William Tecumseh Sherman (February 8, 1820 – February 14, 1891) is an American soldier, businessman, educator and author.

He serves as a General in the Union Army during the American Civil War (1861–65), for which he receives recognition for his outstanding command of military strategy as well as criticism for the harshness of the "scorched earth" policies that he implements in conducting total war against the Confederate States.

Military historian B. H. Liddell Hart famously declared that Sherman was "the first modern general".

(Liddell Hart, B. H., Sherman: Soldier, Realist, American, Dodd, Mead & Co., 1929.

Reprinted in 1993 by Da Capo Press) Sherman serves under General Ulysses S. Grant in 1862 and 1863 during the campaigns that lead to the fall of the Confederate stronghold of Vicksburg on the Mississippi River and culminate with the routing of the Confederate armies in the state of Tennessee.

In 1864, Sherman succeeds Grant as the Union commander in the western theater of the war.

He proceeds to lead his troops to the capture of the city of Atlanta, a military success that contributes to the reelection of President Abraham Lincoln.

Sherman's subsequent march through Georgia and the Carolinas further undermine the Confederacy's ability to continue fighting.

He accepts the surrender of all the Confederate armies in the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida in April 1865.

When Grant assumes the U.S. presidency in 1869, Sherman succeeds him as Commanding General of the Army (1869–83).

As such, he is responsible for the U.S. Army's engagement in the Indian Wars over the next 15 years, in the western United States.

He steadfastly refuses to be drawn into politics and in 1875 publishes his Memoirs, one of the best-known firsthand accounts of the Civil War.