Who was Philip Sheridan?
Philip Sheridan (1831 to 1888) was a Union general of the American Civil War and one of Ulysses S. Grant's most trusted commanders. He led the Army of the Potomac's cavalry, defeated Jubal Early in the Shenandoah Valley in 1864, rallied his army at Cedar Creek, blocked Lee's retreat to Appomattox, and then waged war on the Plains nations.1
Sheridan fought in most of the great campaigns of the war's last three years. In the West he commanded a division at Perryville and Stones River and fought at Chickamauga and Missionary Ridge. In the East his cavalry corps rode with Grant from the Wilderness in May 1864, and in April 1865 his victory at Five Forks forced Lee to abandon the siege of Petersburg, days before Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House. After the war he directed the army's campaigns against the Native nations of the Great Plains.2
Where was Philip Sheridan born?
Sheridan was born on 6 March 1831, but where is disputed. In his Personal Memoirs he wrote that he was born in Albany, New York, the year after his parents, John and Mary Sheridan, came to America from County Cavan in Ireland. The National Park Service calls the birthplace unknown: Sheridan himself named Boston, Somerset (Ohio) and Albany on different occasions, and he may have been born in Ireland or at sea during the crossing. The Library of Congress notes that most sources accept Albany, while others suggest Ireland, Canada, Boston or the voyage, and the Ohio historical marker in Somerset says he was most likely born in County Cavan.3
In 1832 the family moved to the village of Somerset in Perry County, Ohio, where Sheridan grew up. He entered the US Military Academy at West Point in 1848. A fight with a senior cadet got him suspended for a year, which he spent at home working as a clerk and bookkeeper; he then rejoined the class of 1853 and graduated 34th.4
He was posted first to Texas with the 1st Infantry. After his promotion to second lieutenant in 1854 he was sent to the Pacific Northwest, where he served against the Yakama and their allies. He was promoted to captain in 1861, still a junior officer when the Civil War began.5
How did Sheridan rise in the Civil War?
Sheridan began the war in staff posts. He audited army accounts in St. Louis, served on the staff of Major General Henry Halleck and became chief commissary and quartermaster of the Army of Southwest Missouri. In 1862 he was made colonel of the 2nd Michigan Cavalry, whose officers gave him the horse Rienzi, which he rode for the rest of the war.6
His first battle as a commander, at Booneville, Mississippi, that summer, impressed Brigadier General William Rosecrans, who recommended him for promotion, and Sheridan was made a brigadier general.7
Given the 11th Division of the Army of the Ohio, he commanded it at Perryville, Kentucky, in October 1862. At Stones River, which began on the last day of 1862, he again led his division and was promoted to major general of volunteers.8 › Battle of Perryville, 1862
He fought at Chickamauga in September 1863, a Union defeat, and two months later his men were among the troops who stormed Missionary Ridge above Chattanooga.9
What did Sheridan do as Grant's cavalry commander?
When Grant became general-in-chief in 1864, he brought Sheridan east to command the Cavalry Corps of the Army of the Potomac. In May 1864 Sheridan led a raid toward Richmond, and on 11 May his troopers fought the Confederate cavalry at Yellow Tavern, a few miles north of the city, where J.E.B. Stuart was mortally wounded; Stuart died the next day.10 › Battle of the Wilderness, 1864
Judgments of that summer differ. The American Battlefield Trust calls the corps' record in the Overland Campaign mixed, and the National Park Service notes that Sheridan's aggressive raiding often left the army without screening or intelligence, and that many of his Virginia raids ended in Federal defeats.11
What was "The Burning" of the Shenandoah Valley?
In August 1864 Sheridan took command of the Union forces in the Shenandoah Valley, whose farms had long fed Confederate armies in Virginia. In September he beat Jubal Early at Third Winchester and again at Fisher's Hill.12
The destruction was ordered from the top. On 26 August Grant telegraphed Sheridan: "Do all the damage to railroads and crops you can," adding that if the war lasted another year, "we want the Shenandoah Valley to remain a barren waste."13
What the valley's people called "The Burning" followed in the autumn: Sheridan's troops destroyed barns, mills, railroads and factories and drove off the livestock. In his report of 7 October 1864 from Woodstock, Sheridan claimed to have destroyed more than 2,000 barns filled with wheat, hay and farming implements and more than 70 mills filled with flour and wheat.14
What was Sheridan's Ride at Cedar Creek?
