Chapter Twelve “And the War came”—to quote Lincoln’s masterly prose in his hauntingly memorable second inaugural address. “Neither party,” declared the President only a few weeks before he was assassinated, “expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has . . . attained.” Each side “looked for an easier triumph,” and anticipated results “less fundamental and astounding.” But a hellish dynamic was generated by “this mighty scourge of war.” The awful conflict evolved into a consuming force that few had envisioned and none could control.1
When the incredible thing began, as always in times of change and crisis, and seemingly all the more when war is the issue, gifted souls in the North and South proclaimed the future with impassioned tones and remarkable certainty. Some were sure there would be no war at all. Others predicted that one clash, or at the most two or three, would conclude the fray. Sherman remembered hearing Southern orators state that a lady’s thimble was sufficient to hold all the blood that might be shed. They took for granted that the slave states had the right to secede from the union, and once the Confederacy had been established, regarded secession as a fait accompli. If somehow the war did come, they thought it assuredly would be short and glorious.2
Sherman had a better idea than most of how the war would develop. He believed it was to be “a long war—very long—much longer than any politician thinks.” He predicted horrendous casualties and declared that “it will take vast power to win so extensive a country [as the slave states].” He had no doubt that the Southerners would fight. Sherman’s knowledge of the South, acquired while living in various slave states, together with his recent quasi-military position in Louisiana, gave him a more accurate sense than Americans generally possessed of the immense consequences likely to be involved in a civil conflict.3
At times he actually overestimated the war’s duration and bloodshed. Striking, alarming projections—like the 300,000 casualties per year that he predicted after Shiloh—stemmed to some degree from a pessimistic tendency that was a part of his personality. Also, he sometimes found satisfaction in the use of hyperbole. Perhaps his most astute assessment came in a letter to his father-in-law, whom he always wrote in a realistic and serious vein. “I doubt,” he addressed the “Honorable Thomas Ewing” in early 1861, “if any living man foresees the End.”4
Indeed. The American Civil War became a momentous turning point and proved to be the single greatest determining experience of the nation’s history. The war preserved the Union against the advocates of a Southern Confederacy who sought to maintain a way of life based upon slave labor—a way of life out of step with Western civilization. The conflict led to the destruction of slavery. It also resulted in Northern political and economic domination of the nation for decades to come, thereby fundamentally defining how the United States would develop. In addition to bitter, long-enduring sectional animosities, more pronounced in the defeated South than in the victorious North, the Civil War bequeathed a major racial problem. Although the slaves were freed, they were widely resented and exploited, in both the North and South. Civil rights were withheld, and little progress was made toward improvement until World War II.
The terrible clash was totally unlike any war the nation had previously endured. According to the century-old, most frequently cited estimate of the war’s death toll, 620,000 soldiers lost their lives, either killed in battle or dead from disease. Approximately 360,000 were Union troops, with 260,000 Confederates. This is equivalent, in terms of war deaths as a percentage of the U.S. population, of some 6 million dead in 2015. The losses fell disproportionately upon the Confederacy, which had a much smaller manpower pool than the Union. Another perspective, often cited but nevertheless provocative and instructive, is that the loss of American life in the Civil War was as great as in all other U.S. conflicts combined through Vietnam.
While such losses, in a country with a population of only 31 million, are obviously enormous, they probably constitute a significant undercount. Historian J. David Hacker wrote an article in Civil War History, presenting a persuasive argument “that approximately 750,000 men lost their lives in the conflict” and that the undercount of Confederate deaths has been considerably more than the Federal undercount. The upper bounds of Hacker’s data point possibly to more than 800,000 deaths—an equivalent of between 7.5 to 8 million American deaths if such a war were waged today. And of course, as usual in war, more soldiers suffered wounds than were killed in combat. Often the wounded were maimed, physically, mentally or both—psychologically impaired for the remainder of their lives. About 15 percent of the wounded ultimately succumbed to their injuries. Adding still further to the human cost of the conflict are the estimated 50,000 Southern civilians who died.5
A single word, in the context of this immense loss and suffering, comes repeatedly to mind: tragedy. The words of Alexander Stephens, vice president of the Confederacy, were remarkably straightforward: “Our new government is founded upon . . . the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery . . . is his natural and normal condition.”6 Whatever may be written about the causes of the vast American struggle, and whether or not Americans think the preservation of the Union and the freeing of the slaves were worth the enormous cost in human life and misery, the Confederacy and slavery are inseparably linked for all time—or at least for as long as humans seek truth in rendering the past.
