Sherman was not opposed to slavery and he was in charge of a military Academy in Louisiana.
The issue here is that refusal to prosecute Forrest for his war crimes were professional courtesy, because manking noce with the Confederate generals was considered more important than prosecuting the murder of Black soldiers.
In 1859, Sherman accepted a job as the first superintendent of the Louisiana State Seminary of Learning & Military Academy in Pineville, a position he sought at the suggestion of Major D. C. Buell and secured because of General George Mason Graham.[26] He proved an effective and popular leader of that institution, which would later become Louisiana State University (LSU).[27] Colonel Joseph P. Taylor, the brother of the late President Zachary Taylor, declared that "if you had hunted the whole army, from one end of it to the other, you could not have found a man in it more admirably suited for the position in every respect than Sherman."[28]
Although his brother John was well known as an antislavery congressman, Sherman did not oppose slavery and was sympathetic to Southerners' defense of the institution. He opposed, however, any attempt at dissolving the Union.[29] On hearing of South Carolina's secession from the United States, Sherman observed to a close friend, Professor David F. Boyd of Virginia, an enthusiastic secessionist:
