USA > New Mexico > Men of our day; or, biographical sketches of patriots, orators, statemen, generals, reformers, financiers and merchants, now on the stage of action > Part 12
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MAJOR-GENERAL PHILIP H. SHERIDAN.
General Buell arrived at Louisville, and soon commenced a re- organization of the Army of the Ohio, now largely reinforced. In this re-organization, General Sheridan was placed in command of the eleventh division, and entered upon his duties on the 1st of October.
Buell soon took the offensive again, and began pushing the re- bels, who had already commenced a retreat, but were embarrassed by the amount of plunder they had collected. On the 8th of Octo- ber, the rebels made a stand near Perryville, Kentucky, for the double purpose of checking the pursuit, and allowing their trains to move forward out of harm's way. The battle which followed, though a severe one, was not decisive, owing to some defects in the handling of the forces, and Bragg was allowed to make good his retreat with most of his plunder, and with but moderate loss : but in it Sheridan played a distinguished part, holding the key of the Union position, and resisting the onsets of the enemy, again and again, with great bravery and skill, driving them at last from the open ground in front, by a bayonet charge. This accomplished, he saw that they were gaining advantage on the left of the Union line, and moving forward his artillery, directed so terrible a fire upon the rebel advance, that he drove them from the open ground on which they had taken position. Enraged at being thus foiled, they charged with great fury upon his lines, determined to carry the point at all hazards ; but, with the utmost coolness, he opened upon them at short range, with such a murderous fire of grape and canister, that they fell back in great disorder, leaving their dead and wounded in winrows in front of the batteries. The loss in Sheridan's division in killed and wounded, was over four hundred, but his generalship had saved the Union army from defeat. On the 30th of ()cto- ber, General Rosecrans succeeded General Buell as commander of the Army of the Ohio, which, with enlarged territory, was
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thenceforward to be known as the Army of the Cumberland, and in the re-organization, General Sheridan was assigned to to the command of one of the divisions of MeCook's corps, which constituted the right wing of that army. He remained for the next seven or eight weeks in the vicinity of Nashville, and then moved with his corps, on the 26th of December, 1862, toward Murfreesboro. During the 26th, his division met the enemy on the Nolensville road, and skirmished with them to Nolensville and Knob gap, occupying at night the latter import- ant position. The next morning a dense fog obscured the hori- zon; but as soon as it lifted, Sheridan pressed forward, and drove the enemy from the village of Triune, which he occupied.
The next three days were spent in skirmishing, and in gra- dually drawing nearer, over the almost impassable roads, to Murfreesboro, the goal of their hopes. At length, on the night of the 30th of December, the army was drawn up in battle array, on the banks of Stone river.
"The men bivouacked in line of battle. They were to wake to great calamity and great glory in the morning.
"In the general plan of the battle of Stone river, the part assigned to the right wing, was to hold the enemy, while the rest of the army swung through Murfreesboro, upon his rear. In this right wing Sheridan held the left. Elsewhere along that ill-formed line were batteries, to which the horses had not been harnessed when the fateful attack burst through the gray dawn upon them. But there was one division commander who, with or without orders thereto, might be trusted for ample vigilance in the face of an enemy. At two in the morning, he was moving some of his regiments to strengthen a portion of his line, on which he thought the enemy was massing. At four he mustered his division under arms, and had every cannonecr at his post. For over two hours they waited. When the onset
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came, the ready batteries opened at once. The rebels continued to sweep up. At fifty yards' distance the volleys of Sheridan's musketry became too murderous. The enemy, in massed regi- ments, hesitated, wavered, and finally broke. Sheridan instantly sent Sill's brigade to charge upon the retreating column. The movement was brilliantly executed, but the life of the gallant brigade commander went out in the charge.
" Presently the enemy rallied and returned. Already the rest of the wing had been hurled back in confusion ; the weight of the victorious foe bore down upon Sheridan's exposed flank and broke it. There was now come upon Sheridan, that same stress of battle under which his companion division commanders had been crushed. But hastily drawing back the broken flank, he changed the front of his line to meet the new danger, and ordered a brigade to charge; while under cover of this daring onset, the new line was made compact. Here Sheridan felt abundantly able to hold his ground.