When the war began, the United States Army was totally unprepared for the immense task it would face. Its entire strength, officers and men, numbered only 16,000. About one-third of the force soon journeyed south to support the Confederacy. Most of the officers, regardless of which side they chose, had never commanded any unit larger than a regiment. Even Winfield Scott, who had led his “gallant little army” in a magnificent campaign from Veracruz to Mexico City, which became the most notable military endeavor of the Mexican conflict, never at any time commanded more than approximately 11,000 soldiers. By 1861 Scott was of no value in the field anyway, being in his midseventies, monstrously overweight and unable to mount a horse—or as Sherman expressed his condition, “very old, very heavy, and very unwieldy.”7
In a war where armies numbering 40,000, 50,000 and more became typical—for example, Sherman would command 100,000 soldiers when he began moving toward Atlanta in the spring of 1864—military leaders faced a challenge far beyond anything they had previously experienced, or for which they had been prepared. Generals who successfully led a force of 10,000 may be utter failures when given the responsibility for four or five times that many troops. Of this fact Sherman seemed well aware. He spoke positively of George B. McClellan and George H. Thomas, but did not think much of numerous men who were gaining positions of command, noting “an old saying that one campaign in Washington is worth more than five in the field.”8
With such generals, he wrote his father-in-law, “as [Nathaniel P.] Banks, [Andrew H.] Reeder, [John C.] Frémont, & [Newton] Schleich, nothing but good luck, or the mere force of numbers will extricate us from Calamitous results.” A few days later he added John Pope to his growing list of the unqualified, as he told Tom Ewing Jr. that the aforementioned incompetents “will afford to Bragg & Davis & Beauregard the liveliest pleasure.” He considered it “a pity,” when the North enjoyed a winning manpower bulge, “to balance the chances by a choice of such leaders.” In other correspondence he named still more officers whom he considered inadequate—notably, Irvin McDowell, who soon would lead the Union Army at the First Battle of Bull Run. With few exceptions, Sherman’s judgments proved true.9
This is not to say that Sherman considered himself qualified for high command. He did not, deploring his lack of any combat experience leading soldiers in Mexico. He had missed the chance of a “schooling with . . . troops in the field” when he had been compelled to spend the war in California. Sherman told his brother John, who was urging him to get back in the army, where John predicted that he would surely gain “a high position for life,” that he feared “you all [meaning brothers John and Charles, Thomas Ewing and others] overrate my powers and abilities and [would] place me in a position above my merits, a worse step than below.” Sherman anticipated that many men would be “swept away by succeeding tides”; only in time would the truly able be identified and rise to lead. “Once real war begins,” he told Tom Ewing Jr., “new men, heretofore unheard of, will emerge from obscurity, equal to any occasion.” His prophecy would prove accurate and Sherman himself would be one of those men. As for the present, if he should participate, whatever his rank and assignments, he certainly intended to avoid being numbered among the incompetents, of which he fully expected a lengthy list.10
In addition to massive armies and immense casualties, the Civil War proved unprecedented in other significant aspects. Weaponry, which had undergone little change for several centuries, took a quantum leap between the war with Mexico and the Civil War. The armies in Mexico fought with muzzle-loading, single-shot, smoothbore muskets, whose effective range was approximately one hundred yards. Thus infantry assaults, ideally coupled with artillery support, stood a good chance of succeeding against defenders armed with smoothbore pieces, who needed nearly half a minute to reload their weapon. By the Civil War, however, the rifled musket, featuring a range of about five hundred yards, had become a practicable weapon. It could be loaded a little faster—possibly three times per minute—than a smoothbore. American-made .58 caliber Springfields and British-made .577 caliber Enfields (the latter able to use the same bullet as the Springfield) were soon highly prized on Civil War battlefields.
