Fierce Patriot: The Tangled Lives of William Tecumseh Sherman - Softcover

"A superb examination of the many facets of the iconic Union general who emerged as Ulysses S. Grant's most trusted battlefield commander. [Robert L.] O'Connell's biography of Sherman brings to life an enigmatic, fascinating figure who emerged a brilliant strategist and a master of maneuver, and whose victories in 1864 helped to ensure Abraham Lincoln's re-election and ultimately turned the tide of the Civil War."--General David Petraeus, Politico "Sherman's standing in American history is formidable. . . . It is hard to imagine any other biography capturing it all in such a concise and enlightening fashion."--National Review "A sharply drawn and propulsive march through the tortured psyche of the man."--The Wall Street Journal "[O'Connell's] narrative of the March to the Sea is perhaps the best I have ever read."--Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post "William Tecumseh Sherman is one of the great characters in American history--protean, highly effective, cunning, outrageous, and in every way memorable. He has found just the right biographer in Robert L. O'Connell. Fierce Patriot is a surprising, clever, wise, and powerful book."--Evan Thomas, author of Ike's Bluff: President Eisenhower's Secret Battle to Save the World "For those who think they know a lot about William Tecumseh Sherman, this book will be a revelation. Those who are meeting him for the first time will be equally mesmerized."--Thomas Fleming, author of A Disease in the Public Mind: A New Understanding of Why We Fought the Civil War "To his family and friends he was Cump; to his soldiers he was Uncle Billy; to generations of Southern whites he was the devil incarnate. But to biographer Robert L. O'Connell, William T. Sherman was the quintessential nineteenth-century American: full of energy, constantly on the move, pragmatic, adaptable, determined to overcome all obstacles, a nationalist and patriot who teamed with Grant and Lincoln to win the Civil War and launch America as a world power. This readable biography offers new insights on Sherman as a husband and father as well as a master strategist and leader."--James M. McPherson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era "A fascinating dissection of the multifaceted lives of William Tecumseh Sherman--military genius, brilliant organizer, inspired observer, and occasionally wayward husband. Sherman, O'Connell reminds us, was as brilliantly unpredictable on the battlefield as he was off it."--Victor Davis Hanson, The Hoover Institution, author of The Soul of Battle and Ripples of Battle "William Tecumseh Sherman has to be our premier grand strategist, who set unexpectedly bold boundaries, not just for war but for peace, and kept to them. In Fierce Patriot, Robert L. O'Connell has fashioned a remarkable, and remarkably original, portrait of one of the people who truly defined America."--Robert Cowley, founding editor of MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History "William Tecumseh Sherman was the most fiery, complicated, and inconsistent of America's great generals. In Robert L. O'Connell's aptly titled Fierce Patriot, he brings this conflicted American hero vividly to life. For both the Civil War buff and the general reader, Fierce Patriot offers new and arresting insights into this remarkable figure and his impact on the world in which he lived."--Charles Bracelen Flood, author of Grant and Sherman: The Friendship That Won the Civil War

With a unique, witty, and conversational voice historian Robert O'Connell breaks down the often paradoxical, easily caricatured character of General William T. Sherman for the most well-rounded portrait of the man yet written. There were many Shermans, according to O'Connell. Most prominently was Sherman the military strategist, who gained an appreciation of geography from early campaigns out west and applied it to his famed Civil War march. Then there was "Uncle Billy," Sherman's popular persona, the charismatic and beloved leader of the Army of the West, who was instrumental in the achievement of the transcontinental railroad in his post-war years. This Sherman, as O'Connell writes, was "the human embodiment of manifest destiny." From north to south and east to west, Sherman dedicated his life to keeping the United States united. Finally, there was Sherman the family man, whose tempestuous relationship with his wife (and stepsister!) Ellen is out of a Dickens novel. Throughout, O'Connell breaks down the misperceptions about Sherman. O'Connell makes a compelling case that Sherman's march through the south was not a campaign of unmitigated destruction, but a necessary piece of strategy and the perceived chaos has been overblown. O'Connell's Sherman is ultimately a complicated and quintessential nineteenth-century American.