" But his flank -? The routed divisions, which should have formed upon it, were still in hasty retreat. He dashed among them-threatened, begged, swore. All was in vain; they would not re-form. Sheridan was isolated, and his right once more turned. Moving then by the left, he rapidly ad- vanced, driving the enemy from his front, and maintaining his line unbroken till he secured a connection on the left with Negley. Here he was instantly and tremendously assailed. The attack was repulsed. Again Cheatham's rebel division at tacked, and again it was driven back. Once again the baffled enemy swept up to the onset, till his batteries were planted within two hundred yards of Sheridan's lines. The men stood firm. Another of the brigade commanders fell ; but the enemy was once more driven. Thus heroically did Sheridan strive to beat back the swift disaster that had befallen the right.
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"But now came the crowning misfortu ze. When the rest of McCook's wing had been swept out of the contest, the ammuni- tion train had fallen into the hands of the enemy. With the overwhelming force on his front, with the batteries playing at short range, with the third rebel onslaught just repulsed, and the men momentarily growing more confident of themselves and of their fiery commander, there suddenly came the startling cry that the ammunition was exhausted ! 'Fix bayonets, then !' was the ringing command. Under cover of the bristling lines of steel on the front, the brigades were rapidly withdrawn. Presently a couple of regiments fell upon an abandoned ammu- nition wagon. For a moment they swarmed around it-then back on the double quick to the front, to aid in the retreat of the artillery. One battery was lost, the rest, with only a miss- ing piece or two, were brought off. Thus riddled and depleted, with fifteen hundred from the little division left dead or wound- ed in the dark cedars, but with compact ranks and a steady front, the heroic column came out on the Murfreesboro turn- pike. 'Here is all that is left of us,' said Sheridan, riding up to Rosecrans to report. 'Our cartridge-boxes are empty, and so are our muskets !'
"Thus the right, on which the battle was to have hinged, had disappeared from the struggle. Already the enemy, press- ing his advantage to the utmost, seemed about to break through the centre; and Sheridan, supplied with ammunition, was or- dered in to its relief. He checked the rebel advance, charged at one point, and captured guns and prisoners, held his line steady throughout, and bivouacked upon it at nightfall. This final struggle cost him his last brigade commander !"#
General Rosecrans, in his report of this battle, pays the fol- lowing high compliment to Sheridan's generalship : "Sheridan,
* Mr. Whitelaw Reid's sketch of Sheridan in his " Ohio in the War."
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after sustaining four successive attacks, gradually swung his right round southeasterly to a northwestern direction, repulsing the enemy four times, losing the gallant General Sill of his right, and Colonel Roberts of his left brigade; when, having ex- hausted his ammunition, Negley's division being in the same predicament, and heavily pressed, after desperate fighting they fell back from the position held at the commencement, through the cedar woods, in which Rousseau's division, with a portion of Negley's and Sheridan's, met the advancing enemy and checked his movements."
For his gallantry in this battle, General Rosecrans suggested, and the President recommended, Sheridan's promotion to the rank of major-general of volunteers, his commission to date from December 31st, 1862. He was at once confirmed by the Senate.
In the months that followed the battle of Stone river, months of watching and waiting, Sheridan kept himself busy, and en- joying the confidence of the commanding general, who did not, however, fully appreciate his talents, he and his division found constant employment. The country about Murfreesboro was thoroughly scoured, and all its strategic points carefully mapped in the mind of the cavalry general. On the 3d of march, he flung himself and his division upon the rebel General Van Dorn, who had penetrated as far as Shelbyville, Tennessee, in an ad- vance upon the Union lines, hurled him back, pursued him to Columbia and Franklin, and near Eagleville, Tennessee, cap- tured his train and a large number of prisoners. In the ad- vance on Tullahoma, June 24 to July 4, 1863, he drove the rebels out of Liberty Gap, a strong mountain pass, which was one of the keys of their position, occupied Shelbyville, pushed forward to, and took possession of Winchester, Tennessee, which by a flank, movement, he had compelled the enemy to
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abandon, and saved the great bridge over the Tennessee at Bridgeport, his infantry outstripping Stanley's cavalry, which they were ordered to support.