Defenders armed with rifled muskets were thought to enjoy a pronounced advantage against most assaulting forces. However, recent scholarship suggests that the weapon’s effect has been somewhat exaggerated. At short range, the smoothbore was about as accurate as a rifled weapon, and most combat in the Civil War took place within the range of a smoothbore. Furthermore, fire from rifled muskets, unlike bullets from the smoothbore, followed a parabolic trajectory. At midrange rifled-musket fire passed above the enemy, thereby creating two killing zones, one at short range and the other at long range. Troops between the two zones advanced unharmed.
Also, many Civil War battlefields were filled with thickets, woods, hills and ravines, which often made detection of targets at three, four or five hundred yards impossible. The rifled musket thus represented a remarkable but nevertheless, when analyzed from a tactical perspective, relatively incremental advancement in weaponry. At the same time, the psychological impact on an attacking force, who knew the vastly superior range of the rifled musket, should not be underestimated. Furthermore, by the latter part of the war, some Federal units were equipped with repeating weapons, obviously adding still more strength, whether assaulting or defending. Rifled artillery, featuring greater range and striking power, became more common.
Warfare was also transformed by the railroad, markedly increasing the ease and speed at which large numbers of soldiers and equipment could be transported over hundreds of miles. The invention of the telegraph made instant communication possible in the Civil War, and the development of armored ships changed the face of naval warfare. There would even be experimentation with hot-air balloons for air reconnaissance, and primitive submarines. Sometimes called the first modern war, the Civil War was fundamentally different from anything the nation had ever experienced or anticipated. The conflict demanded army commanders with greater and more varied abilities than in earlier American wars—above all, men who thought in terms of grand strategy, and possessed the large-scale logistical talents necessary for waging such a war. Sherman was endowed potentially with the leadership qualities required by the Civil War, but for several months he staunchly resisted having any part of the unfolding tragedy.11
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SHERMAN HAD LEFT Louisiana in a gloomy, depressed and rather disgusted frame of mind. “Our situation,” he told Ellen, “is too bad to think of. I have got pretty near to the end of my rope—I have neither health, strength or purpose to start out life anew.” In another letter he warned Ellen to “be prepared for the hardest kind of times,” and added, “It does seem that the whole world conspires against us.” Continuing the same theme in a later message, he again deplored having “to make a new start in life,” and noted that “as soon as I get established anywhere some convulsion obliges me to change.” He had even lost “poor Clay,” the horse he affectionately spoke of in letters to various correspondents, and for several weeks tried to save from glanders, but finally had to have shot after a last-resort tracheotomy was unsuccessful.12
Sherman also vented his frustrations in correspondence with John. “I must settle up my affairs [in Louisiana] and start again, the fourth time in four years,” he lamented to his brother. “Each time,” he claimed, had resulted “from Calamity—California, New York, Leavenworth, & now Louisiana.” He was compelled to “cast loose again with nothing.” Grasping for something positive in all his struggles, Sherman assured John that he was “more and more content” not to be connected “with Banking & Credit,” which he now regarded, seemingly indulging once more in hyperbole, as “the most disastrous of all vocations.” Financially, as usual, Ellen was a source of worry. He confided to John, “however willing Ellen may be in theory [to lead a simple life], yet in practice she must have an array of servants and other comforts that money alone can give.” Shortly before leaving Louisiana, Sherman again warned his wife of their dire financial plight: “I’m going to be as stingy as a miser till I see my way out of the woods, when you may go it again with a looseness—Affectionately, W. T. Sherman.”13
Getting “out of the woods” financially appeared anything but easy. Of course with war looking more and more likely, the path was open at last for Sherman to return to the army. His brothers, his father-in-law and his brothers-in-law all encouraged him to do so. He learned that friends in the military, including General Scott, the U.S. Army’s top-ranking officer, hoped to see him back in the service. Even Ellen suddenly seemed in favor of the army. “You will never be happy in this world,” she wrote shortly before he left Louisiana, “unless you go into the army again.” She requested John to find Cump an acceptable appointment, “convinced that he will never be happy out of the Army.” That Ellen would finally relent after her longtime opposition to her husband’s army career comes as a bit of a surprise.
