Tag: W.T. Sherman

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Culture and Value US History

Sherman & the Smithsonian

The Smithsonian ‘the castle’ built 1847 (image in public domain), featured image Grant and his Generals, National Portrait Gallery, Washington D.C.

Recently, I visited the Smithsonian in Washington D.C. What started as a repository of collectables of researchers in the 19th century is now a behemoth institution of several museums. Presumably, the most interesting of its collections are in monumental buildings along the Washington Mall. But the entire holding of items not on exhibit is in several locations. 

There are different ways to think about museums. They’re a mirror of sorts of what the people who collect artifacts and other objects think is important enough to pass on to another generation. There are words accompanying the objects. These short paragraphs are as simple as a description or elaborate as a plotline in an epic drama production. Interpretations and narratives explaining the object shift and evolve. But the artifact remains the same. 

The Smithsonian is a managerie of all sorts of things in our world. It’s the memory keeper of our nation’s history and of the stories we tell. 

In the age of instant information and digital derivations of reality served up on our handheld screens, we might ask if it is even necessary to keep ‘the real thing’. We can access endless information about the holdings of the Smithsonian much more than what is exhibited in the galleries. Why make a trip to see the actual ‘thing in itself’? Before the world wide web,people had to rely on libraries, encyclopedias, and museums. In fact, libraries and museums have preserved the memory and knowledge of civilizations and cultures for millennia. It’s convenient to have access to the information these repositories have. Yet, physical museums are still relevant since they typically contain real, tactile things, not just digital derivations of them. Museums provide physical space where viewers can engage with real things of  the past. The Smithsonian in particular exemplifies this by offering a diverse range of exhibits that describe or explain much of what we find in our world. With rapid advancement of AI and the trends of generated deep fakes gone viral, I, for one, am grateful for opportunities to experience tangible, clear, and definite reality museums still provide.  

Additionally, the Smithsonian provides an accessible alternative for self-directed learning. In an era where higher education is  prohibitively expensive and exclusive, by leveraging the vast resources of the Smithsonian and the expertise of the curators, a young person can gain valuable knowledge and skills at a fraction of the cost of higher education.

Indeed, an enterprising student could probably learn twice as much in half the time. Probably throughout the two hundred years of the museum’s existence, many have done just that. 

The formation of the Smithsonian and its first building coincide with the recent rise of the United States, a sovereign nation fairly optimistic if not hell-bent determined in its capacity to scale progress through knowledge, technology, and commerce. Sherman grew up in this environment. It was the air he breathed. Young Sherman, like many of his contemporaries, believed that progress was the result of education and hard work. Enlightenment beliefs followed by rapid industrialization and scientific advancement fueled the conviction that economic stability for all was just around the corner.Young Sherman presumed that economic prosperity and peace would be the inevitable consequence of progress. Perhaps an older, wiser Sherman came to realize the naivety of such a belief. 

Many of Sherman’s friends contributed to the formation of the Smithsonian. Sherman undoubtedly enjoyed visiting the original museum when he lived in Washington. Just about all of his life’s work and some personal belongings are housed in the network of the Smithsonian. Curious and interested in almost everything the Smithsonian has to offer but short on time,I needed to strategize and adjust the ‘what to see list’. I selected three exhibits in three museums, reluctantly excluding all others as well as everything around them, including the Mall, Lincoln Memorial,  the Capitol, and the White House to name a few.   

First on my list was National Portrait Gallery or NPG, showcasing paintings of familiar ‘founding fathers’—George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and the like. There were others, men and women, who have shaped US history and the collective imagination of a still naively young but already demographically complex developing country. 

I was curious about the several First Nations leaders that have factored into US history, Pocahontas, Red Jacket, and Sequoia to name a few.

Sequoia
Pocahontas
Red Jacket

Nearby were the ‘frontiersman’ Zachary Taylor, Daniel Boone and Andrew Jackson. The portraits reflect  a paradoxical juxtaposition of the ageless and universal complexity of ‘frontier expansion’. 

Zachary Taylor
Daniel Boone
Andrew Jackson

Finally, I entered the  gallery with the portraits of Grant and Sherman. Centered in this small gallery is a near-life-size sculpture of Lincoln and Edward Stanton, with Ulysses Grant, pivotal in getting the Emancipation Proclamation ‘proclamated’ in 1863 and. It was Grant and Sherman’s responsibility to force the rebel opposition to accept it. 

After a brief cursory visit through the rest of the NPG and a viewing of the mineral exhibit and star show at the Natural History Museum, I visited the Museum of the American Indian. Prominent in this museum is the Nation to Nation exhibit chronicling treaties the British colonies, and later the US government made with First Nations from the 17th through mid-19th century.

Nation to Nation NMAI
Nation to Nation NMAI
Nation to Nation NMAI

The treaty with the Navajo is the last one to be formally ratified by Congress. This exhibit includes Sherman’s role in negotiations with Navajo leaders in Bosque Redondo in 1868. The accompanying photo of a scowling Sherman (the actual photo taken at another time and place) suggests that he reluctantly acquiesced to the Navajo leaders’ insistence to return to their homelands.

W.T. Sherman SI NMAI
ChiefBarboncito SI NMAI

Accounts of the negotiations, and correspondence from that time show otherwise: While remaining skeptical of a successful outcome, Sherman saw a possible path forward for people living alongside each other while maintaining their own culture and forms of life. If the treaty contents were honored by both parties— the US government on one hand and the Indians who did not consider it in their people’s best interests to forfeit their homelands and assimilate into the US experiment on the other— then a coexistence might be wrought albeit with difficulty through compromise. An optimal outcome may not be certain or permanent, but it was more preferable than war. Sherman knew from experience that peace is fragile as it is valuable. It’s worth striving for. A first step in this direction is trying to understand the other’s deeply held beliefs. 

