Sherman’s Stuff

Lost and Found

It’s that time of year when people are spring-cleaning. Garage sales, flea markets and EBay will be selling whatever is not tossed or given away. The proverbial one “person’s junk is another’s treasure” is the operative phrase of this time honored practice. And while looking at this ‘stuff’, we do well us to remember that “all that glitters is not gold” before we click to purchase or pull out our wallets.

I have nothing that would engross profits.

Sherman Family Letters, 1865

Spring-cleaning implies the gargantuan task of sorting; what is kept and what is to find a new place. For the environmentally conscious dumping is the option of last resort. De-cluttering attics, basements, garages and large barns or storage units is not for the faint of heart. But I digress, that’s another topic emotionally charged and too big to include here. More relevant are those items that are kept carefully so as to pass along to future generations as a witness to the past and a legacy for the future.

Recently I learned of Sherman memorabilia to sold at auction. After the initial shock of noting that these items of prominence (at least in my view) are not within the confines of a museum or library -I sent an email blast to my immediate cousins. “Where did these items come from? “-I asked. They didn’t know. The lot to be auctioned includes the Sherman family Bible. Bibles, I note were often the repository of family events and memories, and in some cases pious commentary. Family trees were also recorded in them. I’m curious if the said Sherman Bible might include his own commentary providing a keyhole into his inner thought. Then again, maybe he never opened it. Also in this collection is another sword, personal correspondence and war memorabilia. My cousins also presumed that such items were safely guarded in museums like the Smithsonian and the Sherman House in Lancaster Ohio and a few universities. This is where our aunts, grandmother and great-grandmother bequeathed most of the items in their possession. A few items remained in their childhood home of my mother and her sisters. But perhaps after some mishaps, like my mother taking Sherman’s rifle (so the story goes) when she was 7 and losing it someplace deep in the autumn New England woods of fallen leaves behind the their house, it probably was decided that family heirlooms would be better suited for museums and centers of learning. At least they wouldn’t be lost.

Malcolm Gladwell notes in a podcast Revisionist History; Dragon Psychology 101 that there’s a difference between hoarding and collecting. This distinction helps to explain what we keep and sort and why. Collecting and curating objects require some rationale or rubric. While Gladwell defines hoarding as indiscriminate collecting; he observes that there’s still some sort of rational but for different reasons. This would be another instance of “one person’s junk is another’s treasure” as it were. Gladwell notes that hoarders know what they’re keeping for reasons, sometime visceral that the rest of us don’t understand. In this episode Gladwell also cites Smaug the fire belting dragon of J.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and poem The Hoard. The poem tells of a beast that jealously keeps treasures for his pleasure only. Gladwell observes that in addition to some individuals, some large art museums with holdings buried in warehouses that seldom can be seen in the light of day are like Smaug [that] to his belly’s slime gems stuck’. The Hoard J.R.R. Tolkien.

It makes perfect sense that other Sherman descendants come to the conclusion that now is the time to off load memorabilia of our mutual grandfather x 3 in their possession. Keeping artifacts in an attic and saving them for the future generations when they don’t even want our stuff doesn’t make sense. Thus, I respect my relatives decision to sell these items. Admittedly though there’s a part of me that worries that they could be condemned to a futile existence tucked away in someone else’s basement or private collection where no one but a Smaug is sitting on them. Stories these items could someday convey will no longer be accessible nor remembered.

Sherman’s wife Ellen was the collector (if not all out hoarder) and memory keeper of the family. Sherman seems to have just been interested in keeping what was useful and most memorable to him. He was willing to part with some of his private collection of books and maps giving them to the Louisiana Military School since much of their holdings were destroyed during the Civil War. For Sherman it was personal—he was the school’s first superintendent resigning from the school when the state voted to secede from the Union. There were other items he also freely parted with: While he was in the last stage of his military campaign and was already celebrated as a war hero, Ellen wrote to him asking if he had anything he could send her that she could sell at a charity fundraiser for wounded soldiers. He responded;

“I have nothing that would engross profits —my saddlebags a few old traps, etc. I could collect plenty of trophies [presumably he means war booty and stolen goods], but have always refrained and think it best I should. Others do collect trophies and send [them] home but I prefer not to do it.”

Sherman Family Letters, 1865

A traditional Navajo blanket once belonging to Sherman is at the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian. Could it have been gifted to him during the signing of the 1868 Navajo Peace treaty? Did he use it as a saddle blanket or on his camping trips? How it came to his possession remains unknown to me. For now I’m grateful it’s at the Smithsonian accessible for the time when I or others can unravel that story nestled in the weave.

Returning to the upcoming auction, I can only hope that some advocate of history will want to rescue these items from a doomed existence of a private –never to be seen again collection in a place like Smaug’s lair. It’s my hope that the collections finds a new home in a museum, library or place of learning, that is the memory keepers of culture. That way the commentators of our time and indeed all who are curious can delve into the past as to make sense the present world around us. In Tolkien’s words “all that is gold does not glitter”.

You can view the Sherman items to be auctioned on May 14, 2024 here and listed to the Gladwell’s episode Dragon Psychology 101 here. You can listen to J.R. R. Tolkien reading his poem The Hoard here. You can read my previous post about Navajo Peace Treaty here. And if you’re ever in Fairfield County Ohio visit the W.T. Sherman House Museum A thoughtful visit through the house and gardens will transport you to earlier times of our country and the world most familiar to Sherman and his family.