9. 
 
 -A.N ADDRESS 
 
 COMMEMORATIVE OF 
 
 GENERAL PHILIP H. SHERIDAN, 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE LEGISLATURE OF NEW YORK, 
 AT THE CITY OF ALBANY, APRIL 9, 1889, 
 
 BY 
 
 WAGER SWAYNE. 
 
Bancroft Library 
 
 STATE OF NEW YORK (SENATE). 
 
 IN ASSEMBLY, ) 
 
 ALBANY, January 10. 1889.) 
 
 BY ME. CURTIS : 
 
 WHEREAS, Philip Henry Sheridan, a native of the State of New 
 York, General commanding the armies of the United States, recently 
 died ; and 
 
 WHEREAS, It is eminently fitting for the Legislature to take for- 
 mal action to give expression to the high estimate in which his 
 services are held, and the affectionate regard with which his mem- 
 ory is cherished by all the people, and to the end that there shall be 
 set before the youth the native qualities, the professional education, 
 the self-training and discipline by which one of the most distin- 
 guished military captains of the age was formed, an officer who, 
 passing through every grade of the military service, was a skillful 
 tactician, organizer and leader of battalions, a commander in the 
 field whose inspiriting magnetism filled weary limbs with the un- 
 chilled vigor of youth, and fainting hearts with the glow and deter- 
 mination of seizing victory in the decisive charge ; therefore be it 
 
 Resolved (if the Senate concur), That a joint committee of five 
 Senators and nine Members of Assembly be appointed by the pre- 
 siding officers of the respective houses to arrange for fitting joint 
 memorial services in commemoration of the patriotic citizen and 
 illustrious soldier, Philip Henry Sheridan. 
 
 The foregoing resolution was duly adopted, and Mr. SPEAKER 
 appointed as such committee, on the part of the House, Messrs. 
 Curtis, Batcheller. Saxton, Ainsworth, Moffit, Mead, Martin, Long- 
 ley and Creamer. 
 
 By order of the Assembly, 
 
 C. A. CHICKERING, 
 Clerk. 
 
 Said resolution was unanimously adopted, and the PRESIDENT 
 appointed as such committee, on the part of the Senate, Senators 
 Vedder, Murphy, O'Connor, Worth and Kellogg. 
 
WASHINGTON, April 1st, 1889. 
 
 GENERAL N. M. CURTIS, 
 
 Chairman Joint Committee JV. F. Legislature on Sheridan 
 Memorial Services, 
 
 Albany, Jf. Y. 
 GENERAL : 
 
 Through the courtesy of your Committee I am in receipt of your 
 invitation for myself and children to attend the services to be held 
 by the Legislature of New York in memory of my husband, the late 
 General Sheridan, at Albany, April 9th. It is with extreme regret 
 that I am obliged to say we cannot be present ; illness in my family 
 preventing all possibility of our taking the journey to Albany. In 
 our absence, however, I am sure the memorial services will be none 
 the less impressive and sincere, so in advance of the occasion the 
 widow and children of General Sheridan would be greatly indebted 
 to you, General, should you at an appropriate time, convey to the 
 Legislature their deepest gratitude for this official and sacred recog- 
 nition of the career of one whose entire life was devoted to his 
 country's welfare. 
 With great respect, I am 
 
 Truly yours, 
 
 MRS. PHILIP H. SHERIDAN. 
 
SHERIDAN. 
 
 There's one we love to call our own, 
 
 Renowned by sword and pen, 
 His plume alone, where e'er it shone, 
 
 Was worth ten thousand men ; 
 'Twas he, snatched victory from defeat, 
 
 Our hearts' commander still ; 
 When e'er we meet, his name we'll greet, 
 
 Our matchless Little Phil. 
 
 [Col. Archie Hopkins.'} 
 
 The breaking out of the Rebellion found Sheridan a 
 First-Lieutenant of Infantry, stationed at Yamhill, Ore- 
 gon then distant two months journey from the field 
 of war. 
 
 Of his situation there he says : 
 
 " We received our mail at Yamhill once a week ; on 
 the day that our courier or messenger was expected, 
 * * * I would go out early in the morning to a com- 
 manding point * * * and there I would watch 
 with anxiety for his corning, longing for good news ; 
 for, isolated as I had been through years spent in the 
 wilderness, my patriotism was untainted by politics, 
 nor had it been disturbed by any discussions of the 
 questions out of which the war grew, and I hoped for 
 the success of the Government before all other consid- 
 ations, I * * out of a sincere desire to contribute 
 as much as I could to the preservation of the Union, I 
 earnestly wished to be at the seat of war, I 
 
 was young, healthy and insensible to fatigue, and de- 
 sired opportunity, but high rank was so distant in our 
 service that not a dream of its attainment had flitted 
 through my brain." 
 
 His first assignment to command of troops was May 
 25, 1862, when he was appointed Colonel of the 2d 
 
Michigan Cavalry, then stationed at Corinth, Missis- 
 sippi. His earlier service, since he was brought East 
 the September previous, had been as Commissary and as 
 Quartermaster. He was at Corinth at the time of his 
 appointment, having been with Halleck's army in its 
 movement to that place from Pittsburg Landing, a 
 movement which had occupied the previous six weeks. 
 
 The army which made this advance comprised nearly 
 one hundred thousand men. The place in it assigned 
 to Sheridan was as Staff Quartermaster to remove 
 the headquarters when directed and as Staff Com- 
 missary, to provide the escort with rations and the 
 officers with supplies. 
 
 The idea of Sheridan there, assigned to no duty but 
 the care of General Halleck's headquarters, is sug- 
 gestive of strange contrast. It was this same Sheridan 
 desiring opportunity, but not dreaming of high com- 
 mand to whom Mr. Lincoln wrote, within the next 
 three years : 
 
 " For the personal gallantry, military skill, and just 
 confidence in the courage and patriotism of your troops, 
 displayed by you on the 19th day of October, at Cedar 
 Bun, whereby, under the blessing of Providence, your 
 routed army was reorganized, a great National disaster 
 averted, and a brilliant victory achieved over the 
 rebels, for the third time within thirty days, Philip H. 
 Sheridan is appointed a Major-General in the Regular 
 Army." 
 
 He was again in the far West and crossing the plains 
 with an escort, when a courier brought him word that 
 the President had nominated him to be Lieutenant- 
 Gen eral. He read the dispatch, and turning to his 
 Staff Officers said : " Boys, you will have to address 
 
me as Lieutenant-General, now ! " Their hats ali went 
 up at once. 
 
 He lay on his death- bed : when word came to him 
 that the Congress of the United States reviving in 
 his honor the discontinued grade of General of the 
 Army had crowned him with the last reserve of 
 military rank. 
 
 After deducting for all happy accident, the fact re- 
 mains that of two millions of men, culled from a people 
 who abounded in every quality of excellence, called into 
 the field from the North, three men, Grant, Sherman, 
 Sheridan, beyond all others, made themselves admired 
 and dear to the armies and the people of the nation. 
 Comparison between these is not simply inappropriate ; 
 it is not merely impracticable ; it is arrested 011 the 
 threshold by the common ties and strong affection of 
 the three which come in to remind us that invidious 
 preferences between them are precisely what he who 
 survives of them would most dislike, and that in this 
 he shares the feeling, as he does the glory, of the dead. 
 The voice of the people is, Grant, Sherman, Sheridan. 
 It is the voice of the people, and it is enough. 
 
