artment of the Cumberland, with head-quarters at Louisville,
Ky. From thenceforth all his fighting and all his fame was associated
with the armies of the West.

At once he saw the desperate condition of affairs in Kentucky--a
border State, only to be held for the Union by prompt and decisive
measures. He called for reinforcements frequently and emphatically,
and when the Secretary of War visited him on a tour of inspection, and
asked his views on the situation, Sherman paralyzed him by asserting
that for the defence of Kentucky, 60,000 men were needed at once, and
that 200,000 would be necessary there before the war in that State
could be ended. This was so out of proportion to the Secretary's
estimate that Sherman was declared crazy; he was deprived of his
command at the front and relegated to a camp of instruction near St.
Louis.

But so shrewd and correct an observer, so energetic a leader, and so
determined a fighter, could not long be left in retirement, and in
February, 1862, General Sherman was ordered to assume command of the
forces at Paducah, Ky. Desperate fighting soon followed. The battle of
Shiloh (sometimes called Pittsburg Landing) showed of what stuff the
"crazy Sherman," as the newspapers had called him, was made, and from
Shiloh's bloody field in 1862, to Johnston's surrender at Raleigh in
1865, Sherman's fame rose steadily, until it left him one of the three
greatest generals of the Civil War, and one of the famous commanders
of the century.

From Shiloh to Raleigh, Sherman stood, in a measure, as Grant's right
hand, for, even when Grant was "hammering away" in Virginia, Sherman,
by his strategy, shrewdness, and daring in the West was giving him
material support and help. In the three years of fighting, from 1862
to 1865, these events stand prominently out in Sherman's military
record--the tenacity with which he held the right of the line at
Shiloh, the faithful service he rendered as commander of the left
before Vicksburg, his rapid relief of Knoxville, his brilliant capture
of Atlanta, his daring and famous march to the sea and the capture of
Savannah, his equally daring march through the Carolinas to the help
of Grant, and his final capture of Johnston's army, which was the real
close of the war.

In all these events the peculiar traits of character that made Sherman
so conspicuous a success stood out in bold relief--his coolness in
danger, his bravery in action, his daring in devices, his rea