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Zusatztext “Brilliantly written and researched biography…a must read.”—Douglas Brinkley “John S. D. Eisenhower! who knows something about generals and soldiering! has written a marvelous biography of a much misunderstood man.”—Evan Thomas “Only U.S. Grant could have written a truer portrait of William Tecumseh Sherman.”—Sidney Blumenthal Informationen zum Autor John S. D. Eisenhower was a brigadier general (Army Reserves), a U.S. ambassador to Belgium during the Nixon administration, and the author of numerous works of military history and biography. The son of Dwight D. Eisenhower, he lived in Maryland. Klappentext Civil War general William Tecumseh Sherman earned a place in history as "the first modern general,” yet behind his reputation as a fierce warrior was a sympathetic man of complex character. A century and a half after the Civil War, Sherman remains one of its most controversial figures—the soldier who brought the fight not only to the Confederate Army, but to Confederate civilians as well. Yet Eisenhower, a West Point graduate and a retired brigadier general (Army Reserves), finds in Sherman a man of startling contrasts, not at all defined by the implications of "total war.” His scruffy, disheveled appearance belied an unconventional and unyielding intellect. Intensely loyal to superior officers, especially Ulysses S. Grant, he was also a stalwart individualist. Dubbed "no soldier” during his years at West Point, Sherman later rose to the rank of General of the Army, and he had great affection for the people of the South despite his commitment to the Union cause. In this remarkable reassessment of Sherman's life and career, Eisenhower takes readers from Sherman's Ohio origins and his fledgling first stint in the Army to his years as a businessman in California and his hurried return to uniform at the outbreak of the war. From Bull Run through Sherman's epic March to the Sea, Eisenhower offers up a fascinating narrative of a military genius whose influence helped preserve the Union. Leseprobe FOREWORD It is hard to articulate the sum of a life. But my father, John S. D. Eisenhower, who died before the publication of this book, produced a loving family and accomplished his professional goals. The only surviving son of Mamie and General and President Dwight D. Eisenhower, John Eisenhower wore his father’s fame with dignity and resolve. By midcareer, he had gotten into “the writing game” to fulfill his desire to be an author. He also knew it would help him create an identity of his own. In the succeeding decades he made an independent reputation for himself, becoming what the Washington Post called “a soldier, diplomat and acclaimed historian.” John Eisenhower’s life was utterly shaped by the military. As a young man, he moved with his parents from army assignment to assignment, in places like Panama and the Philippines. After high school he sought an appointment to West Point. After three years he graduated from the Academy coincidentally on June 6, 1944, just hours after the invasion of Normandy had begun. He served in intelligence posts in Europe before the war ended, and later in combat operations in Korea. He left the Army in 1963 to pursue his love of writing. Becoming a military historian was, for John Eisenhower, more than a vocation. “Putting pen to paper” is not just what he did; being a writer is who he was. He knew this even before he graduated from West Point. After VE Day he got a master’s degree at Columbia University and was assigned to the English Department at West Point. Between 1948 and 1951, he was, in his own words, “able to learn much of what he and the Class of 1944 had missed because of West Point’s [foreshortened graduation schedule] during the war.” His master’s thesis was on the role of the military in William Shakespeare’s work. In addition to military histori...