 The youngest of these three, latest in prominent 
 command, so met and dealt with the emergencies of 
 war that neither mistake nor quarrel or defeat ever 
 wasted the forces of his country or impeded the zeal of 
 their employment. Nature had given him the qualities 
 essential to a selfish excellence. He added to them 
 such as to win affection and command respect. The 
 personal ascendancy resulting made his whole command 
 only himself enlarged, and where he willed it went with 
 all his will, and did what in their place he would have 
 done. This made his personality, of course, as great 
 
6 
 
 as the command at any time entrusted to him, and 
 made his military service a distinct and priceless con- 
 tribution to the welfare of the country. 
 
 It is the lesson of this life that we are here to learn. 
 He was born here in Albany March 6th, 1831. Because 
 of this fact, and because of the high estimate in which 
 his services are held, and the affectionate regard with 
 which his memory is cherished, the People of the State 
 of New York, represented by their Senate and Assembly, 
 with the approving and concurring presence of their 
 Governor and their Appellate Judges, are here with us, 
 and are here, as the resolution controlling me states, 
 to the end that his memory be honored, and his quali- 
 ties their education and discipline, their operation and 
 value be set before the youth ; the man himself revived 
 in their remembrance and our own. 
 
 The lesson begins early. At fourteen years, he was 
 clerk in a country store in a village in Ohio. His serv- 
 ices were in demand ; and his leisure was made to 
 yield increase of intelligence. Twice in two years he 
 was promoted to a different master, and to double 
 wages. 
 
 The strongest interest of that day was the existing 
 war with Mexico. It was of doubtful right and conse- 
 quence, and the secluded people of a country village 
 had time to discuss it warmly. They often referred 
 their disputes to the best authority at hand, the boy 
 not yet of sixteen years, who was already bookkeeper 
 of an extensive store. 
 
 Directly from this situation may be traced, with 
 growing plainness, those things in him, and their growth 
 also, which gave him victory in the utmost exigencies 
 
of his later life and made him equal to its broadest 
 scope. 
 
 The situation in itself was not uncommon for a youth, 
 nor the things done in it beyond the reach of ordinary 
 powers. Emerson, however, says somewhere, that if 
 one does things well, though his home be in a wilder- 
 ness, a beaten path will bye and bye be trodden to his 
 door. 
 
 A little village in Ohio is not a conspicuous arena 
 for well-doing, nor are the duties of a country store of 
 a heroic character ; yet what Sheridan did in that store 
 and the life he led in that village did both lead the way 
 and make the way for all his subsequent achievements. 
 He was without influence or social standing, yet his 
 own mere letter to his Congressman brought back by 
 return mail an appointment to West Point for the 
 youth whose qualities were known. It was these 
 qualities, in turn, which made at once the man and his 
 career. 
 
 The qualities themselves arose and grew out of his 
 sympathy with every part of any life with which he was 
 concerned. Again and again throughout his life this 
 shows itself in great things and in small, a sympathy 
 too strong to rest in contemplation, too faithful to 
 abide with the unreal, and too earnest to stop short of 
 the last attainable result. 
 
 In the country store at Somerset he cared enough for 
 his work to do it in a way that made his services com- 
 peted for. He cared enough for his country to study its 
 history with care. Its war with Mexico aroused his 
 interest till his sole wish, as he writes, was to become a 
 a soldier, and this sent him to West Point. 
 
 Probably this expresses the whole situation. He 
 
8 
 
 was not straining after what he might some day become, 
 he was simply intent upon what he might do now. He 
 did not enter West Point or commence duty with his 
 company, looking upon either as a mere staging from 
 which to build. Each was to him. a story to be built, 
 and for the time worthy of exclusive care. Probably it 
 was this absorption in the things at hand that made 
 the things at hand of such absorbing interest to him. 
 
 His earliest military service was with a company of 
 infantry upon the Eio Grande. That country was un- 
 settled and almost unknown, and filled with Indians and 
 wild animals. Its newness appealed to him, and his 
 responsive interest led him to make maps of it in all 
 directions. The Indians spoke a different language 
 from his own ; they interested him enough to make him 
 learn that language. The presence of game invited him 
 to hunt, and hunting interested him enough to make 
 him the purveyor of fresh meat for the command ; not 
 stopping with the mere pursuit of game, but learning 
 all their habits and the ways of taking them ; even the 
 colors of the birds became the subject of keen study, 
 until crowded out by graver matters. The novelty of 
 winter quarters sent him thirty miles across the prairies 
 with a wagon to fetch poles to build a hut with fire- 
 place and chimney, though exposure to the weather 
 was habitual with him ; and, above all things, his inter- 
 est in the men whom he commanded made him, from 
 first to last, their faithful and devoted servant, although 
 none the less their absolute commander. 
 
 " Sympathy," says Fichte, " is the secret of all in- 
 sight ; " and again and again this sympathy and in- 
 sight crowned the faithfulness of Sheridan with glory 
 and success. It is worth while to trace it in the way 
 
he speaks of his relations with the men, and notice how 
 his heart was with them always, and their hearts, in 
 turn, were his ; and out of this came that which made 
 him Sheridan. 
 
 In Oregon he was for many months in charge of a de- 
 tachment of dragoons, and of these men he writes : 
 
 " When I relieved Hood a dragoon officer of their 
 own regiment they did not like the change, and I 
 understood that they somewhat contemptuously ex- 
 pressed this in more ways than one, in order to try the 
 temper of the new " Leftenant," but appreciative and 
 unremitting care, together with firm and just discipline, 
 soon quieted all symptoms of dissatisfaction and over- 
 came all prejudice. The detachment had been made 
 up of details from the different companies of the regi- 
 ment in order to give Williamson a mounted force, and 
 as it was usual, under such circumstance for every com- 
 pany commander to shove into the detail he was called 
 upon to furnish the most troublesome and insubordinate 
 individuals of his company, I had some difficulty, when 
 first taking command, in controlling such a medley of 
 recalcitrants ; but by forethought for them and their 
 wants, and a strict watchfulness for their rights and 
 comfort, I was able in a short time to make them 
 obedient and the detachment cohesive. In the past 
 year they had made long and tiresome marches, forded 
 swift mountain streams, constructed rafts of logs or 
 bundles of dry reeds to ferry our baggage, swum deep 
 rivers, marched on foot to save their worn out and ex- 
 hausted animals, climbed mountains, fought Indians, and 
 in all and everything had done the best they could for 
 the service and their commander. The disaffected feel- 
 ing they entertained when I first assumed command 
 soon wore away, and in its place came a confidence and 
 respect which it gives me the greatest pleasure to re- 
 member, for small though it was this was my first 
 cavalry command. They little thought, when we were 
 in the mountains of California and Oregon, nor did I 
 myself then dream that but a few years were to elapse 
 before it would be my lot again to command dragoons, 
 this time in numbers so vast as of themselves to com- 
 pose almost an army." 
 
10 
 
 In the same spirit with these remarks he writes of 
 that Michigan regiment which was his first command in 
 the war : 
 
 " Although but a few days had elapsed from the 
 date of my appointment as Colonel of the Second Mich- 
 igan to that of my succeeding to the command of the 
 brigade, I believe I can say with propriety that I had 
 firmly established myself in the confidence of the officers 
 and men of the regiment, and won their regard by 
 thoughtful care. I had striven unceasingly to have 
 them well fed and well clothed, had personally looked 
 after the selection of their camps, and had maintained 
 such a discipline as to allay former irritation. 
 
