Louis, where another service was conducted at a local Catholic church on February 21, 1891. His son, Thomas Ewing Sherman, who was a Jesuit priest, presided over his father's funeral masses in New York City and in St. Louis. Former U.S. president and Civil War veteran Rutherford B. Hayes, who attended both ceremonies, said at the time that Sherman had been "the most interesting and original character in the world." He is buried in Calvary Cemetery in St. Louis. Religious views Sherman's birth family was Presbyterian and he was originally baptized as such. His foster mother, Maria Ewing, was devoutly Catholic and raised her own children in that faith. Sherman was re-baptized as a Catholic, but Maria's husband, Senator Thomas Ewing, insisted that the young Sherman not be compelled to practice Catholicism. Sherman observed but did not join in the religious ceremonies of the Ewing household. He later married his foster sister Ellen, who was also a devout Catholic. In 1864, she took up temporary residence in South Bend, Indiana in order to have her young family educated at the University of Notre Dame and St. Mary's College, both Catholic institutions. Sherman wrote to his wife in 1842: "I believe in good works rather than faith." In letters written in 1865 to Thomas, his eldest surviving son, General Sherman said "I don't want you to be a soldier or a priest, but a good useful man", and complained that Thomas's mother Ellen "thinks religion is so important that everything else must give way to it". Thomas's decision to abandon his career as a lawyer in 1878 to join the Jesuits and prepare for the Catholic priesthood caused Sherman profound distress, and he referred to it as a "great calamity". Father and son, however, were reconciled when Thomas returned to the United States in August 1880, after having travelled to England for his religious instruction. Some modern historians have characterized Sherman as a deist in the manner of Thomas Jefferson, while others identify him as an agnostic who accepted many Christian values but lacked faith. Except during the personal crisis triggered by his son Thomas's decision to become a priest, Sherman's personal attitude towards the Catholic Church was tolerant and even friendly at a time when anti-Catholic prejudice was common in the United States. In 1888, Sherman wrote publicly that "my immediate family are strongly Catholic. I am not and cannot