Possibly she truly, at last, was convinced that Cump would never be content unless he got back in the military. Perhaps she might have been motivated by more than her husband’s happiness. She did not possess a tolerance for slavery, and consequently did not have any warm feeling for the slave states. In fact, she was enraged by the attitude of Southern secessionists, and had been angered by James Buchanan’s dealing with South Carolina, considering the President weak and sympathetic to the South. The government would have stood firm “if [Andrew] Jackson had been in [Buchanan’s] place,” she declared. Ellen even railed against Henry Turner’s Southern sympathies, decrying him for turning his back upon the government that educated him for the military and supported him for years. Nor did she like the idea of resuming life in St. Louis, a city for which she never cared, located in a slave state, and the site that seemed to be Sherman’s preference for making a new start. If he went back to the army, however, their relationship probably would be more amiable, and she could feel confident about continuing to reside in Lancaster for the foreseeable future.14
But much as Sherman had hoped in recent years for a chance to return to the military, the prospect of fighting in a civil war did not attract him in the least. Over the years he had made many friends in the South, “kind, good friends,” he told his daughter Minnie, as he attempted to explain to her how “people are deceived and drawn on step by step, till war, death and destruction are upon them.” The Southern people were in the grip of a delusion, and “when people believe a delusion they believe it harder than a real fact.” During the past year Sherman had made more friends in the South, particularly G. Mason Graham, Professor David F. Boyd and Dr. S. A. Smith, with whom he worked effectively on behalf of the Louisiana military academy. Even his closest friend, Henry Turner, sympathized with the South, as did James Lucas. The idea of going to war against these people, as well as Southern friends from earlier years, was deeply troubling. Years afterward, David Boyd wrote Sherman: “I remember well how it grieved you to leave us, and how sorry were we to see you go.”15
Sherman was also disgusted by the way the war came about. “On the negro question,” he wrote David Boyd in April 1861, “I am satisfied there is and was no cause for a severance of the old Union.” Later in that month, he told his brother John, “On the necessity of maintaining a government, and that government the old constitutional one, I have never wavered, but I do recoil from a war when the negro is the only question.” He believed the war could and should have been avoided, the issues compromised. He blamed the Northern abolitionists and the Southern so-called Fire Eaters. Most of all he laid the ultimate responsibility for the war at the feet of politicians, north and south, who pandered to the prejudices and ignorance of their constituents and placed the interests of self and party above the well-being of the nation. He labeled “the petty machinery of party . . . disgusting.” Thus the issues, especially slavery, had become so sectionalized and emotionally packed that men no longer thought or acted rationally. Having ceased to reason, as Sherman viewed the incredible tragedy, the nation blundered into war.16
Furthermore, like his wife, Sherman believed that President Buchanan had erred miserably in dealing with South Carolina. “I regard the failure of Buchanan to strengthen Major [Robert] Anderson” at Charleston harbor, he wrote Ellen, “as absolutely fatal.” He told John that Anderson—“my old captain”—should have been “promptly reinforced,” and the U.S. Navy strengthened to control the sea. If these actions had been taken, Sherman believed that the secessionists would have known at once that the United States was firmly committed to defend its rights and territory. A few days later, again writing John, he declared that if Buchanan had made Fort Sumter “impregnable with an adequate force backed by a couple of first class Steam Frigates—he would have checkmated this [secessionist] movement, and allowed time for adjusting the differences.” He continued to sound this theme in several letters. Also, he did “not care about rejoining an army subject to the order and control of Politicians who have not the sense to Govern, and the Spirit to stand by their officers who . . . act with vigor and sense.” He implored his brother to “kick all platforms . . . to the Devil, and look the Questions that now threaten our national existence square in the face—and generally aim to be a U.S. Statesman instead of a mere Republican, a mere partizan.” Sherman believed that the nation faced an unprecedented crisis—a crisis demanding pure statesmanship if the nation were to be saved from destruction.17