— “the world is big enough for all the people it contains, and all should live at peace with their neighbors. All people love the country where they were born and raised.”

The dialogue with Barboncito, the leader representing the Navajo in the negotiations, shows that much. “You are right,Sherman observed— the world is big enough for all the people it contains, and all should live at peace with their neighbors. All people love the country where they were born and raised.” (Council preliminary proceedings of the Navajo Peace Treaty, May 28th, 1868). Substitute land for country, and the context shifts in ways that give the sentiment new focus and depth of meaning.

I began this musing noting that museums have more than one purpose. I continued by noting that while access to digital derivatives of reality enhances our knowledge of the world around us, it can’t replace our experience of the world itself. I value museums because they spark new ideas, challenge previously held beliefs, stir memories, and open up horizons of wonder. The visit to the Smithsonian crystallized those thoughts. Museums give us an opportunity to walk through the past, reflecting on events through time. We need not be irritated by the cognitive biases of collectors, curators, and ‘interpreters’ of the artifacts we see. Instead, we can try to understand what they see, reflect on what we see, and then ‘see beyond’.

What does that mean—to see beyond? To me, it means to choose wisely; learning from others and reflecting on our response to today’s realities and tomorrow’s possibilities. What I think, say, or do today really does shape the future for those who come after us. 

Seven sisters of the Pleiades star cluster, SI Natural History Museum, January 2026
Categories
US History

Ely Samuel Parker

Seneca Sachem, Lawyer, Brigadier General

Recently, the New York State Bar Association admitted a lawyer who was not permitted to practice law in the courts during his lifetime. Hasanoanda, later named Ely Samuel Parker, Tonawanda Seneca, was born in 1828 in western New York. His parents were of prominent families, both descendants of spiritual and military leaders of the Tonawanda band of Seneca nation. Ely received a classical education at a missionary school. He excelled in his studies, went on to college and eventually studied law through apprenticeships with established lawyers. However, Parker was denied admittance to the New York State bar. Why? Because he was not a US citizen. Ironically, while born in what comprises the United States, Native Americans were not recognized as Americans by the US government until the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924.

Parker was disappointed, but undeterred. He used his legal expertise to represent Tonawanda treaty claims in front of the United States Congress and Supreme Court. While gaining some support, the case was defeated. Since Parker was barred the legal profession, he studied engineering instead. Eventually, he landed a project with the U.S. Treasury Department. He was sent to Galena, Illinois, to oversee the construction of a customs house. There, he met Ulysses S. Grant and they formed a strong friendship. Soon after the American Civil War began, Parker offered to form a regiment of Iroquois volunteers and to serve in the engineering corps. Both offers were refused by the officials in Washington. However, during the siege of Vicksburg in 1863, Grant’s forces were in need of experienced engineers. He made arrangements for a commissioned military position for his friend and requested that he join his army there to oversee projects during the campaign against Confederate’s stronghold on the Mississippi.

By the final stages of the war Grant was named head of the Military Division of the Mississippi. He appointed Parker his adjunct and secretary. He became Grant’s trusted advisor, accompanying him in the most important stages of the latter half of the Civil War. He eventually had the rank of Brigadier General, which awarded some status but of little consequence. Soon after Grant was elected president, he appointed Parker as Commissioner of Indian Affairs tasking him with developing a policy establishing relationships with the several tribes throughout the United States.

The Mississippi NPS photo, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Parker and Sherman

There’s a similarity in the career trajectory of Parker and Sherman. Both were faced with professional disappointments and uncertainty in their professions until the throes of the Civil War put them in situations where they brilliantly applied their knowledge and skills to the crisis. Grant saw the potential of both men and relied on them to launch and carry out the siege on Vicksburg.

W.T. Sherman
U.S. Grant
E.S. Parker

Images, in public domain and accessed through Wikimedia commons

Both Parker and Sherman made singular contributions, defeating the Confederate armies and together with Grant developed the terms of surrender for the Confederate armies in April of 1865 that were originally outlined by Lincoln.

The Battle of Big Black River Bridge By Harper’s Weekly –
Running Blockade

Parker prepared the drafts and final ink copy of the terms of surrender of General Lee’s armies at Appomattox. Undoubtedly, Parker’s studies of law prepared him for that task. But he also had the cultural knowledge of his own people, the Onondaga (Seneca) who formed part of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederation. Formed by five nations of Indigenous peoples as early as the late 16th century, the confederacy had had a long history of negotiations and decision-making in common council to avert violent conflicts against each other and later British and French advancing into their territories. Parker’s own ancestors had helped form the confederacy and were sachems that voted in these councils on behalf of their people. As a child, Parker gleaned practical wisdom from the stories and wisdom of his relatives.

Family Legacy


Parker and Sherman also share similar family legacies. Both are descendants of prominent leaders that contributed to the outcome of the Revolutionary War; the War of Independence. Sherman’s very distant relative was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Parker was related to Red Jacket a Seneca sachem known for his oratory skill. He was a leading figure in future relations with the newly formed US government and was presented with a ‘peace medal’ by George Washington.