In mid-October Sheridan was called to Washington for a conference. Returning, he spent the night of 18 October at Winchester. Early on the morning of 19 October Early's surprise attack routed much of his army along Cedar Creek. Woken by reports of artillery fire, Sheridan rode Rienzi south to the battlefield, a ride of some ten miles by the American Battlefield Trust's figure and some twelve by the National Park Service's, rallied his retreating troops and launched a counterattack that afternoon that drove Early's army from the field.15
Thomas Buchanan Read's poem "Sheridan's Ride" made the episode a legend; the poem puts the distance at twenty miles. Lincoln thanked Sheridan in a letter, and he was appointed a major general in the regular army. He renamed Rienzi "Winchester" after the ride.16
How did Sheridan help end the Civil War?
In March 1865 Sheridan finished off what remained of Early's army and rejoined Grant before Petersburg. On 1 April, at Five Forks, his force broke the Confederate right and cut Lee's supply lines, forcing Lee to evacuate Petersburg. During the battle he relieved Major General Gouverneur K. Warren of command of the 5th Corps; a court of inquiry later largely cleared Warren, and the American Battlefield Trust calls the removal unwarranted.17 › Grant vs Lee
Sheridan kept up the pursuit. At Sailor's Creek on 6 April Union troops cut off and captured a large part of Lee's retreating army: about a fifth of Lee's force by the Virginia Department of Historic Resources' count and almost a quarter by the American Battlefield Trust's. Near Appomattox Court House Sheridan's forces then blocked Lee's line of retreat, and Lee surrendered on 9 April.18 › Battle of Appomattox Court House, 1865
What did Sheridan do after the Civil War?
In 1865 Grant sent him to the Texas border with a large force, a show of strength against the French-backed regime of Emperor Maximilian in Mexico, which collapsed in 1867.19
In March 1867, under the Reconstruction Acts, he took command of the Fifth Military District, Louisiana and Texas. His hard line there, which by his own account included removing state officials he considered obstacles to Reconstruction, led President Andrew Johnson to remove him later that year.20
Two episodes from his later command are remembered apart from war. After the Great Chicago Fire of October 1871, the mayor put him in charge of keeping order in the city, and he directed the army's relief work. As commanding general he also sent the 1st Cavalry into Yellowstone National Park in 1886 to protect its wildlife and natural features from poachers and developers.21
What did Sheridan do in the Indian Wars?
In 1867 Grant gave him command of the Department of the Missouri, charged with pacifying the Plains. Sheridan's method was the winter campaign: as he explained in his memoirs, in winter the tribes' ponies were thin and weak, their villages hard to move, and troops could overtake them. In the campaign of 1868 and 1869 against the Southern Cheyenne, Arapaho, Kiowa and Comanche, his troops destroyed camps, supplies and pony herds; in November 1868 Custer's 7th Cavalry attacked Black Kettle's Cheyenne village on the Washita River.22
On 4 March 1869, when Grant became president and Sherman general of the army, Sheridan was promoted to lieutenant general and given the Division of the Missouri, which covered the Plains. He supported the hunters who were destroying the bison herds on which the Plains nations lived.23
His command waged the Red River War of 1874 and 1875 with converging columns of troops, and in the spring of 1876 three columns sent out under his orders opened the Great Sioux War, in which Custer's command was destroyed at the Little Bighorn.24 › Wounded Knee Massacre, 1890
Did Sheridan say "the only good Indian is a dead Indian"?
The saying is attributed to him, but it is not documented. Sheridan denied ever saying it, and the Kansas Historical Society notes that there is no written record of the remark.25
How did Philip Sheridan die?
On 1 November 1883 Sheridan became commanding general of the US Army, and on 1 June 1888 he was promoted to General of the Army, the rank Grant and Sherman had held and the highest in the army. After a series of heart attacks he died at Nonquitt, Massachusetts, on 5 August 1888, aged 57.26
He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery, in Section 2, with his wife, Irene Rucker Sheridan, and their three daughters; their son is buried nearby. His horse Rienzi, preserved after its death, is on display at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.27
How is Sheridan remembered?
His reputation is divided. As a Civil War general he is remembered for Cedar Creek, Five Forks and the pursuit to Appomattox. His war on the Plains nations, with its winter attacks on villages and the destruction of the bison, is judged far more harshly. The National Park Service puts it bluntly: "Sheridan's Civil War heroics should not overshadow this violence in the west."28