 " Men who march, scout and fight, and suffer all the 
 hardships that fall to the lot of soldiers in the field, in 
 order to do vigorous work must have the best bodily 
 sustenance, and every comfort that can be provided. I 
 knew from practical experience on the frontier that my 
 efforts in this direction would not only be appreciated, 
 but requited by personal affection and gratitude ; and 
 further that such exertions would bring the best re- 
 sults to me. Whenever my authority would permit I 
 saved my command from needless sacrifices and un- 
 necessary toil ; therefore, when hard or daring work 
 was to be done I expected the heartiest response, and 
 always got it. Soldiers are averse to seeing their com- 
 rades killed without compensating results, and none 
 realize more quickly than they the blundering that 
 often takes place on the field of battle. They want 
 some tangible indemnity for the loss of life, and as 
 victory is an offset the value of which is manifest, it not 
 only makes them content to shed their blood, but also 
 furnishes evidence of capacity in those who command 
 them. My regiment had lost very few men since com- 
 ing under my command, but it seemed, in the eyes of 
 all who belonged to it, that casualties to the enemy and 
 some slight successes for us had repaid every sacrifice, 
 and in consequence I had gained not only their con- 
 fidence as soldiers, but also their esteem and love as 
 men, and to a degree far beyond what I then realized." 
 
 When he was ordered from the West to the Army of 
 the Potomac his whole command was gathered on the 
 
11 
 
 hillside to bid him a last adieu as his train took its 
 departure. He himself tells us why this was : 
 
 " In Kentucky, nearly two years, before my lot had 
 been cast with about half of the twenty-five regiments 
 of infantry that I was just leaving, the rest joining me 
 after Chickarnauga. It was practically a new arm of 
 the service to me, for although I was an infantry officer, 
 yet the only large command which up to that time I 
 had controlled was composed of cavalry, and most of 
 my experience had been gained in this arm of the 
 service. I had to study hard to be able to master all 
 the needs of such a force, to feed and clothe it and 
 guard all its interests. When undertaking these re- 
 sponsibilities I felt that if I met them faithfully rec- 
 ompense would surely come through the hearty re- 
 sponse that soldiers always make to conscientious 
 exertion on the part of their superiors, and nqt only 
 that more could be gained in that way than from the 
 use of any species of influence, but that the reward 
 would be quicker. Therefore, I always tried to look 
 after their comfort personally, selected their camps 
 and provided abundantly for their subsistence, and the 
 road they opened for me shows that my work was not 
 in vain." 
 
 So of the termination of that famous ride from Win- 
 chester to Cedar Creek he says : 
 
 " At Mill Creek my escort fell in behind and we were 
 going ahead at a regular pace, when just as we 
 made the crest of the rise beyond the stream, there 
 burst upon our view the appalling spectacle of a panic- 
 stricken army. * * * My first thought was to stop 
 the army in the suburbs of Winchester as it came back, 
 form a new line and fight there ; but as the situation 
 was more maturely considered, a better conception pre- 
 vailed. I was sure the troops had confidence in me, 
 for heretofore we had been successful ; and as at other 
 times they had seen me present at the slightest sign of 
 trouble or distress, I felt I ought now to try to restore 
 their broken ranks, or, failing in that to share their 
 fate because of what they had done hitherto." 
 
 In September, 1886, in a little speech made at a 
 
12 
 
 soldiers' reunion, held at Creston, Iowa, he expressed 
 more plainly than ever his own view of his relation to 
 the men of his command : 
 
 " I want to say to you, comrades, this, that I am 
 indebted to the private soldier for all of this credit that 
 has come to me. He is the man who did the fighting, 
 and the man who carried the musket is the greatest 
 hero of the war, in my opinion. I was nothing but 
 an agent. I knew how to take care of men, I knew 
 what a soldier was worth, and I knew how to study the 
 country so as to put him in the right. I knew 
 how to put him in a battle when one occurred, 
 but I was simply the agent to take care of him ; 
 he did the work. Now, comrades, these are 
 common sense things, and I can't say them in very flow- 
 ing language, but they are true nevertheless, and they 
 are true not of me alone, but of everbod} 7 else. It is to 
 the common soldier that we are indebted for any credit 
 that came to us. There are many men here 
 
 to-day who served in the field with me, and it is a great 
 pleasure to me to find them out, and they have been 
 very kindly in their remarks to me. While they were 
 with me, I certainly did all I could for them. I often 
 laid awake planning for their welfare, and I never 
 killed a man unnecessarily. You may kill as many 
 men as you choose, if you give them an equivalent for 
 the loss. Men do not like to be killed for nothing. 
 They do not like to have their heads rammed against a 
 stone wall, unless for some good result. * * * 
 Whenever I took men into battle, I gave them victory 
 as the result of the engagement, and that was always 
 satisfactory." 
 
 Is it any wonder that General Grant wrote of this 
 man : 
 
 "As 4 a commander of troops, as a man capable of 
 doing all that is possible with any number of men, 
 there is no man living greater than Sheridan. I rank 
 him with Napoleon and the great captains of history. 
 He had a magnetic quality of swaying men which I 
 wish I had." 
 
 Once only he is known to have stopped to ask if that 
 
13 
 
 which must be done must needs be done at once. On 
 the eve of that grand review at Washington with 
 which the war was closed, he was ordered to start for 
 Texas. That meant that he should never lead his 
 old command again. There was no help for it, and he 
 left the capital two days before the grand review. 
 
 In the same way his familiar interest in men made 
 him unerring in the choice of scouts. 
 
 He says of himself, when ordered from Corinth to 
 Louisville to join Buell's army : 
 
 " Before and during the activity which followed his 
 reinstatement General Grant had become familiar with 
 my services through the transmission to Washington 
 of information I had furnished concerning the enemy's 
 movements, and by reading reports of my lights and 
 skirmishes in front, and he seemed loth to let me go." 
 
 The following, written of him at a later date, doubt- 
 less expresses the view of General Grant : 
 
 " His scouts were famous throughout the army, and 
 their information was exact ; it was always relied upon 
 by Grant as absolute, and it never deceived him." 
 
 The result of this was, that whoever fought him must 
 do so without any concealment of the force about to be 
 employed or of the time and manner of attack. 
 
 His dealings with these men were in sympathetic in- 
 terest not unlike his dealings with his troops, and their 
 intrepid faithfulness was his reward. 
 
 After the war, in his smaller commands the same so- 
 licitude for his men is continued, and with the same 
 result. In December, 1868, from his camp out on 
 the plains, he wrote to General Sherman : 
 
 " We have had fearful storms, for a day or two, with 
 
14 
 
 snow. Some of the men burned out their boots during 
 the cold weather and substituted nose-bags. When the 
 trains come in we will have shoes for them. The com- 
 mand is in high spirits and enthusiastic ; everybody in 
 good humor and jolly. 
 
 " Please tell Tommy I have a small-sized Indian 
 pony for him which I hope to get in. He is a buster, 
 and very gentle." 
 
 He wrote to General Sherman, also, when the latter 
 was just starting off for Europe, in November, 1871 : 
 
 "If you can occasionally drop me a line it will give 
 me so much pleasure. * * * I will stick close to 
 my duties here and will endeavor to make things go 
 straight enough to give you no uneasiness so far as I 
 am concerned." 
 