Red JacketChromolithograph by Corbould from a painting by C.B. King; printed by C. Hallmandel,
Tecumseh
Attributed to Owen Staples (1866–1949)-

Images in public domain and accessed through Wikimedia commons

Both Sherman’s and Parker’s fathers were involved in of the War of 1812. Sherman’s father named his son Tecumseh, after the Shawnee leader of the Ohio territories was killed at the close of that war. Why Charles Sherman chose to name his third son after an Indian warrior allied with the British “remains unclear” to biographers. According to family accounts, Sherman’s father, a lawyer, named his infant son after the great Shawnee leader, because he was well known for his oratory skills and early efforts to achieve peace through diplomacy. Maybe C.T. Sherman had dreams that his son would eventually become a man who seeking to create conditions for peace in an emerging yet fragile country of many peoples and cultures. Interestingly, before Parker was born his mother had a dream that her son, who eventually was known as Donehogawa/Open Door would be a a leader who walking two worlds opening doors of understanding and dialogue in both of them.

Shortly after the Civil War both Parker and Sherman were tasked to with the management of Indian affairs. To what extent did Sherman and Parker collaborate? Did they meet in person? How often? What were the outcomes? I’m curious, but will need to look for those answers at another time. Here I return to the close of the years of the Civil War.

Sherman and Parker became acquainted with each other through their mutual friend, Grant. Even after the Vicksburg Campaign Sherman met with Grant to discuss their campaign strategies. It’s possible that Grant introduced Parker to Sherman as early as July of 1863. Perhaps Grant pointed out Parker’s engineering experience. Sherman would have appreciated that since roads, tracks, and bridges were critical for supply lines to assure successful military strategy. Sherman sought advice from reliable sources regardless of skin color or social status, and he would have had reasons and opportunity to consult Parker about such matters.

The Peace Keepers https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Peacemakers_1868.jpg

Several of the communiqués Sherman received from Grant were prepared and signed by Parker. Although not depicted in the artist rendition of the event, Parker was present at the meetings of Grant and Sherman with President Lincoln aboard the USS River Queen. In that meeting on March 27, 1865, Lincoln outlined possible peace settlement terms for the inevitable surrender of the Confederate armies. Parker would have been tasked with transcribing the matters discussed using those notes to draft the peace settlement terms signed by Grant and presented to Lee at the surrender of the Confederate Army at Appomattox several days later. The NPS at Appomattox records: “Seeing that Parker was an American Indian, General Lee remarked to Parker, “I am glad to see one real American here.’ Parker later stated, ‘I shook his hand and said, ‘We are all Americans.’”

Lee Surrenders to Grant at Appomattox (E.L.P. third standing from rt), Lithograph National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
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Culture and Value Uncategorized US History

Sherman’s Stuff

Sherman's Tent, Sherman House Mluseum, Lancaster OH

Lost and Found

Sherman’s Hat– Smithsonian Museum of American History

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.

Sherman’s Sword Smithsonian Museum of American History

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.

J.R.R. Tolkien’s illustration Conversation with Smaug
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smaug

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.


Photo by Sergey Sokolov on Unsplash

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
Navajo Blanket-Smithsonian Museum

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.

Categories
Culture and Value

Educating for Life

Winslow Homer Song of the Lark
https://artsandculture.google.com/story/mAXBQJELIMjf7g

There’s a story of a Vermont Yankee farmer and his son ploughing their field.  Their neighbor’s son was preparing to cut a large tree nearby  his family’s  barn. He had just arrived home from college for the summer and was studying a book to calculate the right angle to begin sawing.  After hours of work the tree finally fell but not in the direction that the student had calculated. The tree landed on the barn. As the  seasoned farmer looked on, he said in his laconic Vermont drawl- “Now son, that’s what I call book smart”. 

Autumn begins September 22 in the northern hemisphere. But Labor Day, the first Monday in September marks the unofficial close of summer in the US.  Students have started classes  with more or less enthusiasm and excitement. For the most part people are returning from vacations and resuming their work routines. It’s  a start of a new year of sorts.  I think of this time as a new year of learning. Education, and work, both of which constitute a substantial amount of time over a life span of activity flow in varied rhythmic patterns. Work, the education and training one undergoes to work well is a broad topic.  There are countless ways to think and write about it and many have done throughout the centuries. Our attitudes about education and work often reflect our understanding and interpretations of meaning, purpose and human flourishing. 

One Room School House https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-room_school

Sherman’s thoughts on education reflected in his correspondence lean towards the practical. He was prone to action, not giving too much thought to theories on how to do something. His education, and  early experiences  gave him a foundation by which he could confront the challenges that came his way throughout his life, There were waves of success and shoals of failures. But this is often true for most of us. It is the lot of the human condition.  How those are measured depends on one’s perspective and values. Athletes and entrepreneurs understand this intuitively. The rest of us learn by in ‘the school of hard knocks’.

Sherman’s early years of education included classes of the three R’s —reading writing and arithmetic. But there was more: He writes 

I continued at the Academy in Lancaster, …We studied all the common branches of knowledge, including Latin, Greek and French. 

WTS Memoirs Vol I

Once classes were out the rest of the day was devoted to typical youth activities; roaming the woods, playing games and completing household chores. Both Sherman’s birth family and his foster family were avid readers. Frequent mention of books being read, requests for more books and gifts of books appear in the letters between Sherman and his family. It seems like they were always reading something.  Maybe this explains why I’m a curious and constant reader. But I digress. 

