Brian Holden Reid offers a definitive biography of William Tecumseh Sherman, among the most important Union generals in the Civil War, best remembered for his March to the Sea campaign. Essential reading and an instant standard in the field, Holden Reid's The Life of William Tecumseh Sherman....will profit students of military history for years to come...For all of its erudition and scope, and more than its decisive refutation of the false view that Sherman inaugurated total war in the American context, The Scourge of War never loses sight of Sherman's humanity. Indeed, its author has demonstrated why his subject remains one of the most compelling figures of the Civil War and Reconstruction eras. The story of Sherman's life is improbable, almost incredible, and yet relatable.