company G was commanded by Captain Robert Anderson from Kentucky, later to become well-known at the beginning of the Civil War when he commanded Fort Sumter. (Sumter was under construction in the early 1840s.) The daily routine started with reveille and drill at sunrise. Breakfast followed at seven, then dress parade at eight, and a change of guard thirty minutes later. By nine o’clock, as a general rule, the men had “nothing [left] to do but amuse ourselves.” Sunday was a marginal exception, in that “we have an extra quantity of music, parade, and inspection.”9
Sherman said that to pass the time “some read, some write, some loaf and some go to the city.” He and the other officers occasionally engaged in lively discussions—military tactics, strategy and history, politics, the social scene, and more. Several of the men then stationed at Fort Moultrie possessed remarkable military potential. In addition to Sherman, George H. Thomas, John F. Reynolds, Thomas W. Sherman (no relation) and Erasmus D. Keyes would rise to high rank in the Federal Army. The hot-tempered Braxton Bragg, choosing to stand with his native North Carolina, would one day command a major Confederate army.
This small group of talented young officers at Fort Moultrie ultimately proved, in convincing fashion, that they knew how to wage war. They were not pleased when news arrived in August that, because the war against the Seminoles was over, Congress had voted to reduce the size of the army, already small, and reduce the pay of officers. Sherman groused “that every year [the army is] threatened with either disbandment or . . . a reduction in pay.” Such a policy, he believed, was likely to drive away “every reasonable and good officer.”10
He deeply resented having his pay cut by forty dollars a year, particularly when Thomas, Maria and Ellen Ewing all wanted him to turn to a civil career anyway. He believed that his salary was fully earned—and all the more considering the unofficial duties expected of a young officer. Charleston nourished a major social season and her proud, wealthy citizens expected the presence of army officers for all the events. Sherman wrote his brother that such invitations “must be accepted or give offence.” Some occasions were highly formal, demanding that he be dressed in full uniform, perhaps for a ball, the opera, or the theater. Parties varied greatly, quoting Sherman’s description, “from the highly aristocratic and fashionable, with sword and epaulettes,” to such outings as “horse-racing, picnicking, boating, fishing, swimming, and God knows what not.”11
Probably the balls were the worst events. The young lieutenant felt put upon, knowing as he did that his presence was merely to add glitter and pageantry to the evening. He found dancing at the balls an irritant. “They dance only the same old set of French quadrilles,” lacking in both variety and beauty. With a critical eye, he realized that much of the dancing was too fast, thus eliminating the possibility of smooth, graceful and enchanting movement. The dancing of the Charleston women, when compared with the ease and allure emanating from the beautiful Spanish dancers of St. Augustine, he considered markedly unattractive. He even characterized the Charleston dancing as “painful” to watch. He also thought most of the conversations he experienced were empty and forced. “A life of this kind does well enough for a while,” he wrote, perhaps striving to demonstrate a degree of tolerance, “but soon surfeits with its flippancy.” Still again he remarked that “pride and vanity, hypocrisy and flippance reign triumphant.”12
Little wonder that Sherman and the other Fort Moultrie officers devised a rotating duty roster for the obligations placed upon them by Charleston society. Alternating their increasingly boring duty, only two or possibly three men attended any particular party—unless the occasion appeared grandly unique or demanding. Nevertheless, Sherman’s social life was not found totally lacking in rewarding moments. He somehow managed to identify more than one young woman whose company seems to have been tolerable. Adamantly, however, he disavowed all desire for any binding relationship. Early on in his Charleston days, prior to a full acquaintance with the local customs regarding courtship, he took a buggy ride with a young lady. Only afterward (or so he claimed), did he learn to his dismay that such “familiarity” was viewed as the equivalent of an engagement to be married. Staunchly he proclaimed that as an officer of the army, he would “never” marry!
Whatever his true views about marriage, Sherman undoubtedly possessed a keen eye for attractive women—even if they were Southern and Charleston lassies. Years later he readily recalled the names of several: “Mary Johnson, the pretty Miss North, and others of the Charleston girls.” Most of all he remembered “my old attachment to Mary Lamb,” whom he had escorted to many events, and saw “frequently.” In fact, Sherman said so much about her in his letters that Ellen asked if he intended to bring her to Ohio when he got a furlough. “I thank the Lord,” he rejoined, “that I am not so far gone as to commit so foolish an act.”13
The women of his acquaintance certainly add a bit of spice to his legend. While he frequently mentions various attractive women with whom he came in contact through the years, and readily acknowledges their charms, he never writes to anyone of anything more. If he became intimate with some—and Sherman did not marry until he was thirty years old—he gives no indication of such in his letters. He did discuss many subjects in writing and conversation, and sometimes freely employed profanity, particularly when in the company of army officers; but to his credit, he never wrote, and apparently never spoke, about sexual matters with anyone—although he obviously was enamored of the fairer sex.