The Tennessee crossed, Chattanooga flanked by Rosecrans, and evacuated by Bragg, General Sheridan was sent to reconnoitre the enemy's force and position, and found him largely reinforced and determined to push Rosecrans to the wall and recover Chattanooga. Then came Chickamauga, the severe but wholly indecisive battle of the first day, in which, however, Sheridan, by his promptness and activity, did good service, and the disas- trous fight of the second day, which yet, thanks to General Thomas's firmness and superb generalship, was not wholly a defeat. In this severe action, McCook's and Crittenden's corps and the general commanding the army were, by the fatal mis- understanding of an order, cut off from the remainder of the army, and compelled to fall back upon Rossville, and Chatta- nooga. Sheridan, whose division was still a part of MeCook's corps, though involved in this disaster, succeeded, by the utmost effort, in rallying the greater part of his command and bringing it through by-roads from Rossville to join General Thomas, who had fought and repulsed the enemy. He was not in season, much to his mortification, to participate in the closing hours of the fight, but he nevertheless strengthened materially the hands of the general.
The corps of McCook and Crittenden were now consolidated into one (the fourth) corps, and the command of it given to Gordon Granger, an officer only less incompetent than those whom he succeeded. Then came a change of commanders to the Army of the Cumberland; General G. H. Thomas succeeded General Rosecrans, and the army of the Tennessee, and two corps from the Army of the Potomac, being added to the force, General Grant tok charge of the whole. The battles of the
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Wauhatchie, Lookout Mountain, and Mission Ridge, and the expulsion of the rebels from the valleys of Chattanooga and Chickamauga followed. In the capture of Orchard Knob, and in that most brilliant episode of the war, the ascent of Mission Ridge, Sheridan bore a conspicuous part. The fourth corps (Granger's) were the charging column, and stung by the recollection of that sad day at Chickamauga, as the six guns gave the signal for advance, Sheridan rode along his column, and called in thunder tones to his division, "Show the fourth corps that the men of the old twentieth are still alive, and can fight. Remember Chickamauga !"
Before Sheridan and the companion divisions stretched an open space of a mile and an eighth to the enemy's first line of rifle-pits. Above this frowned a steep ascent of five hundred yards, up which it scarcely seemed possible that unresisted troops could clamber. At the summit were fresh rifle-pits. As Sheridan rode along his front and reconnoitered the rebel pits at the base of the ridge, it seemed to him that, even if captured, they could scarcely be tenable under the plunging fire that might then be directed from the summit. He accordingly sent back a staff-officer to inquire if the order was to take the rifle- pits or to take the ridge. But before there was time for an answer, the six guns thundered out their stormy signal, and the whole line rose up and leaped forward. The plain was swept by a tornado of shot and shell, but the men rushed on at the double-quick, swarmed over the rifle-pits, and flung themselves down on the face of the mountain. Just then the answer to Sheridan's message came. It was only this first line of rifle- pits that was to be carried. Some of the men were accordingly retired to it by their brigade commander, under the heavy fire of grape, canister, and musketry. "But," said Sheridan, " believing that the attack had assumed a new phase, and that I
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could carry the ridge, I could not order those officers and men who were so gallantly ascending the hill, step by step, to return.' As the twelve regimental colors slowly went up, one advancing a little, the rest pushing forward, emulous to be even with it, till all were planted midway up the ascent on a partial line of rifle-pits that nearly covered Sheridan's front, an order came from Granger : "If in your judgment the ridge can be taken, do so." An eye-witness shall tell us how he received it .* " An aid rides up with the order; 'Avery, that flask,' said the general. Quietly filling the pewter cup, Sheridan looks up at the battery that frowned above him, by Bragg's headquarters, shakes his cap amid that storm of every thing that kills, where you could hardly hold your hand without catching a bullet in it, and, with a 'How are you?' tosses off the cup. The blue battle-flag of the rebels fluttered a response to the cool salute, and the next instant the battery let fly its six guns, showering Sheridan with earth: The general said in his quiet way, 'I thought it d-d ungenerous !' The recording angel will drop a tear upon the word for the part he played that day. Wheeling toward the men he cheered them to the charge, and made at the hill like a bold-riding hunter. They were out of the rifle-pits and into the tempest, and struggling up the steep before you could get breath to tell it."
