The Ewings influenced the course of the Midwest for more than fifty years. Patriarch Thomas Ewing raised four major players in the nation s history including William Tecumseh Cump Sherman, taken in as a nine-year-old. Smith shows that Tom Jr. had a remarkable career of his own. He came to national prominence in the fight over the pro-slavery Lecompton Constitution, was instrumental in starting up the Union Pacific Railroad, and became the first chief justice of the Kansas Supreme Court. Ewing obtained a commission in the Civil War and issued the dramatic General Order No. 11 that expelled residents from sections of western Missouri. Then this confidant of Abraham Lincoln s went on to courageously defend three of the assassination conspirators and lobbied the key vote to block the impeachment of Andrew Johnson.