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CLASS OF 1840
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After West Point, the Ohio-born Sherman served at southern posts as an artillery officer before the Mexican War brought
him to California. Returning east in 1850, he married Ellen Ewing, daughter of the man who had raised him after his
father’s early death. They had eight children. Sherman resigned from the army in 1853, but struggled in civilian
life until 1859, when he happily became head of the Louisiana Military Seminary.
Secession drove Sherman north and the outbreak of war brought him back to the army. He rose to prominence with Ulysses
S. Grant in the Vicksburg and Chattanooga campaigns. When Grant moved east to take command of all Union armies, Sherman
launched the drive through Georgia and the Carolinas that devastated the Confederacy and made him famous. After the war,
he succeeded Grant as the army’s commanding general.
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