He captured the cities of Atlanta, and Savannah, Georgia in 1864 presenting the latter as a Christmas present to President Lincoln

His infamous march from Atlanta to the sea laid waste to much of Georgia

General in Chief of the United States Army

Signature with rank of general

(1820-1891) He was born in Lancaster, Ohio, and graduated #6 in the West Point class of 1840. Sherman roomed with and befriended another important future Civil War general for the Union, George H. Thomas. Fellow cadet William S. Rosecrans remembered Sherman as "one of the brightest and most popular fellows" at the academy and as "a bright-eyed, red-headed fellow, who was always prepared for a lark of any kind." Upon his graduation he entered the army as a second lieutenant in the 3rd U.S. Artillery, and saw action in Florida in the Second Seminole War. In 1859, Sherman accepted a job as the first superintendent of the Louisiana State Seminary of Learning & Military Academy, in Pineville, Louisiana, a position he sought at the suggestion of future Union General, then Major Don Carlos Buell. He was an effective and popular leader of the institution, which would later become Louisiana State University. William T. Sherman rose to be one of the Union's most renowned military leaders, and saw action at 1st Bull Run, Shiloh, Chickasaw Bluffs, Arkansas Post, Vicksburg, Missionary Ridge, Atlanta, the infamous March to the Sea which took on his name, and the 1865 Carolina's campaign. He received the surrender of Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston's army, at Greensboro, N.C., on April 26, 1865. Sherman continued in the Regular Army after the war, and became a Lieutenant General on July 25, 1866, and Full General, on March 4, 1869. In June 1865, two months after Lee's surrender at Appomattox, Sherman received his first postwar command, originally called the Military Division of the Mississippi, later the Military Division of the Missouri, which came to comprise the territory between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains. Sherman's efforts in that position were focused on protecting the main wagon roads, such as the Oregon, Bozeman, and Santa Fe Trails. When Ulysses S. Grant became president in 1869, Sherman was appointed Commanding General of the United States Army, and promoted to the rank of full general. After the death of ex-Union General John A. Rawlins, Sherman served for one month as acting Secretary of War. Sherman lived most of the rest of his life in New York City. He was devoted to the theater and to amateur painting and was in demand as a colorful speaker at dinners and banquets, in which he indulged a fondness for quoting Shakespeare. Proposed as a Republican candidate for the presidential election of 1884, Sherman declined as emphatically as possible, saying, "I will not accept if nominated and will not serve if elected." Sherman died of pneumonia in New York City on February 14, 1891, six days after his 71st birthday. President Benjamin Harrison, who had served under General Sherman during the Civil War, sent a telegram to Sherman's family and ordered all national flags to be flown at half staff. Harrison, in a message to the Senate, and the House of Representatives, wrote that:

"He was an ideal soldier, and shared to the fullest the esprit de corps of the army, but he cherished the civil institutions organized under the Constitution, and was only a soldier that these might be perpetuated in undiminished usefulness and honor."

On February 19th, a funeral service was held at his home, followed by a military procession. Joseph E. Johnston, the Confederate general who had commanded the resistance to Sherman's troops in Georgia and the Carolina's, served as a pallbearer in New York City. It was a bitterly cold day and a friend of Johnston, fearing that the general might become ill, asked him to put on his hat. Johnston replied: "If I were in Sherman's place, and he were standing in mine, he would not put on his hat." Johnston did catch a serious cold and died one month later of pneumonia. Sherman's body was then transported to St. Louis, where another service was conducted at a local Catholic church on February 21, 1891. His son, Thomas Ewing Sherman, who was a Jesuit priest, presided over his father's funeral masses in New York City, and in St. Louis. Former U.S. President, and Civil War General Rutherford B. Hayes, who attended both ceremonies, said at the time that General William T. Sherman had been "the most interesting and original character in the world." He is buried in Calvary Cemetery in St. Louis.

Sherman's younger brother John, served as a U.S. Congressman from Ohio, and was a prominent advocate against slavery.

Autograph With Rank: 5 x 3 1/4, in ink, this is the closing of a letter Sherman wrote and it includes his closing salutation and rank. "Reciprocating fully your kind Remembrance, I am truly Your friend & Kinsman, W.T. Sherman, General." Light age toning and wear. Very fine. There are another 6 lines in Sherman's hand on the reverse talking about his wife, six children and a daughter who was married in St. Louis who has two children, his grandchildren. Very nice example of the signature and handwriting of "Uncle Billy" Sherman! Always a desirable autograph.