At age 14 Sherman found work building the canals along the Hocking river in Fairfield County Ohio. He learned surveying and construction skills. He worked alongside  laborers of diverse ethnic and racial backgrounds, including freemen of color. Undoubtedly this would have  been an incredible learning experience, collaborating with teams of people to create  infrastructures of transport in  rapidly  developing communities. The experience launched his lifelong study of logistics. He continued working during the school year with a surveyor:

“We worked during that fall and most spring marking two experimental lines, and for one our work  we each received a silver half dollar for each day’s actual work , the first money any of us had ever earned. “

WTS Memoirs Vol I
By Dan Keck from Ohio – http://Hocking Valley Canal Lock 17 and Aqueduct Park, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=69166165

Plenty of background knowledge, training and practice go into success in work or other projects of life’s endeavors.  Early instruction in reading, writing and arithmetic may be  insufficient for a complete well rounded education. But they are necessary tools that enable life long learning. 19th century initiatives to educate every child anywhere in America are too many to list. What is common to all of them were teachers and benefactors who were committed to establish schools with or without government support. They made countless sacrifices to teach children how to read, write and carry out the fundamentals of mathematics because they considered them important skills for shaping their future. Most families relied on older children to do chores to maintain a farm, family shop or household and this had to be factored in arranging school schedules and curricula.  Sherman recounts an early remembrance of taking his father’s horse, used for his travels as a circuit judge to the barn. Presumably Sherman would have learned something at a young age of how to care for horses as most of us learn how to keep our cars or bicycles  in working order today. 

Getting back to the story of the beginning of this article; maybe if the guy with the axe spent more time chopping wood in his younger years before he went off to college, he might have  avoided the disastrous fall of the large tree. Or maybe by looking at the tree and surroundings he would conclude it wasn’t  necessary to take it down in the first place.  

The end of the summer and start of an academic year gives us an opportunity to reflect on our attitudes and beliefs about education, work and the rhythms they create in our lives. Work is much more  than the actual ‘job’ for which we may or may not be remunerated. At the risk of a broadly construed definition I would posit that work expands to all  activity we engage in that contributes to a greater good; that which brings people,  families, communities, and nations together.  Sherman and his contemporaries probably didn’t think along those terms. But many of them Sherman included had a clear sense of responsibility of working to create a sustainable future for their families and fledging country. They were convinced that a school education should lead as the etymological root of the word implies—a young person to learn how to also do so. They considered it essential for a flourishing well lived life and even happy life.  Children need someone to care for them. Typically an adult is one who is capable of caring or providing for others. It is presumed that our learning institutions continue to cultivate values of work not as a means of self serving profit and prestige but first and foremost as a means of service for others and creating value in which many can grow and thrive. Similar to a sapling that takes root and grows into a large tree providing shade and sustenance.

By Winslow Homer – Bridgeman Art Library: Object 213713, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25057614

We can consider our own role  as educators and/or cheerleaders for students beginning the academic year. Our support gives strength to children and young people to explore their dreams for their future. If we inspire them, they too will be life-long learners and will know how to put that knowledge into practice for a greater good. 

Categories
Art of Living Culture and Value US History

Ellen Ewing Sherman

Who is Ellen Boyle Ewing Sherman?  

Ellen Ewing Sherman 1824-1888

Childhood playmate, foster sister, friend, confidante, advisor and wife of William Tecumseh Sherman. Like her husband she was intelligent, vivacious, opinionated and strong willed. Together they had 8 children, two died –one in infancy– both during the Civil War. Theirs were no ordinary friendship and marriage. It’s a wonder how their lifelong marriage flourished despite differences of opinion, preferences and tastes as well matters of deeply held beliefs. Biographers offer explanations; useful but insufficient. Most agree that Sherman, would not be the person he was without her. Few women would have so many roles as Ellen. That fact alone makes for an interesting story. The complexity of Ellen and Sherman’s interwoven lives created a dynamic force that shaped not only their family but also the destiny of our nation.

Possibly Young Ellen c.1850 (family archives)
Photograph of a Fern 1850 by H.F. Talbot (WikiMediaCommons)
Photography Mid-19th Century

Eleanor Boyle Ewing was born in Lancaster, Ohio in 1824. The daughter of  Thomas Ewing a prominent figure in Ohio-Washington politics and his wife Maria Boyle also from an influential family of Irish descent and unabashedly Roman Catholic in times when there was no small prejudice against the ‘papist’ religion.  The Ewings and Shermans were family friends and neighbors.  When Sherman’s father died suddenly, his mother unable to provide for her eleven growing children alone, gratefully sent her nine year old son ‘Cump’ (as he was called by his family and close friends) to be part of the Ewing household. The Ewings welcomed him warmly and provided for young Sherman in the same way they raised their own children. There were high expectations in education and work ethics but also an abundance of love and affection. Maria Ewing insisted that Cump not only received the same Catholic religious instruction as her children but also be baptized. Sherman later wrote that he was already Christened in infancy and given the name William by his own parents –in addition to name originally given to him by his father in honor of the locally famed Shawnee leader Tecumseh.  But Mrs. Ewing leaving nothing to chance arranged to have a traveling priest baptize nine-year-old Cump on the feast of St. William. 

Ellen, and her siblings and eventually her children also inherited Mrs. Ewing’s religious views. Interestingly it seems that while family members were relentless in their efforts to persuade Sherman to join their religious ranks he with the same stubbornness refused, preferring to adhere to his own belief compass. And yet their loyalty, and endearing affection for one another held fast. “All is fair in love and war” as the saying goes.

W.T. Sherman 1866
Ellen Ewing Sherman 1868
Portraits by G.P.A. Healy (Wikimedia-Public Domain)

Ellen’s and Cump’s different faith perspectives shaped their outlook and approaches to life. Perhaps their lives together were like navigating a canoe in different wind and water currents each paddling with the stronger stroke at different times; often steering in different directions but occasionally working in unison. Ironically adversity was the force that brought these two closer together. Prominent among these was the sudden death of their eldest son Willie who contracted yellow fever after Ellen had brought four of their young children to visit Sherman’s encampment in Mississippi in the summer of 1863 during a depressingly low point of Sherman and his army Vicksburg campaign.  She had hoped that the visit would revise her husband’s spirit. Indeed it did; nine year old Willie and his father enjoyed the time together riding horseback through the camp and inspecting the troops.  All seemed to have gone well until the return trip home via a river steamboat when sickness was spreading among the passengers. Young Willie was dead in two days. Neither of the parents fully recovered from the loss of their son and deep grief remained with them throughout their lives.