 General Pope also lately wrote of him : 
 
 " In 1870 I was brought into intimate official and 
 personal relations with him, which lasted without in- 
 terruption for fourteen years. * _ * * I am glad to 
 say that the close friendship and intimacy which marked 
 our association almost from the beginning remained 
 unimpaired to the day of his death. In his private 
 life he was as simple as a child, and found the happiest 
 part of it in his home with his delightful wife and 
 children, whom he loved with an unusual tenderness. 
 He was hospitable to a degree, and his house was al- 
 ways a resort of his army friends, and indeed of anybody 
 who knew him. Naturally he was a man of strong 
 feelings and convictions ; and I suppose he thought 
 himself capable of equally strong hatred, but although 
 I have known him to say severe things about individual 
 people, I do not believe he ever cherished animosity 
 toward any human being. Towards the officers and 
 soldiers under his command he was always kind and 
 considerate, and to their comfort and welfare always 
 alive. He could always be relied on to sustain his 
 subordinates in any well-meant action, even against the 
 highest officials of the Government ; and his troops had 
 that confidence in him and reliance on him which is 
 half the battle in the administration of a great military 
 command. There never was a commander more popu- 
 lar, nor one that has been more regretted. In any of 
 
15 
 
 the great kingdoms of Europe, with the constant oppor- 
 tunities they offer for military careers, Sheridan would 
 have been a foremost figure in the military hierarchy of 
 the world." 
 
 If this all-pervading sympathy and its reciprocal 
 good- will, with their abundant fruit, had been the un- 
 impeded course of a strong nature that was nothing but 
 congenial, we should have to class that nature as par- 
 taking of the supernatural, and should find less in it to 
 encourage youth or quicken men. The truth is oppo- 
 site to this. The boy was a natural boy, full of strong 
 impulse, often uncontrolled. The wife of General 
 Sherman had her early education in a convent nearly 
 across the street from the house in which the schoolboy 
 Sheridan lived. She often spoke of the two little boys, 
 his brother and himself, whose pranks she vividly re- 
 membered. He tells us himself he was familiar with 
 the game called " playing hookey," and that the inci- 
 dental aspects of that fascinating occupation were not 
 absent from his case. 
 
 There must have been a struggle when these things 
 gave way before the sturdy industry that won increase 
 of wages in the store and the bookkeeper's faithful ac- 
 curacy. 
 
 His stay at West Point showed again what he had 
 in his nature to contend with. A fellow-cadet in the 
 course of duty gave him an affront. He started at 
 once to bayonet the offender. Self-control came in 
 time to prevent this, but had not force enough to keep 
 him from attacking with his fists. This cost him nine 
 months' suspension and postponed his graduation for 
 a year. 
 
 In pleasant contrast with this last, it may be told 
 
16 
 
 that in his later life, at Washington, at the headquar- 
 ters of the Army, there hung up in his private room a 
 portrait of himself, which his wife did not admire. He 
 declined to reconsider his conclusion to send that 
 picture to an exhibition in New York, to which he had 
 been asked to send a portrait of himself. It was at 
 breakfast the matter came up, and was disposed of with 
 a word or two. That morning Mrs. Sheridan rode with 
 the General to headquarters to " do a little shopping " 
 in the neighborhood. She shopped for a little black 
 paint, and the General being at that hour elsewhere, 
 she had the picture taken down, and painted out the 
 face. Telling the horrified attendant simply to say that 
 she had done it, she finished up her shopping. Din- 
 ner passed cheerfully without the slightest reference to 
 the occurrence. Nor was it ever mentioned after- 
 wards, except that four years later, in discussing some 
 paintings, the General remarked, with a twinkle in his 
 eye, " By the way, Irene, you are something of a 
 painter yourself?" 
 
 The army opposed to Halleck's march on Corinth 
 was known to be not more than half as large as his 
 own. There was never any serious resistance, and 
 Corinth when reached was found empty. The distance 
 traversed was only twenty miles over a country not 
 unfavorable, yet this one hundred thousand men " con- 
 sumed," as Sherman says, " all of the month of May, 
 the most beautiful and valuable month of the year for 
 campaigning in this latitude ; we fortified almost every 
 camp at night, although we had encountered no opposi- 
 tion except from cavalry, which gave ground easily as 
 we advanced." 
 
 The over caution and snail's pace of this advance 
 
17 
 
 galled even the private soldiers of that army, and 
 evoked both ridicule and criticism ; but Sheridan has 
 no complaint to make. 
 He writes : 
 
 " My stay at General Halleck's headquarters was ex- 
 ceedingly agreeable, and my personal intercourse with 
 officers on duty there was not only pleasant and in- 
 structive, but offered opportunities of instruction and 
 adyancement for which hardly any other post could 
 have afforded like chances. My special duties did not 
 occupy all my time, and whenever possible I used to 
 go over to General Sherman's division, which held the 
 extreme right of our line in the advance on Corinth, to 
 witness the little engagements occurring there continu- 
 ously during the slow progress which the army was 
 then making, the enemy being forced back but a short 
 distance each day." 
 
 Within the next three months this industrious infantry 
 captain had with eight hundred cavalry defeated six 
 times their number, and with that introduction ushered 
 in his crowd of victories. 
 
 It was he also of whom General Grant wrote : 
 
 " he, in fifteen days, passed entirely round Lee's army ; 
 encountered his cavalry in four engagements and de- 
 feated him in all ; recaptured four hundred Union pris- 
 oners and killed and captured many of the enemy ; 
 destroyed and used many supplies and munitions of 
 war, destroyed miles of railroad and telegraph, and 
 freed us from annoyances by the cavalry of the enemy 
 for more than two weeks." 
 
 His first fight was at Booneville, Mississippi, where 
 he was on outpost duty with two regiments of cavalry, 
 eight hundred and twenty-seven (827) men. The cav- 
 alry force which attacked him were between five and 
 six thousand. A few hours later they were scattered, 
 leaving him master of the field. 
 
 It was after this single battle that Rosecrans and his 
 
18 
 
 other superior officers applied at once for his promo- 
 tion, saying over their signatures that he was " worth 
 his weight in gold." 
 
 His weight, by the way, was scarcely enough for a 
 woman. He speaks of himself as he stood before the Sec- 
 retary of War, when he came East to join the Arrny of 
 the Potomac : " I was rather young in appearance, 
 " looking even under rather than over thirty -three years 
 " but five feet five inches in height, and weighing only 
 " one hundred and fifteen pounds." 
 
 His body however, was, so long that when on horse- 
 back he presented the appearance of a man six feet 
 two. 
 
 His head, also, was of such a shape that the ease 
 with which his hat came off had given him the habit of 
 frequently riding with it in his hand, and so of using it 
 for gesture on occasion. 
 
 It was not, however, merely for the fight at Boone- 
 ville that promotion came to him immediately. Their 
 recommendation says : 
 
 " His Ripley expedition has brought us captured let- 
 ters of immense value, as well as prisoners, snowing the 
 rebel plans and dispositions, as you will learn from Dis- 
 trict Commanders." 
 
