William tecumseh sherman strengths and weaknesses interview

Civil war–era biographies that can double as doorstops seem to be in vogue again. Frederick Douglass, Ulysses S. Grant, and now William T. Sherman, the Union’s second most famous general and, arguably, its first modern one.

More than 90 years ago, an English military historian, Sir B.H. Liddell Hart, portrayed Sherman as the dominant military genius of the Civil War. Brian Holden Reid, now England’s foremost expert on the Americans’ great internal conflict, generally agrees with Liddell Hart’s assessment. But Reid’s conclusion that “the subject of Sherman’s military career is far from closed in terms of scholarly or public scrutiny” will no longer be true.

The paradox of William T. Sherman - Washington Times

His deeply researched and deftly argued investigation will likely prove to be the definitive one for the foreseeable future.

While Reid’s biography takes the formal chronological approach, he approaches Sherman’s generalship the way a military analyst would. Reid’s analysis rests on three military arts. First, he seeks to exp