Fierce Patriot: The Tangled Lives of William Tecumseh Sherman

by Robert L. O'Connell Narrated by Andrew Garman

Overview

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 (indeed, one of the greatest strategists of all time), 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, and 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, bolstered both by contemporary journalists and by the work of modern historians. 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. Robert O' Connell worked as Senior Analyst at the U.S. Army Intelligence Agency's Foreign Science and Technology Center and was a contributing editor to MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

05/05/2014
Considered by various contemporaries to be insane, ruthless, and brilliant, William Tecumseh Sherman is a hard man to pin down. Here, O’Connell (The Ghosts of Cannae) expresses his concerns about unreadable academic histories and shallow popular histories by journalists “who often lack the background to see deep trends and long-term causation,” and instead focuses on Sherman as a strategist, soldier, and family man. However, the relationships O’Connell draws between activities in Sherman’s life feel forced, as with his likening military strategy to surfing: “Big waves and battle leave little room for piggishness.” Similarly, O’Connell employs rather idiosyncratic imagery, noting that Sherman was a “visual vacuum cleaner,” and that he and his wife were “mated like geese.” This manner of shaking the dust off Sherman’s story distracts from the portrait that O’Connell builds. Details like Sherman’s involvement with the discovery of gold in California in 1849, his genuine heartbreak when the South seceded, and even his apparent blindness to the horrors of slavery seem overshadowed by the writer’s techniques. O’Connell’s delivery of Sherman’s story is frustrating, especially because of the richness of the subject. (July)

From the Publisher

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

Kirkus Reviews

2014-05-07
An admiring triptych of the Civil War hero—or villain, depending on your loyalties—popular cultural figure and family man.Military history scholar O'Connell (The Ghosts of Cannae: Hannibal and the Darkest Hour of the Roman Republic, 2010) does not discover a lot about William Tecumseh Sherman (1820-1891) that he doesn't like. He divides his text into three major sections. The first, and by far the longest, begins with the arrival of the 16-year-old Sherman at West Point in 1836 ("he was beginning a process that would induct him into a warrior elite, forging bonds that would last a lifetime") and follows him to the end of the Civil War. In the second section, O'Connell focuses on Sherman's relationships with his men and on his soldiering. We hear (as we do in the first section) about his men's restraint during the March to the Sea through Georgia and the Carolinas. Sure, they burned houses and scavenged food and supplies, but they didn't rape or murder anyone. The final section of the triptych chronicles Sherman's family life: the early death of his father; his foster family (the politically powerful Ewings); his marriage to his foster sister, Ellen; his children (one son became a priest, a decision that angered Sherman); and his lovers (among them, sculptor Vinnie Ream). The author shows us a garrulous Sherman, a man who had difficulties in his banking career, a highly skilled administrator, a fearless leader, a man who bonded with Ulysses Grant (their relationship cooled when Grant pursued the presidency), and a leader who loved the adulation he enjoyed throughout his post-Civil War days—from his former soldiers and the general public.Although O'Connell excuses Sherman's excesses—he was the man we wanted, after all—he does show us his humanity with impressive clarity.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170378500
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	07/01/2014
Edition description:	Unabridged

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Part I
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