When Sherman first met Lincoln he was not impressed, as mentioned earlier. While he began to think more favorably of the new president in the following weeks—acknowledging that Lincoln faced “an awful task” and would merit “the admiration of the world” if he could deal with the rebellion successfully—he simply was not convinced that the new administration was “yet up to the magnitude of the occasion.” When the Confederates fired on Fort Sumter and Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers for three months’ service, Sherman famously remarked that “you might as well attempt to put out the flames of a burning house with a squirt gun.” He thought the President’s call should have been for 300,000—and for a much longer time. If the nation were totally committed to saving the Union, Sherman had no doubt of an ultimate, inevitable triumph. He feared, however, that the country was not going to effectively employ its potential, massive superiority in industrial war production and manpower.18
Meanwhile, as the national crisis escalated, Sherman accepted the presidency of the St. Louis Rail Road Company, still hoping to avoid the gathering clouds of war. The appointment came through Henry Turner and James Lucas, the latter being the main stockholder in the horse-drawn streetcar company. In late March, Sherman again took up residence in his favorite city, this time accompanied by all five of his children and Ellen. Two servants also made the journey with them from Ohio. The family moved into a large house at 226 Locust Street, which Sherman rented from Lucas. John Hunter and Ellen’s brother Charles, who had formed a law partnership, agreed to board with them.
Sherman’s starting salary of two thousand dollars a year, with the hope of a raise in the near future, was not nearly adequate to support his large family and necessitated the sale of some of Ellen’s property, which had been a gift from her father. Even worse was the fact that the new job presented no challenge to a man of Sherman’s talents. He was totally unsuited for the boring work of a streetcar executive—particularly when “the whole air was full of wars and rumors of wars” and armies were marshaling, while he remained isolated from them.19
The call of the army grew stronger. In early April, Sherman was offered the chief clerkship of the War Department, with the promise of an appointment as assistant secretary of war when the U.S. Congress met. His brother John and others urged him to accept, believing it would be a step toward a high rank in the army. Maria Ewing wrote Ellen approvingly, as if Sherman’s acceptance were a foregone conclusion, saying that “fortunately for Cumpy (as he is perfectly unhappy if he is not constantly employed) . . . so honorable and for these times so lucrative a position has been offered him, [which is] quite a compliment.” However, Sherman considered the position beneath his merits, and rebelled at the thought of a desk job. If he should return to the army, he intended to lead soldiers in battle. John straightforwardly told his older brother that because of his army background he could not avoid taking part in the conflict. “You are regarded with favor [in the War Department],” John assured him. “It will be your own fault if you do not gain a very high position in the Army.” Tom Ewing Jr., who like John had good political connections, inquired exactly what position Sherman wanted, promising to work with General Scott in an attempt to secure it for him. He thought that his brother-in-law had better offer his services soon, or his opportunities well might be gone.20
There was yet another consideration. Rumors had begun to circulate that perhaps Sherman did not return to the army because he was a Southern sympathizer. The decision to take up residence in St. Louis only fueled the fire of such allegations. Of course there was never any chance whatsoever, as Sherman made abundantly clear in letters to various people in the North and South, that he could have supported secession. From at least as far back as his West Point days, he had been an ardent nationalist. He ordered John not to represent him to people in Washington “as a Republican—but as an American,” and back on January 18, he unequivocally instructed Governor Moore of Louisiana to “relieve me as superintendent [of the military academy] the moment the State determines to secede, for on no earthly account will I do any act, or think any thought hostile to or in defiance of the old Government of the United States.”21