While stationed at Fort Moultrie, Sherman found, besides the pretty women, several other outlets for his wide-ranging interests and abundant energy. He liked to ride, and frequently took long jaunts on horseback. Sometimes the trips involved military duties; for example, once riding to Augusta to serve as “a sort of peace-maker,” as he characterized the assignment in his memoirs, when a problem arose among the officers of the Third Artillery’s Company B. He stayed in Georgia for several months, the difficulty finally resolved with the transfer of a few officers to other posts. He served on several court-martial boards, more than once requiring travel beyond the borders of South Carolina. One assignment, investigating an officer’s alleged misconduct, took him all the way to Key West. Upon other occasions he would ride thirty, forty, even fifty miles to hunt and socialize. He might journey several miles to view the countryside, examine a plantation or simply to enjoy wandering and exploring alone. He also took up painting.14
In fact, Sherman seems to have become rather obsessed with painting. At West Point, drawing had been his favorite class and he had talent. He could represent the human body, male and female, in perfect proportions and various stances. While in South Carolina, many satisfying hours were devoted to improving and broadening his artistic skills. Frequently he visited the home of his company commander, Captain Robert Anderson. The captain and his wife had acquired numerous books of elegant engravings and paintings that Sherman sometimes studied. (Occasionally too, he escorted Mrs. Anderson when she shopped in Charleston.) To Ellen, he confided that his “great love for painting” worried him.
He feared the passion was becoming an addiction that potentially might consume him. If Ellen shared his thoughts about painting with her father, Thomas Ewing could not have been pleased. The life of a painter, unless one were extremely talented and blessed with originality and associations with well-connected people, and also a bit of luck, generally promised to be no more rewarding monetarily than that of a soldier. Very likely not as rewarding. The well-heeled Ewing, now both a former U.S. senator and secretary of the treasury, really hoped young Sherman would take up some lucrative civil pursuit. Certainly painting would not have been among Ewing’s choices for him. But painting, as it turned out, constituted nothing more than a phase of Sherman’s life and seems largely to have passed by the time he left South Carolina. Occasionally in later life he might pick up a brush or make a sketch. Always he would appreciate artistic talent and enjoy viewing paintings. However, the great passion for doing it himself had ceased.15
The young lieutenant continued his prolific letter writing too, penning numerous interesting and often long messages to friends and relatives. In this regard, the pattern of his life would never change. For a time, he also engaged in the serious pursuit of legal knowledge, probably in part to be conversant with the profession of his younger brother John. “Look out,” he once playfully warned John, “that I don’t turn out a pettifogging lawyer, and rival you in fame at some cross-roads in the Far West.” Sherman knew that Thomas Ewing would approve. “After casting about me, and some reflection,” he once wrote Ellen, “I have seized upon a book that young lawyers groan over—Blackstone.” Proclaiming that he had “with avidity swallowed its contents,” and vowing to “continue to study and read hard,” he confessed that “somehow or other I do not feel as though I would make a good lawyer.” The feeling had nothing to do, he quickly added, with understanding legal matters, because he met “with little difficulty in mastering the necessary book knowledge.” The problem was that his education had been “such as to give me almost a contempt for the bombast and stuff that form the chief constituents of Modern Oratory.” Fortunately, Sherman realized that while he possessed the necessary intellect, he really did not have the interest or the temperament to become a successful lawyer.16
In the late summer of 1843, Sherman received a most welcome furlough, enabling him to visit Ohio for the first time in three years. The Buckeye State, although lacking the “bright and delightful” weather to which he had grown accustomed in the Deep South, nevertheless was home to “all whom I love and regard as friends.” Soon he was spending time in Columbus, Lancaster and Mansfield. Thomas Ewing was once more practicing law in Lancaster, as well as in the nation’s capital. His daughter Ellen had celebrated her nineteenth birthday, and Sherman made the pleasant discovery that the little girl whom he had been writing since he first left for West Point had become a charming young lady.
Ellen Ewing was not a classic beauty, but her mature demeanor and general appearance, accentuated by black hair and blue eyes, caused Sherman to see his foster sister in a way that he never had before. For her part, Ellen had been impressed earlier with the young, red-haired lieutenant, keenly aware of his sharp intellect and his wiry ruggedness. When he left her that fall, the two seemingly had an understanding that they would one day marry. That understanding was formalized when Sherman later wrote Thomas Ewing, requesting his permission to marry Ellen. If Ewing harbored any misgivings about the match—and he did, basically due to Sherman’s military career—they were not sufficient to prevent him from giving his consent to the union.
