my hero william sherman my maternal grandmother claimed ancestry to albert sydney johnston. i grew up hearing in the morning that william sherman was a monster and johnston was a saint. it has always been in my mind as well as the death oft victor hanson in okinawa. i had a personal relationship with these battles. when the battle was over two and a half days later the world took note. this was the first mass battle with rifled musketry. there were more casualties than all the bat unless the history of the american republic up to that time put together. 24,000 casualties and at least almost 2,000 killed. this is child's play compared to the wilderness or antietam or gettysburg. but at this period it was shocking. what the south tried to do with this army was to go up the tennessee river, reclaim the border states and go into southern ohio and threaten cincinnati. they almost did it. sunday morning they got this army. no one thought they could do it. johnston brought it within a few hundred yards of the union line and no one knew it was there. they attacked at dawn. they almo