5/12: Civil War Roundtable: William Tecumseh Sherman
“Yankees in Georgia! How did they ever get in!!! Uncle Peter!!! My smelling salts!!!” So exclaimed Aunt Pittypat, in Gone With the Wind.
The “Yankees in Georgia,” of course, were led by Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman, who would shortly gain infamy across the South by burning Atlanta, carving a sixty-mile-wide swarth across Georgia during his “March to the Sea,” then turning northwards to burn Columbia, South Carolina. Yet Sherman, who spent many pre-Civil War years in the South, including serving as president of a Louisiana military academy (the predecessor to Louisiana State University), called himself the South’s greatest friend. Nor was this nonsense. At war’s end, Sherman granted Confederate General Jospeh E. Johnston’s army surrender terms that were so extraordinarily lenient towards not only his army but the Confederacy generally that Sherman was accused of treason.
Even in his own age Sherman was controversial. Deemed a military genius at times but literally called “insane” early in the war by hostile Northern newspapers, Sherman travelled a remarkable path to historical greatness. Yet Sherman always seemed unsure of his own identity. Losing his father at an early age, the nine-year-old was forced to convert to Catholicism before a neighborhood family would take him in. He later would marry his adopted sister, but Sherman’s family life often was unsettled. By turns a soldier, businessman, banker, lawyer, and educator, the Civil War offered Sherman a new opportunity to find himself, even as he prepared to go to war against many men he had counted as personal friends. But building a new friendship with a man called U.S. Grant, Sherman fought not just rebels but his own passionate nature, striving to craft a new identity as one of the saviors of the Union. Truly, there was fire in the man, but also a remarkably interesting man behind the fire.
To present this fascinating story of the real man behind the Hollywood stereotype, on Tuesday, May 12, 2026, the Roanoke Civil War Round Table—winner of a Kegley Award for Heritage Education [see https://roanokepreservation.org/preservation-awards/]—will host Derek Maxfield, who will explore “Man of Fire: William Tecumseh Sherman in the Civil War.”
A retired multiple award-winning associate professor of history, Derek has written for Emerging Civil War since 2015 and has written two titles for the ECW book series – Hellmira: The Union’s Most Infamous Civil War Prison Camp – Elmira, NY (Savas Beatie, 2020) and Man of Fire: William Tecumseh Sherman in the Civil War (Savas Beatie, 2023).
Date, Time & Location: Tuesday, May 12, 2026 (7:00 pm), Chapel of the Residents’ Center at Friendship, 397 Hershberger Road, Roanoke, VA, 24012. Admission $5.00 for Non-Round Table Members (and becoming a Round Table member is welcome).