 We have seen already how upon the plains he 
 was the hunter and geographer of the command. 
 " It always came rather easy to me," he writes, " to 
 " learn the geography of a new section, and its 
 " important topographical features as well." " As soon 
 " as possible," he writes of himself at Booneville, " I 
 " compiled for the use of myself and my regimental 
 " commanders an information map of the surrounding 
 " country. This map exhibited such detail as country 
 
19 
 
 " roads, streams, farm houses, fields, woods and swamps, 
 " and such other topographical features as would be 
 " useful." 
 
 How vast the service which this habit rendered after- 
 wards to the country and himself is seen in his report 
 to the Committee on the conduct of the war. 
 
 " After careful study of the topography of the country 
 from the Rapidan to Richmond, which is of thickly 
 wooded character, its numerous and almost parallel 
 streams nearly all uniting, forming the York River, 
 I took up the idea that our cavalry ought to fight the 
 enemy's cavalry, and our infantry the enemy's infantry." 
 
 The result of this knowledge of the country, at once 
 intimate and practical, was, of course, that whoever 
 fought him had not only as we have seen to meet him 
 fully prepared, but also to fight him where he was per- 
 fectly at home. 
 
 The same fullness of knowledge extended to the pro- 
 curing, handling and distribution of supplies. His 
 early training as bookkeeper had doubtless made him 
 efficient both as Quartermaster and as Commissary, and 
 his experience in both departments many a time, no 
 doubt, assisted him in caring for his men as he so 
 loved to do. 
 
 In this connection it is pleasant to know that, fa- 
 miliar as he was with all arms of the service, and prac- 
 tically experienced in both staff departments, while 
 visiting Europe in 1870 to observe the Franco-Prussian 
 war he wrote back from Barleduc, France, then the 
 Headquarters of the Prussian Army, most encourag- 
 ingly of our service : 
 
 11 1 therefore went back via Sedan to Brussels, then 
 to Switzerland, Southern Germany and across to 
 Vienna, then down to Hungary, then down the Danube 
 
20 
 
 to Servia, Wallachia, and Bulgarian Turkey, visiting 
 Bucharest the capital of Boumania, thence crossed the 
 Black Sea to Constantinople. From Constantinople I 
 visited Greece, from thence I went to Sicily, then up 
 to Naples. On this trip I saw the soldiers of all these 
 countries, saw much of the people, and was most po- 
 litely and charmingly received everywhere, although 
 not seeking anything of the kind, in fact avoiding it 
 because I wanted as much personal liberty as possible 
 so that I might see as much as I could in the short 
 space of time I had given myself. I reached Eome on 
 the evening of the 24th and will work my way back to 
 Paris but not before the surrender. I do not know 
 whether you will approve this trip of mine, but I never 
 expect to see Europe again and could not resist the 
 temptation to make it. I am fully satisfied that there 
 is no nation in Europe which has so perfect an army 
 system as ourselves ; they have more perfect systems 
 for raising troops, but I am satisfied their staff systems 
 are not so good as ours. 
 
 " I will start home in the latter part of February if 
 possible. I would like to visit St. Petersburg but am 
 afraid I should not remain so long absent. 
 
 " I find that but little can be learned here to benefit 
 our service. We are far ahead in skill and campaign 
 organization. Europe is far ahead of us only in the 
 military organization that makes nearly every man a 
 soldier, and the facility of that organization in quickly 
 putting hundreds of thousands into the field. So far 
 as organization for re-clothing, transportation of sup- 
 plies, and general comfort of the troops, we are so far 
 ahead as to make comparison almost ridiculous." 
 
 One other thing he knew, and knowing did. He 
 knew the value of drill, and every considerable rest 
 was utilized. His command, therefore, was not merely 
 well fed, well clothed, well cared for ; it also was well 
 drilled. 
 
 These were the individual qualities, therefore, he 
 brought as his own contribution to the work of each 
 command he was entrusted with. 
 
21 
 
 He knew how to care for his men in food and cloth- 
 ing, camps and drill ; he knew the country to be fought 
 in and the forces and manoeuvres of the enemy ; he 
 knew his men also, and knew these things, all of them, 
 as things are known, which one has worked at with 
 strong sympathetic interest and is perfectly at home 
 with. That sort of interest it is which makes a man 
 spontaneous!} 7 industrious, and all these were, of 
 course, the fruits of industry. Among the glimpses of 
 his West Point life is one of his window darkened at 
 night with a blanket that he might pursue his studies 
 after the lights were ordered out. It is written of Jero- 
 boam that he was " a mighty man of valor." " And 
 " Solomon, seeing the young man, that he was indus- 
 " trious, he made him ruler over all the charge of the 
 " house of Joseph." The wisdom of Solomon is sup- 
 plemented by the inspiration of St. Paul, whose pre- 
 cept to all rulers is, " with diligence." 
 
 At a later day General Sheridan went with General 
 Grant on a trip to Mexico. One of his staff officers 
 tells me that he came back with knowledge enough of 
 Mexico, its topography and geography, its people and 
 their institutions, to have taken charge, if need be, of 
 that country and intelligently governed it. 
 
 All these features of. his varied information his 
 knowledge of the country in which at any time he 
 fought, his shrewd selection of scouts, his knowledge 
 of his men, his constant provision for their comfort 
 when in camp, were but so many aspects of his own 
 personal interest in the life that was around him. By 
 all of these means that interest made victory easier, and 
 gave him freedom from mistake, and larger range, and 
 
22 
 
 quicker knowledge of the things that might, or must be 
 done. 
 
 Behind these lay a higher quality that was the final 
 feature of the man. It is not easy to pass confidently 
 to this next and last essential of that character (for it 
 was character) that gave him victory where defeat was 
 natural, and so gave to his own worth the value of the 
 difference between victory and defeat. It is not a 
 merely imaginative exercise to discern how from the 
 very first his earnest interest in the life at hand fostered 
 at once this confidence and power. In the store and 
 on the plains it had led (perhaps driven) him to 
 know the things about him, and to make the knowing 
 incidental only to the doing The habit came with this 
 of doing in a way that is akin to driving. The forward 
 impulse thus became habitual, and brought with it an 
 experience of decision. The habit of deciding what to 
 do and doing it, needs only to be prepared by 
 circumstances and tempered by unselfishness to grow 
 to any opportunity. At Boonville, ( capture seemed 
 to be inevitable ; at Cedar Creek his army was 
 already routed, when his famous ride brought him 
 upon the field. Plainly, it was not any of the things 
 he knew that chiefly gave him triumph over both of 
 these emergencies. It was his keeping to that wondrous 
 way that leads between the recklessness that does not 
 think, and hesitancy that mistakenly regards disaster 
 as a greater evil than default. It was this way of look- 
 ing at things, and of thinking, which, at Boonville and 
 at Cedar Creek, led him away from what might happen, 
 and had happened, to where he saw only the things 
 that might be done. The things he knew helped him, 
 as I have said ; the difference in each instance between 
 
23 
 
 victory and defeat lay mainly in the fact that, instead 
 of yielding to the backward impulse of the situation, he 
 drove it with a forward impulse moving from himself. 
 
 For this he must first have been cool enough to think. 
 
