Diary of Orrin Brown, Savannah, Georgia
Wednesday–Jan. 4th
It did not rain much and the sky is clear this morning. Mr. Meeker was quite crasy this morning they have taken him to the hospital. Mr. Whipple has cut his foot so that he is almost helpless. I have been getting up wood and Jim Gifford went to the City. The weather is a little cooler again this evening. Read 3 Chapt. in Testament.
William Tecumseh Sherman was born 8 February 1820 at Lancaster, Ohio, to Charles Robert Sherman and Mary Hoyt Sherman. The elder Mr. Sherman was a lawyer who passed away in 1829, leaving his widow with 11 children. Young “Cump” was fostered by family friend Thomas Ewing, also an attorney and Whig Senator from Ohio (1830-37/1850-51). Ewing also became U.S. Secretary of the Treasury under Presidents William Henry Harrison and John Tyler, and the first U.S. Secretary of the Interior under Presidents Zachary Taylor and Millard Fillmore. Ewing was a powerful sponsor of Sherman’s military career, although the two often failed to see eye-to-eye. Sherman, it is said, even spent much of his career simply trying to grow out from under the shadow of his foster father and his politically-connected family, even while cementing his ties by marrying Ellen Ewing, his foster-sister.
Following the War, Ewing was nominated as U.S. Secretary of War by President Andrew Johnson in 1868 following his firing of Edwin Stanton, but the Senate refused to act on the nomination.
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