The myth is based in Field Order Number 15, which was supposed to give land to blacks for resettlement in Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida. The author of that order was William Tecumseh Sherman.

William Tecumseh ... Sherman's veteran troops had come to love his quirky, unkempt style, his intelligence that some felt verged on craziness, and his fighting spirit. ''I'd follow Uncle Billy ...

O'Connell says at the outset of this interesting, if peculiar, study of the life of William Tecumseh Sherman that many ... To his men he was “Uncle Billy,” a persona he carefully cultivated ...