I had clean forgotten the LSU/whatever it was connection. I know when I read his biography I ended up being more confused than I was when I started it. He's a lesson in contradictions. I guess when we were growing up, Sherman was taught so he looked like a Union version of what they thought of N.B. Forrest. As a kid, just looking at his picture one could see the red eyes and some of the devil horns just inside the hairline. Then I read a few books about him. As much as I didn't want to, I came away if not downright liking him, at least respecting him. The same thing with Grant. Had there not been a war, we'd probably never have heard much of anything on Lee, Jackson, Stuart, Grant or Sherman. Not leaving out Johnson or Longstreet, just makes a long list. Anyhow, none of them show up as boogy men but with the circumstances they were placed in, they did their very best to complete the mission they set out to do. Sherman did tear up Georgia. He did do some things that were just not nice but I guess if I'm honest I have to agree he was doing his job. Not that he'd have been given the blank paper to write his own orders on how to do it but had he been with the South, there'd probably be a lot more stories from our side of the divide.
Well, gotta back track. He didn't have to give the ok to send the Roswell Women away. Oh, and he wasn't all that caring about the slaves who believed he came to set them free either. Left em at the river to drown, starve or run.
Lee did his job, and he used his good manners doing it. Maybe that's where it started "going South". It's got to be hard commanding an army and be nice too.

Pam