When Ellen later accepted in writing Sherman’s marriage proposal, she also conveyed a strong desire that he would become a Catholic and leave the army. He replied that he would do neither. He did promise to keep an open mind and “a wish to believe, if possible,” in her faith. Sherman would never believe, and the more he read of Christian writers, some recommended by Ellen, the stronger became his non-belief. She would never relent in her determined campaign to make him a Catholic and, predictably, their clash over religion caused considerable frustration in the years to come. As to his army career, Sherman thought Thomas Ewing “had long since relinquished . . . his opposition,” only to learn that his prospective father-in-law, like his fiancée, still hoped he would resign his army commission in favor of “Civil Life.” Thus two tormenting issues loomed ominously upon the future horizon of the young lieutenant.17
Although he might have prolonged his Ohio visit, Sherman always had a wanderlust. He determined, before returning to Fort Moultrie, to see more of the country he served as an army officer. An account of the journey back to South Carolina was penned in a letter to his brother John soon after he returned to duty. “It was about the middle of November,” he wrote, when “I deposited my bones in the Chilicothe stage.” Traveling first to Portsmouth, Ohio, and from there down the Ohio River to Cincinnati, he visited “in our queen city” with his brothers Lampson and Hoyt, who were then employed by the Cincinnati Gazette. While spending time with his siblings, he met several people whom he considered interesting, some of them artists, and as he later recalled, “especially Miss Sallie Carneal, then quite a belle, and noted for her fine voice.”18
Departing for St. Louis on a steamboat called Manhattan, Sherman found the vessel left much to be desired, “loaded with every species of animal from men to Durham cattle. There were more than 200 souls on board a second-class boat, from which circumstance you can readily infer that the bodily comforts were not well cared for.” Yet the young lieutenant was “much pleased” to stop at Louisville, “a beautiful place,” for several hours. “In fact,” he enthused, “the whole river realized my wildest conceptions.”19
On November 23, Sherman reached the broad Ohio’s confluence with the powerful, magnificent Mississippi. The impact—visually, mentally, even spiritually—proved indelible. A lifelong enchantment with the “Father of Waters” had begun. Again and again through the years Sherman seemed to draw personal strength from the rivers, above all the Mississippi, that he came to regard as the great geographical guarantor of an indestructible national unity. He said, as Southern secession loomed closer, as well as after Civil War became a reality, that whoever controls the Missouri, the Ohio and the Mississippi Rivers controls the continent. And after the war, fittingly, Sherman derived pleasure in visiting with Mark Twain—obviously, a man whose life and work were profoundly influenced by the grand river—at his Connecticut home.20
The next day Sherman arrived at St. Louis, a bustling young city of some 30,000 to 40,000 inhabitants—a place he would come to love, and eventually call home for a number of years. He spent ten days perusing the river city, admiring its strategic location at the meeting of the Missouri and the Mississippi. He counted “thirty-six good steamboats receiving and discharging cargo at the levee.” Naturally he took in the art gallery and paid a visit to the Catholic cathedral—perhaps thinking of Ellen. He visited Colonel Stephen W. Kearny, who was in command of the arsenal at Jefferson Barracks. He also spent some time with Pacificus Ord, the brother of his close friend Edward O. C. Ord. Soon after, he told John that St. Louis possessed “great merits and beauty.” While initially much impressed with the city’s bright future, he hesitated to pronounce it the equal of Cincinnati. But it would not be long before he changed his mind—in fact coming to think of this future metropolis as the great city of inland America.21
Four days into December Sherman resumed his odyssey. With first impressions of St. Louis fresh in his mind, he watched the city slowly shrink in the distance as he headed south on “a new and very fine boat, called the John Aull,” doubtless a welcome change from the cramped Manhattan. Once more he anticipated new vistas, while rolling on the Great River, bound for the exotic and already legendary port of New Orleans. Snow was falling when the ship steamed past Cairo, Illinois—“a heavy snowstorm” according to Sherman—while the landscape, “wintery and devoid of verdure,” quickly became “clothed in a ghost-like garb.” Gradually, however, the snow was left behind, and “the grass and trees showed the change of latitude, and when . . . we reached New Orleans, the roses were in full bloom . . . and a tropical air” permeated the city.22
Sherman lingered for the better part of a week, immersed in the enthralling and unique ambience of the cosmopolitan port. He took in the theaters, attended a masquerade ball and sampled a number of restaurants, dining on such offerings as shrimp, crab, oysters, gumbo and more. Of course, as everywhere he journeyed, Sherman did not neglect the military, calling on the officers of the Seventh Infantry, before embarking by steamer for Mobile.23
After a couple of pleasant days visiting friends in the Alabama port city, Sherman entered upon the last sweep of his roundabout return to Fort Moultrie. Evidently the last miles were the worst—particularly the trip from “a town called Montgomery.” His description for his brother John says it all. “There, on a vehicle called a car, on what was denominated a railroad, [I journeyed] to a town called Franklin, from which place I staged it over roads such as you have about Mansfield, except the clay is slipperier, the hills shorter and steeper, and the drivers such as can be had nowhere else. Thus I went 120 miles to a town in Georgia called Griffin. Here I waited twenty-four hours for the cars, which had as usual run off the track.” When eventually the train got under way to Macon, twelve hours were consumed in traversing a distance of only sixty miles. “At last,” concluded Sherman, “on the 27th of December, after an absence of five months and two days, I stood once more in my old quarters at Fort Moultrie.”24