 Napoleon says with regard to this : 
 
 The first quality of a General-in-Chief is to be cool 
 headed, to estimate things at their just value ; he must 
 not be moved by good or bad news. The sensations 
 that he daily receives must be so closed in his mind 
 that each may occupy its appropriate place. Reason 
 and judgment are only the result of the comparison of 
 well weighed ideas. * 
 
 1 do not know how I can better express the truth as to the 
 character of Sheridan in this regard than by quoting 
 again from General Pope : 
 
 " Before I came to know him by personal associa- 
 tion I shared what was then (as I believe it is now with 
 most of his countrymen) the opinion that he was simply 
 an impetuous, reckless soldier, full of dash and gallant 
 to the extreme of rashness, in short, simply a splendid 
 specimen of a cavalry officer of the ' Murat ' order. 
 
 " There never was a greater mistake. Impetuous he 
 was, certainly, but it was only impetuous execution of 
 deliberate and well considered plans. In all his life he 
 did not do any important act without careful consider- 
 tion beforehand. Neither in civil administration in time 
 of profound peace, nor in the roar and fury of battle, 
 did he ever act except on well defined lines and clearly 
 conceived purposes." 
 
 His coming on the field at Cedar Creek after his ride 
 from Winchester has often been regarded as a species 
 of apocalypse, immediately succeeded by a rush and 
 charge like the repulsion of a great wave by a rock ; and 
 
 From a translation by Lt. Col. A. K. Arnold, U. S. A. 
 
24 
 
 his careering down his line before the charge is spoken 
 of as if that were the first thing he did and its essential 
 feature. He himself says of his first appearance on 
 the field : 
 
 " As I continued at a walk a few hundred yards 
 further, thinking all the time of Longstreet's tele- 
 gram to Early : * be ready when I join you, and we 
 will crush Sheridan,' I was fixing in my mind what I 
 would do." 
 
 He says of himself a short time afterward, " I had 
 already determined to attack the enemy from that line 
 as soon as I could get matters in shape to take the 
 offensive." 
 
 His riding down the line did not occur to him until 
 it was suggested to him by Major Forsyth. He says : 
 
 " Major Forsyth now suggested that it would be well 
 to ride along the line of battle before the enemy as- 
 sailed us, for although the troops had learned of my 
 return, but few of them had seen me. Following his 
 suggestion I started in behind the men, but when a few 
 paces had been taken I crossed to the front, and, hat in 
 hand, passed along the entire length of the infantry 
 line ; and it is from this circumstance that many of the 
 officers and men who then received me with such heart- 
 iness have since supposed that was my first appearance 
 on the field. But at least two hours had elapsed since 
 I reached the ground." 
 
 Closely allied to this was that in him which brought 
 about that neither being outnumbered, as at Boonville, 
 nor cruel losses, as at Perryville, could drive him from 
 the field he thought he ought to hold. " Before ceding 
 victory, wait until it is snatched from you," said Na- 
 poleon, " before retiring, wait until you are forced." 
 General Grant's well-remembered letter to his father is 
 to the same effect. He wrote to him from before Vicks- 
 
25 
 
 burg that he did not think an army under him would 
 often be defeated, for the reason that he should not 
 accept the fact till the last hope was gone. The ground 
 upon which Sheridan often and expressly puts this, is 
 that the ground once lost must be recovered at the cost 
 of lives of officers and men ; and that in Avar the only 
 real compensation for the loss of life is victory. In this 
 he shows again his old-time sympathetic interest in the 
 life in which he was concerned. 
 
 The same view doubtless made him feel that the last 
 results of victory must be gathered. I am told by 
 Gen. Dodge, who knew both officers extremely well, 
 that General Grant did not enjoy the willingness of 
 General Sheridan to be relieved from his command at 
 Corinth, and to go to General Eosecrans in Tennessee, 
 and was not cordial towards him until at Mission Kidge 
 he witnessed Sheridan's division, not merely carrying 
 the ridge, but pressing the pursuit far in advance, and 
 until stopped by night. All feeling then became sup- 
 planted by fixed admiration, so that when Halleck after- 
 wards suggested Sheridan for Chief of Cavalry of the 
 Army of the Potomac, it cost General Grant no effort 
 to reply, " He is the very man I want." 
 
 It is pleasant to see that this earnestness was really 
 humane. In his report to the Committee on the Con- 
 duct of the War, he says, doubtless with reference to the 
 valley of the Shenandoah, " I do not believe war to be 
 simply that lines should engage each other in battle, 
 as that is only the duello part, a part which would be 
 kept up so long as those who live at home in peace and 
 plenty could find the best youth of the country to enlist 
 in their cause (I say the best, for the bravest are always 
 the best), and therefore do not regret the system of 
 
20 
 
 living on the enemy's country. These men and women 
 did not care how many were killed or maimed so long 
 as war did not come to their door. But as soon as it 
 did come in the shape of loss of property, they earnestly 
 prayed for its termination. As war is punishment, and 
 death the maximum punishment, if we can, by reducing 
 its advocates to poverty, end it quicker, we are on the 
 side of humanity." In the same spirit in 1886, he 
 wrote to General J. B. Gordon with regard to a 
 national home for disabled Confederate soldiers : 
 
 " It is not proposed by your communication, nor by 
 the circular, that the Government should take any steps 
 in this direction. Such private effort as is found best 
 suited to the situation may, however, be made by every 
 citizen. * * It would give me great satisfaction 
 
 to aid, in an humble way, the brave men who opposed 
 us in battle." 
 
 How natural that a great soldier with this generous 
 mind should forecast in heart the day when war shall 
 be supplanted by the contests of opinion and the sym- 
 pathies. At Philadelphia, in 1887, at the centennial of 
 the signing of the Constitution, he gave his judgment 
 of the large result to come from the progressive increase 
 in efficiency of weapons. 
 
 " There is one thing that you should appreciate, and 
 that is that the improvement in guns and in the ma- 
 terial of war, in dynamite and other explosives, and in 
 breech-loading guns, is rapidly bringing us to a period 
 when war will eliminate itself ; when we can no longer 
 stand up and fight each other in battle, and when we 
 will have to resort to something else. Now, what will 
 that ' something else ' be ? It will be arbitration. I 
 mean what I say when I express the belief that if any 
 one now present here could live until the next centen- 
 nial he would find that arbitration will rule the world." 
 
 God grant he can see it then, from everlasting life ! 
 
27 
 
 It is not necessary to an estimate of Sheridan to cata- 
 logue or to delineate his triumphs, or to contrast his 
 share or prominence with those of others in suppressing 
 the Rebellion. The battles of the Opequan (or Win- 
 chester) and Fisher's Hill, and Cedar Creek, his career 
 in the Valley of the Shenandoah, these are familiar his- 
 tory. Of the close of the war it is enough to recall 
 that it was he who rode on the 30th of March eight 
 miles through rain and mud knee deep to dissuade 
 General Grant from letting rain and mud prevent the 
 forward movement from commencing that same day. 
 April 2. three days later, at Dinwiddie, his command, 
 on the right and rear of Lee's Army, had cut off from 
 that army Pickett's command, amounting almost to an 
 army corps, and had at the same time cut off Lee from 
 Richmond and compelled him to leave Petersburg. 
 April 6, three days later, at Sailor's Creek he had 
 further depleted Lee's Army by the capture of Swell's 
 Corps, making prisoners six generals and nine or ten 
 thousand men with the further attempt of cutting off 
 Lee's attempted retreat via Danville, so that the 
 Lynchburgh route alone remained by which Lee might 
 retreat before the Army of the Potomac in his 
 front. All day the eighth of April his command 
 was moving parallel with Lee's retreating columns 
 and dashing in where opportunity appeared. The 
 forays of the day gave him large captures, and night 
 found him in advance of Lee's retreat, at Appomattox 
 Station, in possession of Lee's supply trains and astride 
 the Lynchburgh Railroad. All night long General Ord, 
 with the Army of the James, and General Griffin with 
 the Fifth Corps, were hurrying to his aid. The day 
 of Appomattox dawned upon Ord's troops just coming 
 
28 
 
 into line behind the cavalry of Ouster. Lee made 
 his last attack upon that cavalry, and as they sep- 
 arated to the right and left disclosing that the Lynch- 
 burgh road was held not by themselves alone, but by 
 the Army of the James in force behind them ; the 
 struggle ended and Lee's flag of truce appeared in front 
 of Ouster's lines. To claim for this more than the 
 simple facts and their necessary incidents of personal 
 character and endeavor would be false to the memory 
 of Sheridan, because so unlike him. 
 