Ellen Ewing Sherman
“She has opened her hand to the needy and stretched out her hand to the poor.”

Ellen and her husband were often apart; first as he worked to establish a way of supporting his family and then due to his military career. Finally in retirement they moved to a townhouse in New York City but by then Ellen’s health rapidly declined in the weeks after the move. It seems that Sherman was in disbelief that his wife’s end of life was near. But when a doctor was consulted he accepted the prognosis of congestive heart failure. Then on the morning of November 28 of 1888 while he was in his study he heard the nurse beckon him; his lifelong companion was breathing her last. He ran up the stairs crying out “Wait for me Ellen-no one has ever loved you more”.

There’s still much to glean from their yin-yang fiery relationship. Maybe I’ll do so on further musings. Here I’ll let their youngest son– my great-grandmother’s brother have the last word:

“Between my father and mother there were, of course many differences; but never did their differences interfere with unwavering mutual respect, consideration and affection. With my mother’s faith and its transmissions to their children, my father was always content. And her judgment and advice were always respected by him and frequently deferred to with consequences that entitled her to much of the credit for his successful career.

P. Tecumseh Sherman 1935, Introduction to Ellen Ewing Sherman by Anna McAllister
“In thee O Lord have I hoped”
Calvary Cemetery, St. Louis Mo
“Her children rise up and call her blessed and her husband praiseth her”
Categories
Art of Living Culture and Value US History

New Year’s Eve in Monterey

This is the season of dancing and there has been a good deal of it, in fact one is looked for every Sunday night.

February 3, 1848, Sherman’s Family Letters

Writes Sherman to his family from Monterey California. More than a year earlier, that is New Year’s eve of 1846  he was still en-route by ship to his new assignment. The voyage lasted close to one year.  And the new year celebration of 1846-1847 was marked by a pleasant stretch of “fair wind and truly Pacific sea crossing the equator in Longitude 117 West”. 

Nautical Clock 1759, By Tatters ❀ from Brisbane, Australia – Wikimedia Commons

While the passage to California provided enough adventures to satisfy anyone looking for them, the tasks that lay ahead at first seemed to young Sherman dull with little prospects of career advancement which he deemed essential to eventually supporting a family. The war with Mexico including the battle of Monterey in July 1846 ended by the time Sherman arrived six months later. Thus, instead of participating in combat, he was assigned tedious duties of managing military affairs in an outpost that also served as the port of entry of foreign goods in Alta California.

The young lieutenant’s reaction to his assignment in California was ambivalent.  Letters to his family and future wife reflect his mixed feelings. On the one hand he lamented that there’s no hope for military promotion and more pay now that the Mexican war had ended. On the other, he was clearly enjoying hist post in a bustling  port town still heavily dominated by Spanish and Mexican customs and ways of life.  At that time it seems that theater productions, dances and horse racing far surpass church activity despite the cathedral being one of the oldest and most prominent building of the town. And so, after complaining of the scant career opportunities he reports on the party life and leisure activities even as he critiques the frivolity with his typical ironic humor.

“The officers gave the ‘great ball’ of the season on New Year’s Eve – wrote young Sherman.  ‘You have no doubt heard of the Mexican custom of filling eggshells with cologne and other fragrant water to break upon passers by. Here it is carried to a great extent but confined to the house and chiefly at balls and dances.The shells are mostly filled with gilt and colored paper cut very fine, which broken overhead leave it covered with spangles. The ladies break over the gentlemen’s heads and the reverse, and so great are the liberties taken to accomplish the feat that some from behind will clasp your arms tight whilst others shower on the Cascarones’ (filled eggshells). They do not like the shell filled with perfumed water as it produces stains on the dresses and also causes colds to which these people are very subject. It is polite to avoid a Cascacron and even to grasp a lady’s hand to crush the shell in it, if she be in the act of breaking it, but  when a gentleman gets a Cascaron on his head he is bound to return it which is sometimes quite difficult when the ladies are skilled in dodging. You can scarcely imagine the extent to which this is carried [out]. At a small party a few nights ago, there were upwards of four hundred Cascarones broken among a party of not over twenty-five persons. “

February 3, 1848, Sherman Family Letters
  • Women’s Evening Dress c. 1842 By MET Museum –
  • Men’s Jacket By MET Museum
Mid 19th cent evening wear https://www.metmuseum.org

He continues describing how ‘the ladies’ can spend the whole day preparing the cascarones, which apparently are still in use today in Mexico to mark various celebrations. And he concludes:

I have often laughed to see a whole party of grown men, myself included sitting round a table clipping this stuff in preparation for a coming dance, but the customs of Monterey are as sensible as the customs of other places, and must be respected.

Sherman Family Letters 1848

While cracking egg shells on the heads of our family, friends and neighbors may not be our thing, may our own welcoming the New Year be as festive and safe as Sherman’s in Monterey.

Photo: By Rubina Shrestha
Categories
Culture and Value Uncategorized US History

Sherman and the Navajo

Signing of the Navajo Treaty, June 1, 1868

“I want peace and believe it can only be achieved through union.”

W.T. Sherman

This conviction permeated Sherman’s thought during and after the Civil War. It also influenced his thinking and tasks as U.S. Army Lieutenant General in the years that followed. Peace is a fragile reality when it exists at all and often comes at the cost of war. As the westward expansion exploded Sherman had to grapple with responsibility of protecting both the settlers moving westward and the people who were being forcibly moved off of their ancestral homelands to accommodate this expansion. It was anything but peaceful.

