In 1859 after having failed at a variety of career endeavors William Tecumseh Sherman tried to get back into the U.S. Army. Failing at this also he learned that in Louisiana a new military school was being established called the Louisiana State Seminary of Learning and Military Academy. He applied for the position as its superintendent, was accepted, and began his new job on November 12, 1859. Despite the fact that he was a Northerner in the deep South during turbulent times, things were going well. As talk regarding secession increased Sherman wrote to his wife Ellen- All here talk as if a dissolution of the Union were not only a possibility but a probability but a probability of easy execution. If attempted, we will have Civil War of a most horrible kind.

South Carolina seceded on December 20, 1860 and Sherman learned of the news 4 days later. In a communication with his friend from Virginia David French Boyd, Professor of ancient languages at the seminary, he stated-

You people of the South don’t know what you are doing. This country will be drenched in blood, and God only knows how it will end. It is all folly, madness, a crime against civilization. You people speak so lightly of war; you don’t know what you’re talking about. War is a terrible thing. You mistake, too, the people of the North. They are a peaceable people but an earnest people, and they will fight, too. They are not going to let this country be destroyed without a mighty effort to save it. Besides, where are your men and appliances of war to contend against them? The North can make a steam engine, locomotive, or railway car; hardly a yard of cloth or pair of shoes can you make. You are rushing into war with one of the most powerful, ingeniously mechanical, and determined people on Earth right at your doors. You are bound to fail. Only in your spirit and determination are you prepared for war. In all else you are totally unprepared, with a bad cause to start with. At first you will make headway, but as your limited resources begin to fail, shut out from the markets of Europe as you will be, your cause will begin to wane. If your people will but stop and think, they must see in the end that you will surely fail.

Time would prove Sherman correct.

The pictures below were taken in Pineville, Louisiana at the site of the former Louisiana State Seminary of Learning and Military Academy (31.3577333, -92.4363167), which subsequently moved to Baton Rouge and became Louisiana State University.

This is the second post in the six-part series The War Begins. The story continues in part 3- The First Shot/Fort Johnson.