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Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman lives on as a larger-than-life determine within the oft-told annals of American army historical past.
The most intimate and unknown particulars of the person behind the legend are uncovered at the Sherman House Museum in Lancaster, Ohio.
It opens for the season at the moment, Wednesday, April 10.
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“Sometimes we turn these heroes, like we’ve done with George Washington, almost into gods. I think that does a disservice to them,” Michael Johnson, director of the Sherman House Museum, instructed Fox News Digital.
“I think it needs to be presented that these were ordinary people who did extraordinary things when the moment came, and that’s what set them apart.”
Gen. William T. Sherman was born on this house in Lancaster, Ohio on Feb. 8, 1820. It’s now the Sherman House Museum and opens for the season this 12 months on April 10, 2024. (Kerry J. Byrne/Fox News Digital)
Sherman was born within the house in 1820 and lived there till his father died when the longer term West Point cadet and U.S. Army legend, one of 11 kids, was simply 9 years previous.
The general has lengthy been remembered as a fearsome army commander, which included a infamous fame within the American south.
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But the legend of the warrior overshadows the thoughtful artist discovered at the Sherman House Museum: patron of the theater, Renaissance man and beloved old commander called “Uncle Billy” by his men long after the war.
The museum displays a copy of Sherman’s brilliant illustration, “Death of Centaur,” which he drew while a cadet at the United States Military Academy.
General William Tecumseh Sherman on horseback during the American Civil War, circa 1864. (Buyenlarge/Getty Images)
The original still hangs at West Point today.
“Artistry ran through the Sherman family,” said Johnson. “He loved the theater and he loved the arts. He finished top of his class at West Point in art.”
“Artistry ran through the Sherman family. He loved the theater and he loved the arts.”
The museum displays needlepoint by the soldier’s mother, Mary Hoyt Sherman, and four chairs carved with scenes from Shakespeare’s plays.
Sherman had the chairs made after the war when he lived in New York City, where he became a prominent supporter of its famous theater scene.
“Death of a Centaur,” an illustration by West Point cadet William Tecumseh Sherman. The original drawing by the future general hangs at the U.S. Military Academy and a copy is found at the Sherman House Museum in Lancaster, Ohio. (Michael Johnson/Sherman House Museum photo of authorized copy from USMA at West Point)
Among other little-known contributions to American history: Sherman, while living in New York, personally selected Ellis Island as the location to place the Statue of Liberty, gifted by the people of France.
The life of the man known at the Sherman House Museum contrasts sharply with the fearsome wartime leader.
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Sherman led the Union power that overran and burned the little crossroads metropolis of Atlanta to the bottom in November 1864.
It was a cultural watershed occasion in American historical past. Among different issues, the burning of Atlanta impressed the beloved Civil War fictional epic “Gone With the Wind.”
General William T. Sherman was a gifted artist who supported theater. Chairs on the Sherman House Museum in Lancaster, Ohio, embrace depictions of Shakespearean drama the general had made after the Civil War. This chair gives a scene from “Macbeth.” (Michael Johnson/Sherman House Museum)
He then led his troops on a conquest of Georgia all the best way to Savannah. It’s gone down in historical past as Gen. Sherman’s notorious “March to the Sea.”
It’s thought-about a harbinger of the “total war” to observe within the twentieth century.
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American GIs in World War II marched to victory throughout Europe and Asia supported by some 50,000 Sherman tanks, including to the legend of his identify.
Sherman lived a captivating life earlier than the Civil War, too, mentioned Johnson.
Wiliam T. Sherman was born in 1820 in Lancaster, Ohio. His birthplace is now the Sherman House Museum. (Kerry J. Byrne/Fox News Digital; Apic/Bridgeman through Getty Images)
He graduated from West Point in 1840 and retired from the Army for the primary time in 1853.
In 1859, the person later infamous for ravaging the South took a job as the primary superintendent of the Louisiana State Seminary of Learning & Military Academy.
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He returned to service for the Union when Louisiana seceded from the Union in January 1861.
The southern establishment the Ohio native helped set up is understood at the moment as Louisiana State University.
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