Officials in Washington hoped for a peaceful transition, even if was just little more than wishful thinking. Opinions varied to what degree they thought it possible. Nevertheless a “Peace Commission” was formed in 1867 comprised of military personal and civilians who had some knowledge of or sympathies with the Native Americans of the great plains. Ironically Sherman was made the head. The Commission’s task was to negotiate with peoples inhabiting the land between the states whose culture and histories were as different as the languages they spoke and the territories they claimed. Land mass west of the Mississippi through the Rockies was equal or greater than all existing states combined.

How did Sherman accept this new assignment? Perhaps he considered it little more than his job, one that enabled him to feed his family. Or perhaps as in the years of the Civil War, he thought it was his duty to do his best in securing peace for the diversity of peoples in the U.S. and its claimed territories. In either case the Peace Commission’s preliminary meetings and final treaties were layered with complexities. Further, there has never been any agreement on whether or not they even succeeded.  Meetings involved several peoples inhabiting vastly disputed territories. This combined with inadequate resources, poor communication and bureaucratic corruption in Washington DC were just some of the obstacles that continuously worked against making any negotiations relevant or binding. Sherman foresaw these difficulties even before beginning his assignment. His skepticism was well grounded.  Nevertheless he accepted the challenge, hoping for the best. In less than three years after the close of the Civil War he gladly left Washington and  relocated his family to St. Louis. Soon afterwards he met with the Commission and began their travels west of the Missouri.

I hope to God you will not ask me to go to any other country except my own.

Barboncito, Navajo Chief, 1868

After meeting with leaders of several tribes in the northern plains, Sherman and Samuel F. Tappan set out towards the end of May  traveling to Fort Sumner  to meet with the Navajo interned at Bosque Redondo. They had been held for close to four years as prisoners by the U.S. government in lands that were desolate and close to uninhabitable. Several bands totaling by some counts 9,000 persons had been forcibly removed from their homelands and marched 300 miles to the east. Known as the Long Walk hundreds died along the way or soon afterwards. The relocation was a financial disaster and was costing the U.S. government thousands of dollars a day. It was a national embarrassment and disgrace.

What Sherman saw when he arrived at the end of May 1868 must have shocked him and angered him. Hundreds of families lived in squalid conditions, ordered by his government to ranch and farm in an area that was suitable for neither. Many were starving. Some claim that Sherman was indifferent or even antithetical to peaceful resolutions of conflict and negotiations. However, a close read of the preliminary proceedings and negotiations as in those with the Navajo indicate otherwise.

Meetings began with Navajo leaders began on May 28th. Sherman asked them to select their representatives and a spokesperson. Three days of talks followed. He listened through two translators to Barboncito, Manuelito and others.  Sherman sought to resolve not only the main concern-where they wished to relocate but also additional grievances, which included the fact that Mexican and American settlers throughout the South West and Mexico held hundreds of Navajo women and children in bondage. Sherman just fought and won a war to secure the freedom of enslaved people.  Thus it was his sincere belief that the US government would indeed prosecute and punish anyone holding anyone in bondage. And he promised this to the Navajo. As a man who tried to keep true to his word. Sherman experienced repeated disappointments when his own government could not or would not follow through on what were necessary conditions of justice and peace.

When the Navajos were first created four mountains and four rivers were pointed out to us inside of which we should, live, that was to be our country and was given to us by [God]

Barboncito
https://www.discovernavajo.com/discover-the-navajo-nation/monuments/

Probably in his impatience to resolve a complicated matter or more aptly put, a government induced disaster, Sherman proposed that the Navajos move to designated ‘Indian Country’ that is, the territories south of the Arkansas River. These lands were then being used to relocate several tribes resisting assimilation.   He supposed it would be a favorable option because land was suitable for farming and ranching. It was also off limits to white settlers. But the Navajos rejected that proposition and their will prevailed.  Sherman soon agreed that it was to their advantage and the US government’s best interest  that the Navajo return to their ancestral homelands and for the reasons that the Navajos themselves had determined.

Pages from the Navajo Treaty https://www.smithsonianmag.com/blogs/national-museum-american-indian/2018/02/22/treaty-that-reversed-a-removal-navajo-treaty-1868-goes-on-view/

The talks and negotiations concluded with the signing of the treaty, early in the morning of June 1, 1868.  I was ratified by Congress on July 25th and signed by President Andrew Johnson on August 12th.  Shortly afterwards approximately 8,000 Navajo men, women, elders and children gathered their horses, mules, sheep and goats and together began their long walk home to their four sacred mountains.   In his formal greeting to Sherman when he arrived to Fort Sumner, Barboncito declared he had made three pairs of moccasins for the occasion. He had already worn two for the meetings. The third pair he undoubtedly was saving for the journey home with a dream and destiny for the people:

After we get back to our country, it will brighten up again and the Navajos will be as happy as the land, black clouds will rise and there will be plenty of rain. Corn will grow in abundance and everything will look happy.

