Title: Sherman and Peabody
Material: oil on canvas
Size: 60×48
Year: 2001
I find that I am sometimes so fascinated with painting that it amounts to pain to lay down the brush, placing me in doubt whether I had better stop now before it swallows all attention, to the neglect of my duties. — William Tecumseh Sherman
In 1864 General William Tecumseh Sherman suckered Confederate general John Bell Hood out from a great defensive position and proceeded to wreck his army, right where you are presently standing if you are standing near Peachtree Creek in Atlanta. Sherman feigned to expose his flank, but then he moved a brigade overnight and plugged the hole that he had previously, deliberately shown. The next morning Hood ordered an attack on the previously exposed flank, and his poor army got trapped in the ravine. One might say John Bell was Hood-winked.
Pictured here is a tense meeting between the seldom-patient General Sherman and the equally talkative Mr. Peabody from the “Rocky and Bullwinkle Show”, in front of Peabody’s Way-back Machine (time machine). Sitting in for Peabody’s usual sidekick, also named Sherman, is the genuine article, Uncle Willie Sherman himself. Unfortunately, Peabody’s observations that day were either not recorded or are lost to history, and Sherman hated losing, even if it took the form of losing observations to history.
Choose your myths wisely, my friend.