The sixth child of Judge Charles Robert Sherman
and his wife, Mary Hoyt, Tecumseh was taken in by family friend Thomas Ewing
after the death of his father. Growing up in a staunchly Roman Catholic
household, he adopted the name William when the priest refused to baptise
him with a 'heathen' name. Depite the addition, he was generally known among
family and friends as "Cump". Thomas Ewing, representing Ohio in the U.S.
Senate, secured him an appointment to West Point where he excelled. His military
career, however, seemed to languish, particularly when his requests for combat
duty in the Mexican War were denied. He left the Army in the 1850's, trying
his hand at first banking and then law, but failed at both. A successful
tenure as superintendent of a new military academy in Louisiana was cut short
after only two years, when Louisiana rebelled against the Union. Tecumseh's
brother, Senator John Sherman, secured him a commission as colonel in the
Army, but he was quickly dismissed for refusing to commit his ill-prepared
soldiers to combat. Comissioned an officer of volunteers, he commanded forces
under his West Point classmate Ulysses Grant. Under the like-minded Grant,
Sherman's military career prospered, ultimately succeeding Grant as commander
of Union forces in the West. After the war, Sherman resided in St. Louis,
commanding the Army's division of the Mississippi. In March of 1869, the
newly-inaugurated President Ulysses Grant appointed him Commanding General
of the Army, a post he held until 1883. After his retirement, he was a sought-after
public speaker and president of the Society of the Army of Tennessee.
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