William Earnest Hocking

William Tecumseh Sherman ( tih-KUM-sə; February 8, 1820 – February 14, 1891) was an American soldier, businessman, educator, and author. He served as a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War (1861–1865), earning recognition for his command of military strategy but criticism for the harshness of his scorched-earth policies, which he implemented in his military campaign against the Confederate States. British military theorist and historian B. H. Liddell Hart declared that Sherman was "the most original genius of the American Civil War" and "the first modern general". Born in Lancaster, Ohio, into a politically prominent family, Sherman graduated in 1840 from the United States Military Academy at West Point. In 1853, he interrupted his military career to pursue private business ventures, without much success.