Grand Review painting

Watercolor painting on paper depicting William T. Sherman's Army in the Grand Review in Washington, D.C., in May 1865 after the surrender of the Confederacy. The watercolor shows Sherman's veterans with battle-torn flags marching down Pennsylvania Avenue in the last review before disbanding at the end of the Civil War. The artist signed and dated the work "James E. Taylor July 1st, 1881." Eleanor Sherman Fitch of Manhattan City, New York, the granddaughter of General William T. Sherman, bequeathed this painting to the Ohio Historical Society in 1957. William Tecumseh Sherman (1820-1891) was born in Lancaster, Ohio. Orphaned at age nine, he was raised by Thomas Ewing, a U.S. senator who also served as secretary of the treasury and secretary of the interior. After graduating sixth in his class from the United States Military Academy at West Point, Sherman served in the Mexican War, but left the army in 1853. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Sherman accepted a position as a colonel in the regular army. He became known for his tactics of property damage and psychological warfare against the southern people, best illustrated by his march through Georgia. His goal was to convince the southern people to stop the war and prevent more battlefield deaths. Sherman died in 1891 in New York City