Simply put, as he told Tom Ewing Jr., “Secession is Treason.” He wrote Professor Boyd, “I am ultra—I believe in coercion and cannot comprehend how any Government can exist unless it defend its integrity.” The idea that “any part of a people may carry off a part of the Common Territory without consent or purchase, I cannot understand.” Sherman lashed out bitterly as the Confederacy was being formed in Montgomery, telling Tom Jr. to instruct his longtime friend Stewart Van Vliet that he should “seize Fort Leavenworth—hoist the Bear Flag [the Californian symbol of conquest], and declare himself independent of all Creation. Sell the mules, horses, wagons, etc., of the late Uncle Sam, and depart for Paris & spend the proceeds like a Gentleman—That is modern doctrine.”22
Interestingly, there were friends in the South who would have welcomed Sherman’s support of the Confederacy, and who tried to persuade him accordingly. Dr. S. A. Smith wrote him on April 24, 1861. Acknowledging the receipt of a recent letter from Sherman revealing his decision to settle in St. Louis, Smith said, “How much I hope that you will be able to come to the conclusion that your adopted state is right in opposing herself to the mad career of the Union Splitter and his fanatical crew. How delighted we all should be,” he continued, “to hear that in the coming contest we might boast of the possession of your fine talents and high military qualities.” If Sherman replied to this letter, his response has not been found.23
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SECESSION BREATHED HOT in Missouri in 1861. Sherman’s decision to reside in St. Louis is intriguing, particularly in view of his disdain for those who would break up the Union. The state had a new governor, Claiborne Fox Jackson, who was an ardent secessionist. He stated that if the United States applied force against any seceded state, such action would lead Missouri to join the Confederacy. The secessionists received a setback, however, when the convention elected to consider the issue proved strongly pro-Union and voted to stand with the United States. Then came Fort Sumter. When Lincoln, in its aftermath, called upon Missouri for troops to put down the rebellion, Governor Jackson’s bitterly defiant reply, framed in language verging on the demented, characterized the President’s request as “illegal, unconstitutional, revolutionary, inhuman, diabolical, and can not be complied with.” Jackson had a lot of support. Missouri’s lieutenant governor, the speaker of the house and many members of the state legislature were in favor of secession and laid plans to tear Missouri from the Union. They strengthened the pro-Confederate state militia, requested artillery from Jefferson Davis and focused their attention upon capturing the 60,000 muskets and other military equipment stored in the United States arsenal in St. Louis—the largest arsenal in any slave state. Already they had taken the small government arsenal at Liberty.24
Sherman observed that “all the leading [Missouri] politicians were for the South in case of a war.” He said manifestations of Confederate sympathizers abounded throughout St. Louis. He remembered that a house on “the northwest corner of Fifth and Pine was the rebel headquarters, where the rebel flag was hung publicly, and the crowds about the Planters’ House were all more or less rebel.” Also, he said there was “a [military] camp in Lindell’s Grove, at the end of Olive Street [Camp Jackson, it was called],” that was nominally “a state camp of instruction, but beyond doubt, was in the interest of the Southern cause.” All the while, according to Sherman, “the newspapers fanned the public excitement to the highest pitch,” and advocates of each side threatened the other with violence.25
Jackson and the secessionists well might have succeeded in capturing the St. Louis arsenal, had it not been for Captain Nathaniel Lyon, who commanded the U.S. troops stationed at the arsenal, and Congressman Francis P. Blair Jr., the brother of Postmaster General Montgomery Blair. Fortunately for the United States, Lyon and Blair managed to keep abreast of Governor Jackson’s plans, aided immensely by Union spies. In dire need of more soldiers, Lyon recruited several regiments from among the German-American population, which was strongly antislave and pro-Union—in fact, the very backbone of Unionism in St. Louis. Then, employing a diversion, Lyon and Blair arranged for more than 20,000 of the best weapons in the arsenal to be secretly transferred across the Mississippi for safekeeping in Illinois.26
Captain Lyon next decided to move against Camp Jackson. Posing in a dress and shawl as Frank Blair’s mother-in-law, Lyon, who was a small, wiry man, made a personal reconnaissance of the site in a carriage. He then struck the next day, May 10, with two companies of regular army soldiers and four regiments of his new German-American forces, surrounding and compelling the surrender of about 700 men and their arms. The pro-Southern militia, taken totally by surprise, surrendered without firing a shot. As Lyon marched his prisoners through the city, leading them to the arsenal for incarceration, a growing crowd of spectators became increasingly raucous. When someone, thought to have been drunk, fired and shot an officer in the leg, the troops opened fire on the crowd, killing between twenty and thirty people.27
