"A quarter of a century has passed since this contribution made its mark in the field of Civil War literature. To appreciate the immensity of Mr. Lewis' accomplishment we must reacquaint ourselves with the central character from a time perspective. William Tecumseh Sherman was indeed a dazzling individual whose military strategy was later studied by European and American experts in war colleges. The first world war found Sherman's tactics adopted on a universal basis—destroying the economic foundation of one's enemy and raiding deep into his territory.... Bruce Cation's new appraisal as an introductory feature hits the nail squarely on the head when he remarks: Sherman was, in other words, a man of contradictory aspects, and the great virtue of Lewis' book is that it shows how those different aspects became a part of the man's character and how they finally were welded into a coherent whole. Lewis was able to do this partly because he had studied everything Sherman did and said with perceptive care, and partly because he always saw Sherman as expressing the inner spirit of the unsophisticated, poorly trained, matter-of-fact young men who fought under him. This is no ordinary military biography. It is rich in anecdotes and detail and has withstood die test of time in terms of its literary merits."