In the Notable Americans series, the story of the Civil War general's life, with due emphasis given to his unhappy experiences before the war and to his successful strategies and campaigns during it. Whitelaw (Margaret Sanger, 1994, etc.) is remarkably evenhanded in the treatment of her subject: No attempt is made to glorify the man or to gloss over his failures; she neither rationalizes his actions or villifies him, and the result is a straightforward, gripping story, with the views and actions of Sherman (he favored slavery before the war and opposed black voting rights after) stated factually and without editorializing. With black-and-white photographs and maps, the layout is rather bland, but the text could serve as something of a model of biography for young readers. (b&w photos, notes, chronology, bibliography, index) (Biography. 10-12)