Sherman himself witnessed the melee. Thinking the danger had passed, he took his young son Willy to watch the prisoners being marched from Camp Jackson to the U.S. arsenal. When the shooting erupted, Charley Ewing, who was standing close to Willy, shielded the lad with his body, as all immediately went to the ground. Once the firing slackened, Sherman jerked up Willy and dashed for cover, later blaming himself for foolishly exposing his child to danger. During the night some German-Americans were murdered, and the following day another clash took place in which several more people were killed. Perhaps the volatile climate in Missouri, climaxed by the bloody events in the streets of St. Louis, had a determining impact on Sherman’s thinking. On May 11, he wrote Tom Ewing Jr., “If we are to have a long and desperate Civil Struggle, I suppose I must take part, and if so I prefer service with Regulars.” He knew that in Washington the lobbying on his behalf by friends and relatives was continuing.28
When Sherman left Louisiana he had no good choices about where to live or how to support his family. He seemed as strongly opposed to Ohio as ever, still disturbed by the thought of becoming dependent upon his father-in-law. Nor was California a possibility. Ellen certainly would not have accompanied him to the West Coast again, and there was no promise of work there anyway. While St. Louis was not a panacea, he had friends and family connections there. Most important, he knew he had a job—even if the salary was inadequate for his needs. Maybe his pay would be increased. Maybe other opportunities would be presented. St. Louis, in Sherman’s view, would have seemed the least objectionable of his options.
After residing there for a few weeks, however, the financial obligations well may have weighed even more heavily than anticipated, especially with all of his family present, and servants to support. Relatives and friends continued advising him, strongly, to get back in the army. President Lincoln was working to increase the size of the U.S. military, both the regular army and the volunteers, the latter to be enlisted for three years’ service. At last, in Sherman’s words, “the Government was trying to rise to a level with the occasion.” If so, then returning to the army might make more sense than any other course.29
Within less than a month after the bloody St. Louis imbroglio, Sherman received a dispatch from his brother Charles in Washington, informing him that he had been appointed a colonel of the Thirteenth Regular Infantry, a new outfit that was being formed. He was wanted at the capital immediately. Sherman wrote in his memoirs, “I could no longer defer action.” He arrived in Washington in early June, and General Scott placed him on his staff. He was assigned to inspection duty, which entailed reporting on military units and installations all around the capital. He wrote John that his job would be “to keep well advised of the character and kind of men who are in Military service . . . near Washington, and . . . report to General Scott in person.”
After more than seven and one half years’ absence, Sherman had returned to the U.S. Army. He would not leave again until he retired. In St. Louis, Ellen packed up the children and headed back to Ohio. She was pregnant once more. Another daughter, who would be named Rachel, arrived on July 5. Sherman had thought he would be returning to St. Louis to raise his regiment, and thus could help Ellen prepare for the move to Lancaster. General Scott, however, named someone else to raise the Thirteenth Regulars and ordered Sherman to go to work for him at once. While Sherman’s name officially remained on the roster as Colonel of the Thirteenth Regular Infantry for a long time, he would never command the regiment. In fact, he remained on duty with Scott only until the end of June, when he was given command of a brigade in the army under General Irvin McDowell—the army being marshaled for a general advance against the Confederate forces who were positioned less than thirty miles west-southwest of Washington. When he assumed command on June 30, Sherman’s task was to prepare four regiments of inexperienced volunteers for combat, as quickly as possible. He was virtually certain there would not be enough time to train his troops properly. He was right. The first big battle of the war was only three weeks away.30