 To relate his public services immediately following 
 the War would be as much beyond my scope as to 
 recount his victories. His task of bringing back to 
 civil order and to real union, States which had not laid 
 down the rebellion but had merely laid down their 
 arms, his wise and energetic firmness, the wrath of 
 Andrew Johnson and his recall of Sheridan, these are 
 a part of public history. His first contact, however, in 
 New Orleans with the White League, then in control of 
 Louisiana and determined on political control, brought 
 out at once his courage and his kindliness and on the 
 new stage of civil life disclosed once more the value of 
 his personal character to any cause he was connected 
 with. The evening of the very day of his arrival at 
 New Orleans a violent meeting, under the auspices of 
 the White League, was held in the rotunda of the 
 St. Charles Hotel. A stage had been improvised of 
 dry goods boxes, and from this the orator addressed the 
 mob, seeking to inflame their minds to the point of 
 resistance to the " bloody Sheridan." The uproar 
 penetrated to the rooms occupied by the General, and 
 was notice to him that he had a difficult and dangerous 
 task before him. 
 
29 
 
 He said quietly lie would like to take a look at the 
 mob, and lie believed lie would go and get a segar. 
 Taking a small rattan cane, and telling Colonel Forsythe 
 to put a pistol in his pocket and follow him, he started 
 for the office of the hotel. As he slowly descended 
 the great stairway, the most violent of the orators was 
 denouncing the Union General and calling upon his 
 hearers to resist and thwart him. Suddenly some of 
 those below caught sight of the compact figure on the 
 stairs, and taking in its humorous aspect began to 
 laugh. The orator, disturbed by the movement, looked 
 round for the cause, and following the direction in 
 which all eyes were turned, he, too, saw the General 
 approaching with great deliberation, and leaping from 
 the platform he fled from the hotel. &!&**> 
 
 My informant, and other leaders were greatly 
 alarmed for the safety of the General, and as he made 
 his way through the crowd they surrounded him to 
 protect him from the more reckless spirits, well know- 
 ing that an assault on the representative of the Gov- 
 ernment would lead to the destruction of the State. 
 Sheridan, unconscious of this attention, made his way 
 to the segar stand, and, having bought and lighted a 
 segar, turned quietly round and surveyed the excited 
 crowd with the most perfect composure. This display 
 of cool courage worked an instant revolution. The 
 leaders of the League directly addressed the General, 
 and, expressing their admiration of what they had just 
 witnessed, said frankly that they would like to confer 
 w r ith him with a view to reach a peaceful settlement. 
 
 " Come to my rooms, gentlemen," said Sheridan, 
 and, leading the way, he was soon pointing out to them 
 the futility and danger to society of violent resistance 
 
30 
 
 to law. They discussed the situation far into the 
 night, and did not separate until a plan had been 
 formed, in which all acquiesced, for restoring order. 
 " That display of courage," said my informant, " com- 
 pelled instant admiration and confidence, and saved 
 Louisiana from the horrors of a bloody strife." 
 
 A less familiar episode, but of enormous consequence, 
 came later. In monarchical Europe the breaking out 
 of our Rebellion was seized upon as the downfall of 
 self-government. 
 
 The greatest of English historians did not hesitate 
 to formally entitle a work as " A History of Federal 
 " Government from the foundation of the Achaian 
 " League to the disruption of the United States,"* 
 and the Emperor of Charlatans, Napoleon the 
 Little, full of the same faith, undertook to supplant 
 the Republic of Mexico with a pseudo-empire, rest- 
 ing on a corps of the French Army, appropriately 
 commanded by Bazaine. The natural sympathy 
 between this enterprise and the Rebellion made them at 
 once, in utter violation of all neutral rights, reciprocal 
 allies in everything but open war. The Rio Grande 
 River and the ports of Mexico became the field of large 
 exchanges of Confederate cotton for arms, munitions 
 and supplies, such as materially strengthened the re- 
 bellion and prolonged the war. No one more fully 
 realized this than General Grant. As early as when 
 General Sherman came to City Point, and General Sheri- 
 dan was also there, the course of the French was de- 
 nounced as having made the war in Mexico inseparable 
 
 * Vol. I. was published in 1863. The second has not yet appeared 
 
31 
 
 from the Rebellion, and the French in Mexico our ene- 
 mies in everything but open war. It is pleasant to 
 know that this righteous indignation was eventually 
 the means of driving out the French and of reviving 
 the Kepublic. 
 
 In the summer of 1865, the party of free government 
 in Mexico was overthrown and scattered, the Monar- 
 chists apparently supreme, and Maximilian travelling 
 through his empire regulating the new social institu- 
 tions. 
 
 In the meantime, however, Sheridan, in Texas and at 
 New Orleans, had closed out the Rebellion. On the 25th 
 of July, 1865, General Grant wrote to him confidentially 
 as follows, with regard to the French in Mexico : 
 
 * * * I have written my views to the President 
 and had conversation with him on the subject. In all 
 that relates to Mexican affairs he agrees in the duty we 
 owe to ourselves to maintain the Monroe doctrine both 
 as a principle and a security for our future peace. On 
 the Rio Grande, or in Texas, convenient to get there, 
 we must have a large amount of surrendered ordnance 
 and ordnance stores, or such articles accumulating from 
 discharging men who leave these things behind, without 
 special orders to do so, send none of these back, but 
 rather place them convenient to be permitted to go into 
 Mexico, if they can be got into the hands of the defend- 
 ers of the only government we recognize in that country. 
 
 It is a fixed determination on the part of the people of 
 the United States, and I think myself safe in saying, on 
 the part of the President also, that an Empire shall not 
 be established on this continent by the aid of foreign 
 bayonets. A war on the part of the United States is to 
 be ^avoided, if possible ; but, it will be better to go to 
 war now, when but little aid given to the Mexicans will 
 settle the question, than to have in prospect a greater 
 war, sure to come if delayed until the Empire is estab- 
 lished. 
 
 We want then to aid the Mexicans without giving 
 cause of war between the United States and France. 
 
32 
 
 Between the would-be Empire of Maximilian and the 
 United States, all difficulty can easily be settled by ob- 
 serving the same sort of neutrality that has been ob- 
 served towards us for the last four years. 
 
 With a knowledge of the facts before you 
 however, that the greatest desire is felt to see the Liberal 
 government restored in Mexico, and that no doubt ex- 
 ists of the strict justice of our right to demand this, 
 and enforce the demand with the whole strength of the 
 United States, your own judgment gives you a basis of 
 action that will aid you. 
 