He was pleased again to experience the warm weather, bright flowers and cheerful sunlight. While an abundance of leisure time at Fort Moultrie could be boring, Sherman increasingly found that the army was keeping him busy. Three weeks into January he had a new assignment. Colonel Sylvester Churchill, inspector general of the army, had chosen Sherman to assist him in investigating the claims of Georgia militia seeking reimbursement for alleged losses, particularly of their horses, while serving in Florida during the Seminole Wars.
Telling Ellen of his new orders in a letter dated February 8, 1844, Sherman revealingly admitted: “I might have declined joining Colonel Churchill’s staff, but it will serve to advance my future and I hope secure for me the good opinion of one of the most influential men in our Army.” This is not the sentiment of an officer who seriously contemplates abandoning his military career. The letter is equally enlightening about his attitude toward Ellen’s religious wishes for him. While he breezily proclaims, “I snatch at the opportunity” to examine the doctrines of “your church,” he strikingly observes, in the same sentence, that “the Fates are arraigned against me.” He is “ordered into Georgia and Alabama where religion, except of the rudest species, is never found.” Also remarkable was his postscript to the letter. Observing that all his Charleston friends were “the same,” he noted only one person specifically: “Mary Lamb is well and sympathizes with me that I am sent into Barbarous Georgia during the races the last of February and the consequent Balls. That I may avoid them is one motive for going.”
Within a week Sherman was in “Barbarous Georgia.” Traveling by rail to Madison, the twenty-four-year-old first lieutenant there boarded the mail coach for the remainder of his trip. When the coach stopped in the small north Georgia town of Marthasville, Sherman got out of his cramped quarters and stretched. That moment, considered in historical retrospect, is rather eerie. There is no reason to think that he sensed anything out of the ordinary, such as a future premonition, when he gazed upon the village and waited to resume his trek. But unlikely as it might seem, he stood at a place with which, in time to come, his name would be forever associated. Two decades later he would return as a major general of the U.S. Army, commanding a hundred thousand soldiers, when little Marthasville had become Atlanta, a city then second to none as a Confederate war-production center and rail crossroads, and a symbol of defiant resistance. Sherman and Atlanta. Strange indeed are the twists of fate.
Soon boarding again, he rode the short distance to Marietta and reported for duty to Colonel Churchill on February 17. The colonel, assisted by a lieutenant named R. P. Hammond, was already at work. Sherman, Hammond and the colonel and his family all lived in a tavern, with the three officers working out of a nearby office. Their investigation revealed fraud on an alarming scale and served to reinforce Sherman’s already negative view of “citizen-soldiers.” He thought “they were about the d——dest rascals that could be found in the United States.” Most reported that they had lost one or more horses while serving in Florida, but many of the horses were discovered to be alive and healthy. Others had been killed sure enough—although at the hands of their owners, who valued the prospect of financial reimbursement more than the life of their animals. Also, virtually every owner overstated the value of the loss supposedly suffered. “I have unfolded some pretty pieces of rascality,” Sherman sarcastically commented, “for an honest and religious people.” Later, back at Fort Moultrie, he would speak of having been “away among the Barbarians and heathens, robbing them of their . . . dreams of Gold and Silver.”25
Remaining in Marietta approximately six weeks, while he labored to expose the militia wrongdoers, Sherman sometimes took a break and rode to the top of a nearby mountain known as Kennesaw. From its towering height he could gaze southward toward Marthasville, while off to the north, some fifteen miles away, lay Allatoona. Once he rode to Allatoona, turning aside to visit the large Indian mounds on the bank of the Etowah River, and spending a couple of days with a Colonel Lewis Tumlin, who owned a plantation on which the mounds were erected. “Thus by a mere accident,” Sherman wrote in his memoirs, “I was enabled to traverse on horseback the very ground where in after-years I had to conduct vast armies.” Significantly, he even made topographical sketches of the terrain over which he passed.26
Then Colonel Churchill moved the investigation to northeast Alabama, and Sherman took in still more of the South. Riding to Rome, Georgia, he turned west and north, crossed Sand Mountain and arrived at Bellefonte, Alabama, on the banks of the Tennessee River. Sherman made note in his diary about the young women in the area, several of whom he thought pretty and intelligent. Some he considered “strapping girls,” apparently a complimentary description. Ellen was always rather frail, so perhaps the contrast drew his attention. He was also impressed by the region’s natural beauty. The mountains, ridges and a major river made a memorable impact.27
His favorable sense of northeast Alabama grew strong and vivid, so impelling that months later he suggested to Ellen the possibility of living there. He remained keenly aware that both she and her father opposed his army career. Thus he proposed to take a long leave of absence from the army, “go to the northern part of Alabama, select some pretty place and then see what may be done as a surveyor or draughtsman, in each of which I am fully competent—should I meet with partial success then I can complete what I have done at the Law which I can master sufficiently by one winter’s study in a Law office.” He implored Ellen to “think well of . . . the resolution I have made of never living in Ohio, or accepting ought from any one there.”
