This paper examines Sherman's growth as a strategic thinker and successful strategist. It explores how his life shaped him to fill the role that he did in the Civil War and what things contributed to his development into the soldier who could plan and execute the North's strategy in the last year of the war. It also focuses on specific instances of success and failure that led him to the position from which he could influence, if not actually author, the strategy followed by the Union in the last year of the war. It also examines what Sherman brought to his relationship with Ulysses S. Grant and how that relationship affected the evolving strategy that guided the Union Army after Grant ascended to the leadership of all Union Armies.