THE GENERAL WHO MARCHED TO HELL (349 pp.)Earl Schenck MiersKnopf ($4.50).
GENERAL WILLIAM T. SHERMAN INSANE.
The headlined scandal broke on Dec. 11, 1861, in the columns of the Cincinnati Commercial. A dispatch explained: "He was . . . while commanding in Kentucky, stark mad . . . He has of course been relieved altogether from command."
Hostile journalists actually thought they had evidence of Sherman's insanity. In the midst of a slow, steady advance toward the Cumberland Gap, the report went, Sherman began to imagine shadowy Confederate cavalrymen in the obscure offing. He ordered a halt, then pulled back in alarm, all quite...