As Sherman contemplated his future in early 1850, the prospects were mixed. He was glad to leave California, which he considered a backwater, and he was anxious to return to civilization and to Ellen. On the other hand, his prospects in the army appeared bleak. And though he had every intention of marrying Ellen, he knew that she and her father would pressure him to resign from the army. Though Ellen had made it clear that she wanted to marry him, she did not look forward to being an army wife. Further, she could not understand why Cump, having been baptized in the Catholic faith, did not bother to attend Mass. That last concern was minor at the moment, but it was destined to cause tension between them during their later married life.

The first stop on Sherman’s journey, once he had reached the East Coast, was New York, where the general in chief, Winfield Scott, kept the headquarters of the army.* Scott, a giant of a man, both physically and in prestige, greeted him cordially, and Sherman was honored to be invited to dinner. He should not have been surprised, however, when he discovered that the venerable old soldier was interested in him primarily as the foster son of Thomas Ewing. Scott, at age sixty-four, was planning to run for the presidency in 1852, two years hence, and he needed Ewing’s help as a senior Whig. What made Sherman more unhappy, however, was Scott’s descriptions of the dazzling successes of his campaign from Veracruz to Mexico City three years earlier. As Scott recounted the events of that time, Sherman was reminded of how much he had missed out professionally for having been in California.¹

From New York, Sherman went on to Washington, where he delivered dispatches from California. He then obtained a leave of absence from the army of seven months. Conveniently, the Ewing family was in Washington, where Thomas Ewing was serving as Zachary Taylor’s secretary of the interior, a newly created post. Sherman lost no time in confirming his engagement to Ellen, and the two were married on the first of May. It was a lavish affair, as befitted the dignity of a father of the bride of Ewing’s stature. Such luminaries as President Zachary Taylor and his cabinet attended, as well as senators Henry Clay and Daniel Webster, and all the justices of the Supreme Court. Taylor, like Scott, was another top official who courted the goodwill of Sherman’s foster father. The gifts, not surprisingly, were generous.²

One dark cloud, however, hovered on the horizon. The entire Ewing family—the father, Thomas; the mother, Maria; and Ellen herself—were convinced that Cump was wasting his time in the army. After ten years of service, he was only a lieutenant, and he had done nothing to amass any kind of money. Even his brother John, who at thirty-seven years of age was a successful lawyer entering politics, joined the rest. But Cump refused to resign. The military was the only profession he was truly familiar with, and he liked the army. If he resigned, the only position in sight would be to manage the saltworks that Thomas Ewing owned near Lancaster. The relations between Ewing and Sherman were cordial enough, but Sherman’s pride was such that he refused to be an employee of the older man. The Ewings already had enough hold on Ellen, and working for her father, as Sherman saw it, would be the ultimate in captivity.

The issue was never solved; it was only deferred. Cump received orders to report to Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, in September, but he had to go alone. Ellen, pregnant, chose to stay with her parents until the baby, which they would name Minnie, arrived in late January 1851. She then joined her husband.

The Shermans did not stay long at Jefferson Barracks. Shortly after Ellen arrived, Cump was transferred to New Orleans. At first things went well. Their house was roomy, and the surroundings were congenial. A second daughter was born there. After a while, however, Sherman began to feel a financial pinch. The pay of a captain could never keep up with the prices of everything in the stores. And Ellen, raised in wealthy circumstances, was anything but thrifty. Sherman concluded that he could not afford their lifestyle if he remained in service.

For once Sherman, the most independent of men who asked few favors, turned to a friend, Major Henry S. Turner, whom he had met at St. Louis while he was stationed at Jefferson Barracks. Turner was a partner in an expanding bank by the name of Lucas, Turner & Co., which was opening a branch in San Francisco. Knowing of Sherman’s experiences in California, Turner urged him to obtain a six-month leave from the army to revisit his old haunts and weigh the prospects. Sherman did so, and he liked what he saw. Accordingly, on September 6, 1853, he turned in his resignation, thus ending his first army career. He agreed with Turner to remain in San Francisco for seven years, to January 1, 1860.³

As usual, Sherman again encountered resistance from the Ewings. Thomas Ewing made another offer for his employment, and again Cump refused on the same basis as before. He held his ground, and on September 20, Sherman, Ellen, and the new baby left for San Francisco. To secure the permission of the elder Ewings for Ellen’s departure, they agreed to leave Minnie back in Lancaster.

Once again, the relations between Sherman and Ellen ran into difficulties; Ellen was miserable in San Francisco. She hated the Western topography, with its sand and hills. She hated the rented house they occupied. She missed Minnie. Beneath it all was the fact that she could not stand to be away from home. She was blunt about her feelings. “If you prefer this outlandish place because of business advantages,” she reportedly said to Sherman, “that is no reason why I should be willing to give up home, parents, and friends for life.”⁴ Sherman, by now accustomed to such tirades, held his ground. In the meantime their problems were heightened by the arrival of a third child, this one a boy, whom they named Willie.

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During the summer of 1856 Sherman underwent an experience that stayed with him for the rest of his life. For a short period, at the request of Governor William N. Johnson, he served as the commander of the state militia of California. The position carried with it the rank of major general, a considerable jump from his previous rank of captain, but it was hollow; the state militia had little by way of resources. Fortunately, the position was only a part-time job and did not interfere with Sherman’s conducting business at his bank.