 Sheridan's personal memoirs show that he was already 
 hard at work. He began by arresting a large migra- 
 tion of the ex- Confederates, whom the whole South was 
 encouraging to join the forces of Maximilian. Troops 
 were next gathered on the Rio Grande, and formal 
 communication opened there with Juarez, and scouts 
 were sent to ostentatiously inquire what supplies 
 Northern Mexico could furnish to the forces under 
 Sheridan. The direct effect of all this was that the 
 French withdrew from Northern Mexico. The Liberals 
 flocked in and there reorganized their army. Then 
 cannon, small arms and ammunition enough in all, per- 
 haps, for fifty thousand men were carelessly left by 
 Sheridan along the Bio Grande, where the Liberals 
 yielded to temptation and helped themselves at will. 
 The Minister of France at Washington protested vigor- 
 ously with just the same result that our protests 
 achieved while yet the French in Mexico were helping 
 the rebellion. The Liberals and the Monroe doctrine 
 were too much for them, and the Republic rules in 
 Mexico to-day revived by the United States in partial 
 compensation for the war of 1846. 
 
 Two or three matters themselves far from incidental, 
 can receive only incidental mention. 
 
33 
 
 It goes without saying that a sympathy so earnest, 
 always exacting of itself results, produced a character 
 that rose above mere common honesty to high integ- 
 rity of purpose. When he came East to the field of 
 war from Oregon, his first assignments were as Quarter- 
 master and as Commissary, in Missouri, and he came 
 at once in contact with the pecuniary contaminations 
 which at that time and place affected the supply depart- 
 ments of the army. With him, to come in contact was to 
 come in conflict with them, and the speedy result was his 
 summary removal out of that military department. 
 When after the war he was sent to New Orleans and a 
 subservient countenance of dishonest methods was re- 
 quired of him, in a protest which this drew from him with 
 reference to the conduct of Governor Wells, he wrote 
 to the Secretary of War, " I say again that he is dis- 
 " honest, and that dishonesty is more than must be 
 " expected of me." Ten years afterwards he wrote to 
 General Sherman from Chicago : 
 
 I am and have always been faithful in thought and 
 word to my lawful commander even independent of 
 the warm personal friendship and admiration I have for 
 you. I have been repaid for all this by fairness in the 
 exercise of your authority, and by reciprocal friend- 
 ship. I have built up my present division, 
 have been connected with the great development of the 
 country west of the Mississippi Eiver by protecting 
 every interest so far as in my power, and in a fair and 
 honorable way, without acquiring a single personal 
 interest to mar or blur myself or my profession. 
 
 When he wrote of himself that at the beginning of 
 the war he was desirous of opportunity but not dream- 
 ing of high rank, for he stated the whole truth. When 
 in May, 1862, he was appointed Colonel of the 
 Second Michigan Cavalry, some one expressed to him 
 
34 
 
 the hope that the star of a brigadier was not distant in 
 point of time. His repty was, " No, I thank you ; I am 
 now a colonel of cavalry, and have all the rank I want." 
 Eepeatedly afterwards he submitted without complaint 
 to withdrawal of troops from his immediate command 
 and to subordination of himself without any of those 
 resulting quarrels which so often embittered the co- 
 operating forces on either side during the war. In one 
 instance this evoked a spontaneous tribute even from 
 the taciturnity of General Grant. In the Valley of the 
 Shenandoah Sheridan had been supreme. Flushed 
 with the victories of the Opequan, of Fisher's Hill 
 and Cedar Creek, still when his work was done he at 
 once moved his army eastward to join the Army of the 
 Potomac. General Grant met him with the remark that 
 it was not often that an army commander would let go 
 in that way his independence, adding that he should 
 not suffer for it. A little army was made up for him 
 consisting of the cavalry, and other troops from time to 
 time assigned to him by General Grant. With this he 
 compassed all his share in what was done thereafter. 
 
 Having heard both General Grant and General Sher- 
 man speak freely with regard to his relieving General 
 Warren, I may say that each expressed the same clear 
 recognition both of the necessity and what created it. 
 A caution that amounted to a want of faith in his supe- 
 riors repeatedly led General Warren to reply to a com- 
 mand to move, with a demand to be assured that his 
 flanks were protected, or that other duties incident to 
 giving the command had been performed. More than 
 once the delay thus arising resulted in a loss of the de- 
 sired result amounting to a virtual disobedience in a gal- 
 lant, skillful officer and noble, excellent man. General 
 
35 
 
 Sherman is my authority in saying that at Spottsylvania 
 General Grant had this experience with General War- 
 ren in a way that fixed in his own mind a sense of the 
 necessity of acting at once upon any similar occasion, 
 and that led him in advance of that occasion to give 
 General Sheridan authority to do as he afterwards did 
 just after Five Forks. General Grant, indeed had said 
 to Genera] Warren, " Warren, I think you ought to trust 
 me for a few things." Sheridan's command was ex- 
 posed to the whole of Lee's army. What was at once 
 rapid and rash might be required of him at any moment 
 and the fate of his command turn on its instant execu- 
 tion. He had to choose between the situation and the 
 man. He never spared himself in such a choice. In 
 his whole life there is nothing to show that he at any 
 time mistook his personal resentment for a sense of 
 duty. 
 
 This little grouping of facts has disclosed to us how a 
 strenuous and sympathetic interest in any life with 
 which he was concerned, by reason of its being strenuous 
 enough to bring him to the outcome of results, first 
 made a lad of fourteen busy and intelligent, and so both 
 valued and respected. Next, how that self-same 
 sympathetic interest, always pushing to the outcome, 
 carried him into the service of his country and there 
 qualified him with accomplishments which gave him 
 personality and with confidence that gave him force. 
 How the same feeling that so made him one with all 
 the life about him made him true to all of it, and how 
 this truth and skill and confidence wrought out the life 
 that brings us here for its commemoration. All these 
 progressive glimpses of that life have shown no trace 
 of fault not overcome. Let me say here with regard 
 
36 
 
 to nil de morluis nisi bonum that the great men of 
 antiquity from whom that adage emanated were not 
 fools nor insincere. Life is a process of assimilation, 
 whether it be the life of consciousness or physical. 
 When the loved and admired have left us, and we 
 gather in commemoration, that is but a seizing back 
 from death of so much as we may before he has it safe 
 in his deposit of oblivion. What we thus seize we 
 store within ourselves, and influenced by it grow in our 
 degree into its like. A second value then has come 
 to it, in that our dead now lives again in us, the highest 
 tribute gratitude and love can pay. What shall we 
 seize from death, then, but that which is good ? 
 What image shall we build of a dead friend in our own 
 lives except an image of him at his best, and stripped 
 of everything which he would willingly have dropped ? 
 The men who made the maxim knew the grace of life 
 that might be kept from death, and the new life that 
 love could give the good things of the dead. This life 
 that we have studied offers opportunity to say these 
 things without embarrassment, because it was no, let 
 me say it is so fit to follow. A life that acted out its 
 kindly sympathies, and proved that only this, done 
 mightily and with judicious balance of all rights, is 
 necessary to the character that rises to all needs and 
 if need be can handle armies or secure a pony for a 
 boy can retain equally the love of a charming family 
 and of this great nation ; this is the life, that in its 
 death, may plead for other dead that only good may 
 live concerning them. 
 
 [25308] 
 
 May 28, '89. 30.