Ellen’s response was likely disconcerting. It surely should have raised a red flag in the mind of a man who took little interest in religion. She said that she would prefer to live in Memphis. The reason, even more of a surprise, involved the Dominican prior of Somerset, Bishop Richard P. Miles, who had recently moved to that city on the bluffs of the Mississippi River. Sherman replied that he did not think she would like Memphis. In any case, it would not, he said, “be politic to select [Memphis] to enjoy the presence of a favorite bishop—he may be there one year or fifty—at most the prospect of his proximity would be so much a matter of chance as not to enter into serious calculation.” Wherever they might go, Sherman assured her that “we will find kind and good men. . . . I still have my eye on North Alabama but will not make a definite final choice for some time.” Thus he strove not to sound overly harsh, although compelled to reject her idea of selecting a place to live based on the presence of a clergyman. Doubtless he hoped that Ellen somehow would come to accept his life in the U.S. Army.28
By late spring of 1844 Sherman was once more at his Fort Moultrie post. During the following months, army duties continued to be occasionally leavened by socializing, hunting, fishing and various explorations. Of course he continually carried on a correspondence with Ellen that centered around their plans. In January 1845 he went hunting at a plantation on the east branch of the Cooper River, about fifty miles from Fort Moultrie. The outing was planned solely as a pleasure jaunt, but it quickly came to an unwelcome conclusion.
Accompanied by Lieutenant John F. Reynolds and James Poyas, son of the plantation owner, Sherman had little more than taken his stand when a deer emerged from a swamp near Poyas, who fired and wounded the animal in the leg. Crazed by shock and pain, the deer plunged back into the swamp, only to appear again near Sherman, who immediately mounted his horse and gave chase. Galloping across a wooded area filled with pine trees, the horse failed to clear a fallen log, snagging a forefoot and smashing hard to the ground. Sherman’s heavy, double-barreled gun caught his right arm at an awkward angle as he fell, dislocating the arm at the shoulder when he slammed against the earth.
Reynolds came rushing to his aid as Sherman struggled to his feet. Fortunately the horse had not been seriously injured and Sherman’s initial pain was relatively mild. But soon the discomfort increased, and he remembered that the arm ached “so that it was almost unendurable.” After riding about three miles, he said “we came to a negro hut, where I got off and rested.” Reynolds rode away in search of help. When the lieutenant returned, Sherman’s arm was “so swollen and painful that I could not ride.” He described how “they rigged up an old gig belonging to the negro, in which I was carried” for several miles to the plantation house.
A doctor was summoned, who tried “the usual methods of setting the arm, but without success,” declared Sherman. “At last,” he related, the doctor “got a set of double pulleys and cords, with which he succeeded in extending the muscles and getting the bone into place.” The healing process obviously would require some time. Disabled and still in considerable pain, Sherman applied for a leave and headed north late in January.29
This was not the first time that the young man had been injured while riding a horse. When a boy of only seven years, and astride his father’s mount, known as “Old Dick,” who was “somewhat in a hurry,” according to Sherman’s recollection, he had been thrown among a pile of stones from which the young lad was “picked up apparently a dead boy.” Of course he did recover (“My time was not yet”), although the scars incurred remained with him for life. More than likely the latest injury added a few more indelible mementos.30