Barboncito, June 1, 1868
Categories
Culture and Value History of the West US History

Round the Horn to California: Sherman’s first voyage, Part 3

USS Lexington

A few weeks ago, after a few days in Carmel I made my return trip by way of Highway One from Salinas to Half Moon Bay a drive of 100 miles and much of that on the proverbial ‘ribbon of highway’ with open fields on the east and the Pacific on the west. It was a beautiful spring day and some fields were speckled with California poppies now in bloom. In less than two hours  even despite the traffic congestion in Santa Cruz I arrived to my destination.  Having read Sherman’s memories of his days in Monterey, it was easy for me to imagine what it was like for him to travel along the coast in a small sailing vessel to San Francisco or Bolinas or by horseback on the inland route across Salinas valley to get to the neighboring mission towns of San Juan Bautista and further north San Jose and Santa Clara. While driving the coastal route past Año Nuevo and Pigeon Point, I eventually arrived to Half Moon Bay, a small farming, fishing and tourist town. In Sherman’s time the area, was known as Rancho San Benito and it was little more than a collection of farms and ranches on or near the former settlement sites of the Ohlone. The afternoon commute, enabled me to imagine the youthful enthusiasm of Sherman as he first landed on the western coast of the northern continent.

While still en-voyage to his destination, Sherman was delighted with his one-week stay in Rio de Janeiro as the ship Lexington collected supplies and new cargo to begin the last stretch of their voyage to Monterey, California. He enjoyed the cuisine, the topography and learning how water was delivered to the city from the surrounding majestic mountains:

Rio de Janeiro early 19c

“Mr. Wise enlarged on the fact that Rio was supplied from the “dews of heaven,” for in the dry season the water comes from the mists and fogs which hand around the Corcovado, drips from the leaves of the trees, and is conducted to the Madre fountain by miles of tile gutters.”

W. T. Sherman Memoirs-Volume I

He arrived in Monterey the end of January after close to five months at sea. The last stretch of the voyage which resumed after a brief stay in Brazil and later Chile included passing through the waters of Cape Horn and then northward in the Pacific waters.

  • Rio de Janeiro early 19c
  • Cape Horn
  • Chile
  • By Tirpenne por E. Dumont - Copia de una litografía, ubicada en el Museo Histórico Nacional de Chile, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=256888
    Valparaiso, 1830
Rounding the Horn

The ship resumed its voyage around Cape Horn an island, which according to Sherman resembled an oven hence its name in Spanish Ornos/oven. “Rounding the Horn” was the expression to describe the difficult and often perilous task of navigating the ever swelling seas and converging currents of the Atlantic and the Pacific. It took them another sixty days to navigate the waters and make way for Valparaiso, a coastal town of Chile. While the name denotes “Valley of Paradise”, Sherman thought it unimpressive, “nothing more –he writes– than a few tiled cottages along a beach”. Located south of the equator, the season of spring was just beginning and while Sherman didn’t consider the landscape to be anything worth noting, he enjoyed the pleasant climate and the fresh strawberries then in season.

“All the necessary supplies being renewed in Valparaiso, the voyage was resumed. For nearly forty days we had uninterrupted favorable winds being in the “trades” and having settled down to sailor habits, time passed without notice. ”

W.T. Sherman Memoirs – Volume I

Along the way they encountered other ships and learned of news of their destination of California.  Mexico recently ceded their territories and the U.S. navy had already taken possession of the ports. John C. Fremont and his exploration party were scouting the area and General Kearney was en route by overland. The news coupled by avid reading of books stoking everyone’s imagination of what they would find in this new land, made Sherman and his colleagues ever more eager to press on to their military or peace keeping assignments (they didn’t know which) in Monterey.

Sherman reports that they arrived to the coast of California by the end of January. But while both the Spanish and English maps concurred on the currents alongside the coast they did not agree on the longitude. This coupled with a fierce storm, typical in January caused them to overshoot the Monterey port and they weren’t able to make a correction southward for several days.  Once the storm subsided Sherman writes;

“Slowly the land came out of the water, the high mountains about Santa Cruz, the low beach of the Salinas, and the strongly-marked ridge terminating in the sea in a point of dark pine trees, marking out the Monterey Bay.”

W. T. Sherman Memoirs-Volume I
Monterey Bay -Albert Bierstadt

Categories
Culture and Value History of the West US History

Round the Horn to California, Sherman’s First Voyage, Part 2

Continuation of W.T. Sherman’s voyage to California in 1846 based on his letters home.

USS Lexington

This day is usually among sailors a species of April Fools Day when all sorts of practical jokes are enacted upon the persons of those who have never crossed the line….

Letter dated “At Sea” August 28 1846

Writes Sherman as the USS Lexington crossed the equator heading southward to Rio de Janeiro. He continues his description of the rite of initiation or hazing depending on your perspective or experience of the practices on board sailing vessels traversing the equator–the imaginary line dividing the northern and southern hemispheres of planet earth.

19th century etching of “crossing the line” initiation aboard the Medusse (public domain)

Old Neptune usually mounts the bow of the ship, dripping with his brine and accompanied by his beautiful wife. They then proceed to initiate the novices. Our ship is a war vessel and such irregularities are not permitted and it was forbidden to our men for the simple reason that those that have been south of the equator bear too small a proportion to the fresh men that Old Neptune’s decrees might not be enforced by his accepted children. The ship was pronounced on the equator at eight this forenoon…. I was summoned to the Captain’s cabin where a holy stone; [in reality] a piece of hard stone used for cleaning decks–was presented for me to rest my hand for an oath…”

At Sea, August 28, 1846

The solemn moment included a list of prohibitions unless of course one preferred them. The pledge ended  with: 

so help you salt water–a dash of which was sprinkled on my face and I was then duly initiated.

At Sea, August 28, 1846

In turn, Sherman ‘baptized’ his fellow officers, with salt water as he administered the oath. My guess is Sherman added this last detail to amuse or annoy  the more pious readers of his letters, his future wife included.

This is the only ceremony which distinguishes this day from any other, and now as we consult the charts and maps there appears a dark magic line separating us from our friends and homes.  This must again be crossed after weeks of sailing around Cape Horn

At Sea, August 28, 1846

He sent his letter with a small French sailing vessel calculating that his sister would receive it by mid September about the time he would arrive to the colorful tropical city of Rio de Janeiro a welcome reprieve from the monotony of water travel of the first several weeks. 

