For all of you history buffs, especially those who are keen to Catholic American history, Donald McClaren has an interesting article on the Shermans on The American Catholic website. The General was married to Ellen Ewing, a devout Catholic who bore him eight children. His children were all raised Catholic. Thomas, the Jesuit priest, was his eldest. Sherman was baptized a Catholic on his deathbed by his son. Sadly, after twenty years in the apostolate, Father Sherman had to leave the Jesuits after suffering some kind of nervous, stress-related breakdown brought on by his addiction to work. He spent the last years of his life under the care of a wealthy niece. Father Sherman renewed his vows as a Jesuit before his death in 1933. Interesting, too, he is buried in the Jesuit cemetery at Grand Coteau, Louisiana, next to Father John Salter, S.J, grandnephew of Alexander Stephens, Vice-President of the Confederacy.
Donald McClaren: Abraham Lincoln said that “A House divided against itself cannot stand”. Thomas Ewing Sherman was born into a House divided by religion on October 12, 1856. He was the son of William Tecumseh Sherman, at the time an obscure former officer, and Ellen Ewing Sherman. Ellen Sherman was a devout Catholic, and, I think, a saint. She constantly did good works and was a champion of the Church her entire life. Among her many activities was the foundation of the Catholic Indian Missionary Association, and a prominent role in the Golden Jubilee celebrations in the US of the reign of Pio Nono in 1877 for which she received the personal thanks of the Pope. Read the full article here.
