Sheridan, Philip H. (1831–88)

Civil War General

Philip Sheridan became one of Ulysses S. Grant's top lieutenants by the end of the Civil War and personified perhaps more than any other general the remorseless determination necessary to achieve victory.

Sheridan graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1853 and served on the frontier until the outbreak of the Civil War. His early Civil War assignments were important but unglamorous postings in the quartermaster and commissary departments. In May 1862, however, Sheridan received the combat assignment he had long coveted, as colonel of a cavalry regiment. Autumn brought promotion to brigadier general and transfer to Kentucky, to command an infantry. Sheridan's division was present at the battle of Perryville, but strict orders from his corps commander, who did not understand the situation on the battlefield, prevented it from engaging in major combat.

The division fought intensely at the battle of Stone's River, winning badly needed time for Union forces to regroup. His promotion to major general was dated from the first day of Stone's River, as recognition of his service there. At the battle of Chickamauga, Sheridan's division fought fiercely but briefly in a vain attempt to stem the massive Confederate breakthrough. Sheridan rallied his division and was leading it back to the battlefield when he received orders to retreat.

On November 24, 1863, Sheridan's division was one of four that broke through the Confederate defenses. Grant, who was in command on the battlefield, was impressed. Several months later when Grant moved to Virginia as commanding general of all Union armies, he took Sheridan with him to command the Army of the Potomac's hitherto indifferently led cavalry corps.

When the spring offensive began in May 1864, Sheridan stumbled in his duties as cavalry commander, impeding the army's progress and contributing to the failure to achieve decisive results in the battle of the Wilderness. For this reason and because of the personalities of both men, Sheridan clashed bitterly with Army of the Potomac commander (Grant's subordinate), Maj. Gen. George G. Meade.

Grant directed Meade to dispatch Sheridan with two divisions of cavalry on a raid to the outskirts of Richmond. Sheridan's troops defeated Jeb Stuart's Confederate horsemen at Yellow Tavern not far from Richmond, mortally wounding Stuart himself. After the fight, Sheridan led his cavalry to join the Union Army of the James, east of Richmond, for a period of rest and refitting before returning to the Army of the Potomac. In early June, Grant dispatched Sheridan and his men on a raid to the west of Richmond, where the Union horsemen clashed with their Confederate counterparts at the indecisive two-day battle of Trevilian Station. Although Sheridan failed to cut the Confederate [Page 787]supply lines to Richmond, he did help to distract the attention of the Rebel cavalry away from Grant's simultaneous move to the south bank of the James River.

In July, Gen. Robert E. Lee made use of the Shenandoah Valley to send a Confederate raiding force under Jubal Early all the way to the outskirts of Washington. Though Early soon had to retreat from the vicinity of the capital, he remained in the lower Shenandoah Valley, a thorn in the side of Union efforts in Virginia. On August 6, Grant assigned Sheridan to command the newly formed Army of the Shenandoah. On September 19, 1864, Sheridan's 40,000 men defeated Early's 12,000 at Winchester, Virginia. Sheridan caught up with the fleeing Early two days later at Fisher's Hill and thrashed him again. Confident that Early's army posed no further threat, Sheridan turned his attention to carrying out Grant's order to render the Shenandoah Valley no longer useful to the Confederacy. On October 6, his army marched back down the valley. For more than seventy miles, Sheridan's men killed or confiscated livestock, and burned barns, mills, and granaries.

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