The General Sherman tree was named after the American Civil War general William Tecumseh Sherman. The official story, which may be apocryphal, claims the tree was named in 1879 by naturalist James Wolverton, who had served as a lieutenant in the 9th Indiana Cavalry under Sherman.

The General Sherman Tree, the world's largest living single-stem tree by volume, was named in 1879 by naturalist James Wolverton. Wolverton had served as a lieutenant in the 9th Indiana Cavalry during the American Civil War under General William Tecumseh Sherman, and he wished to honor his former commander. Interestingly, the tree’s name has a brief "radical" history: in 1886, a socialist utopian community called the Kaweah Colony took over the land and renamed it the "Karl Marx Tree." However, after the colony was disbanded in 1892 and Sequoia National Park was established, the U.S. government officially reverted the name to General Sherman. Today, it stands as a massive monument to both natural history and Civil War-era legacy, attracting millions of visitors to California's Giant Forest.