“Forty-six days have now passed since our departure and looking back upon them nothing is seen that will leave an impression save the monotonous flight of time.”

At Sea, August 28, 1846
The ship’s deck Edourd Manet (c. 1860)

The observant Sherman took note of his explorations of the cultural and natural beauty in the cities of Rio de Janeiro and Valparaiso while their ship restocked en-route to  California.  But by mid November the endless days and nights at sea and under its mercy and vengeance as the case may be exasperated him.  His frank reassessment of the voyage reveals his overall impression of sea travel. As the ship was about to head due north through the Pacific Sherman hints at his budding dream which would become his life long passion; safe and efficient transportation across the continent of the northern hemisphere.

If you hear of a subscription opening to dig a canal across the Isthmus of Panama, you may put me down any amount for really I do not fancy a voyage of twenty-four thousand miles to accomplish a distance of less than two thousand.”

November, 1846
Categories
Culture and Value US History

Sherman in Savannah

The city of Savannah was an old place, and usually accounted a handsome one. W.T.S. Memoirs Vol II

“I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the city of Savannah with one hundred and fifty heavy guns and plenty of ammunition, also about twenty five thousand bales of cotton. “

Letter to President Lincoln December 22, 1864

Sherman wrote to President Lincoln shortly after bringing the Georgia campaign to a close by establishing the Union army following the city’s peaceful surrender.  An acquaintance “suggested that I might [send] a welcome Christmas gift to the President, Mr. Lincoln, who peculiarly enjoyed such pleasantry. I accordingly sat down and wrote on a slip of paper, to be left at the telegraph-office for transmission.– He continues; his message actually reached him on Christmas-eve and was extensively published in the newspapers and made many a household unusually happy on that festive day; and it was the answer to this dispatch that Mr. Lincoln wrote me the letter of December 28th, beginning with the words “many, many thanks.”

No doubt a gift of a city is preposterous even outrageous. But for Sherman it was Savannah and not Atlanta that marked a change in tides in the war of secession. The confiscation of Confederates’ ammunition and cotton–ironically being sold to northern merchants to pay for their war against the Union– meant that he had effectively cut off their supplies and financial resources. More important by seizing the rebels’ stronghold deep in their own territory Grant’s army could focus on battling the dwindling but fiercely resolved armies of Lee. The end of the long, bloody war was in sight.

Sherman’s recollections of these days are not without understated hubris. They’re also peppered with ironic humor underscoring his relief and profound gratitude that the campaign was over and on his view, with minimal loss of life as he was able to avoid major battles by outmaneuvering his opponents.

The rebel army wasn’t Sherman’s biggest enemy and hence targets of his wrath. He was annoyed and angered by disinformation and ‘fake news’ of the press. Northern newspapers continued to accuse him of insanity and southern newspapers claimed his army was pillaging their land and livestock with no regard for life. He undoubtedly felt the sweetness of revenge when the northern papers had to admit in print that his strategies worked by informing the public of his ‘gift’ to the President. He placed strict rules on southern newspapers forbidding them to publish what he considered harmed the Union.

“No more than two newspapers will be published in Savannah; their editors and proprietors will be held to the strictest accountability, and will be punished severely in person and property, for any libelous publication, mischievous matter, premature news, exaggerated statements, or any comments whatever upon the actions of the constituted authorities; they will be held accountable for such articles even though copied from other papers. “

Special Field Order No. 143. No. 4

An advocate of freedom of press as we know it today, Sherman was not. He was amused that Confederate generals were requesting special care for their families and properties even while they were waging war against him.

“Before I had reached Savannah and during our stay there the rebel officers and newspapers represented the conduct of the men of our army as simply infamous; that we respected neither age nor sex; that we burned everything we came across …and perpetrated all manner of outrages on the inhabitants. Therefore it struck me as strange Generals Hardee and Smith should commit their families to our custody and even bespeak our personal care and attention.”

Sherman Memoirs II
The Entrance Hall in 1864, when it was being used as General Sherman’s Headquarters. A sketch by William Waud in 1864.

 

Sherman remained in Savannah through mid January.  Perhaps he wished to stay longer if not for its beauty but also as a respite from military drudgery. But he was ordered to move his army closer to Grant’s so they could close in on the remaining rebel armies led by Lee and Johnson. Before departing Sherman invited all die hard Confederates and dissenters to leave the city providing safe passage to rejoin their friends and families in Charleston and Augusta. By his count two hundred people left the city ‘to join the fortunes of their husbands and fathers’.  He reestablished the authority of the mayor and city council to managed city’s affairs for the general interests of the people. He reports that: “The great bulk of the inhabitants chose to remain in Savannah, generally behaved with propriety, and good social relations at once arose between them and the army”. Churches reopened for worship. Stores and markets also “reopened, and provisions …were established, so that each family, regardless of race, color or opinion, could procure all the necessaries of life—if they had money.” For those who didn’t which were many, he made arrangement for food and other supplies to be acquired for “gratuitous distribution, which relieved the most pressing wants until the revival of trade and business enabled the people to provide for themselves.”

Amidst the demands of reestablishing public order for a besieged city of 20,000 and making preparations for the next segment of the campaign which he considered as more dangerous, Sherman found time to write a long letter to his wife and children.  Most likely the second half of his salutation is what gave them their most profound joy:

 “This is Christmas Day and I hope truly and really that you and the little ones may enjoy it, in the full knowledge that I am all safe after our long March.”  December 25, 1865 

Home Letters of General Sherman 1909