Commanding the state militia was no sinecure. Within a couple of days after Sherman had taken office, an incident occurred that proved the impossibility of his position. The recent gubernatorial election had been hotly contested, with many accusations of ballot-box stuffings and the like. Corruption was rife and fairly open.^* In that atmosphere a newspaper editor named James Casey began writing scurrilous stories attacking prominent men, causing another editor, James King, to look into Casey’s past. His investigation revealed that Casey had once been imprisoned in Sing Sing for some felony unknown in San Francisco. An enraged Casey shot King, inflicting a mortal wound.

There was no question about Casey’s guilt; his fate was sealed. But a controversy arose around who would try and execute him. Governor Johnson wanted Casey tried by the state supreme court, but the sheriff, a law unto himself, wanted it done under his own jurisdiction. The sheriff had Casey in his custody and he allowed another group of unofficial law enforcers, who called themselves the Vigilantes, to get ahold of Casey and hang him. All this was done outside the governor’s jurisdiction, in fact in defiance of him.

Sherman was helpless to interfere. He had the organization to disperse the Vigilantes, but his men were totally lacking in arms. To rectify that vital shortcoming, he and the governor visited Major General John E. Wool, commanding general, Pacific.

General Wool, a hero of both the War of 1812 and the recent Mexican War, received the visitors cordially, and in the presence of witnesses promised Sherman that he would provide from army stocks all the weapons that Sherman requested. Sherman knew the armaments were there; his keen eye identified the unopened boxes of ammunition that had been aboard the Lexington as far back as 1846.⁵ He left assured.

Something, however, happened. Wool changed his mind and sent letters to both Governor Johnson and Sherman saying rather vaguely that he disapproved the request for arms. Sherman immediately wrote out his resignation as major general in the California militia.⁶ He returned to his bank without regret and never went near California politics again. The episode had a profound effect on Sherman’s respect for the usefulness of volunteer troops.

What brought Sherman’s time in California to an end was, purely and simply, the conclusion of the gold rush. The Sacramento area had been overbuilt to accommodate thousands of miners, but the supply of gold was not inexhaustible. Bank after bank failed. Sherman was a good businessman, and he managed to keep his own branch of the Lucas bank afloat. However, the financial situation in San Francisco was continuing to degenerate, and Turner saw no chance for a reversal. With no prejudice against Sherman, he and the other owners decided to close that branch down. In early 1857, therefore, the Shermans headed for home, as usual by way of Panama.

The experience had been hard on Cump; he was haggard, and the asthma that plagued him at times in his life returned. Reassigned to the New York branch of Lucas and Symonds, he went through the humiliation of another failure. The panic of 1857 had reached Wall Street, and the central Lucas bank in St. Louis closed in August. Sherman seems to have kept the New York branch open for a short while, but in October the owners decided to close down that branch also. Sherman was on the verge of what he dreaded most: becoming dependent once more upon the Ewings.

For the next couple of years, Sherman appeared to live the life of a drifter. Though his talents were recognized, he did not stay in any job for very long. Immediately after closing down the Lucas and Symonds bank in New York, he returned to St. Louis to help pick up the pieces. He then went to San Francisco to salvage what he could from that location. That chore finished, Sherman headed back to the East.

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A memorable incident occurred when Sherman returned to St. Louis to participate in planning for the final closing of the Lucas bank. On the street he encountered Ulysses S. Grant, whom he had known at West Point but had not seen since. The conversation was casual, but Grant had fared worse in civilian life than had Sherman. When asked about the encounter in later years, all Sherman could recall was that “West Point and the Regular Army were not good schools for farmers and bankers.”⁷ Nothing more came of their meeting.

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Sherman was once more out of work, and once more Ellen and her father attempted to induce him to manage the salt mines near the Ewing home in Lancaster. Sherman once more refused. He did, however, accept an offer to join a law firm that Ewing had set up in Leavenworth, Kansas. On January 1, 1859, the firm of Sherman, Ewing, and McCook was established. Sherman soon learned, however that the term “law office” was misleading. While he practiced some law, he soon discovered that he and his partners performed only odd jobs, one of which was to manage his father-in-law’s extensive landholdings in the area. He stayed only a short time and was again looking for work.

Finally, in desperation, Sherman applied for readmission into the regular army. There he again ran into a roadblock. The incredibly small establishment was unable to commission all the young men who were graduating from West Point, much less take on those who had resigned. Four years, four jobs.

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Sherman was definitely down on his luck, but it would be an exaggeration to call him a failure, as so many are wont to do. Turner, for example, appreciated his worth, and when other banks had failed in San Francisco, Sherman’s did not. Turner, in fact, had shown a great deal of confidence in Sherman when he transferred him to their New York branch. It was only when the central branch in St. Louis closed down that the whole Turner network closed.

A major cause for Sherman’s continued run of hard luck was his pride. He was, however, wise in his refusal to accept employment with Thomas Ewing. Ewing, with all his kindly disposition, was a man who exercised authority. And though the two men worked together well as equals in later years, Sherman could never tolerate Ewing as a superior.

In applying for readmission to the army, Sherman was doing what he probably had wanted to do all along. The act led to a position that turned out to be among the most rewarding in his career.