Then came what the same writer has called the torrid zone of the battle. Rocks were rolled down from above on the advancing line; shells with lighted fuses were rolled down; guns were loaded with handfuls of cartridges and fired down, but the line struggled on : still fluttered the twelve regimental flags in the advance. At last, with a leap and a rush, over they went-all twelve fluttered on the crest-the rebels were
* B. F. Taylor, of the Chicago Journal.
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bayoneted out of their rifle-pits-the guns were turned-the ridge was won. In this last spasm of the struggle Sheridan's horse was shot under him. He sprang upon a captured gun, to raise his short person high enough to be visible in the half- crazy throng, and ordered a pursuit! It harassed the enemy for some miles, and brought back eleven guns as proofs of its vigor.
Signal as had been Sheridan's previous services, he had never before been so brilliantly conspicuous. In other battles he had approved himself a good officer in the eyes of his superi- ors; on the deathly front of Mission Ridge he flamed out the incarnation of soldierly valor and vigor in the eyes of the whole American people. His entire losses were thirteen hundred and four, and he took seventeen hundred and sixty-two prisoners. But these figures give no adequate idea of the conflict. It may be better understood from the simple statement that in that brief contest, in a part of a winter afternoon, he lost one hun dred and twenty-three officers from that single division-a num. ber greater than the whole French army lost at Solferino ! Through his own clothes five minie balls had passed; his horse had been shot under him; and yet he had come out without a scratch.
For a short time longer he was employed in East Tennessee in driving out the rebels who still found a lodgment there, but when General Grant was advanced to the lieutenant general- ship, one of his first acts was to apply to the War Department for the transfer of General Philip H. Sheridan to the eastern army, and when he was arrived, to make him the commander of the cavalry corps of the Army of the Potomac. Here he was in the sphere for which he had longed, and for which he was undoubtedly best fitted. But the cavalry of the Army of the Potomac was far from being in a model condition. The
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days of the old service of cavalry, the heavy and light horse, the grand cavalry charges, and the chivalry of mounted troops under perfect drill were gone; minie muskets and rifled cannon had changed all that. But with this there had gone also in great measure the esprit du corps of the service. The squadrons were detailed for picket service, for guarding trains, for duties which could better be performed by infantry, and when they fought, they charged upon infantry, and were shy of any attack upon the enemy's cavalry. Against all this Sheridan protested, and with good effect. He procured their release from picket and train duty, he trained his men to care tenderly for their horses, which up to this time had been broken down with frightful rapidity, in consequence of the ignorance, heedlessness and indifference of their riders; he drilled them in all the ser- vice of cavalry and infused into them a portion of his own fiery spirit and that joy in the fight, which marks the true cavalry soldier.
From the 5th of May, 1864, to the 9th of April, 1865, Sheri- dan's command were engaged in seventy-six distinct battles, all but thirteen of them under his own eye and order. At the close of the campaign he could say, with a commendable pride in the achievements of his men, though always modest in regard to his own deeds, "We sent to the War Department (between the dates above specified) two hundred and five battle flags, captured in open field fighting-nearly as many as all the armies of the United States combined sent there during the rebellion. The number of field pieces captured in the same period was between one hundred and sixty and one hundred and seventy, all in open field fighting .* * * We led the advance of the army to the Wilderness; on the Richmond raid we marked out its line of march to the North Anna, where we found it on our return ; we again led its advance to Hanover-
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town, and then to Cold Harbor; we removed the enemy's cavalry from the south side of the Chickahominy by the Tre. villian raid, and thereby materially assisted the army in its successful march to the James river and Petersburg, where it remained until we made the campaign in the valley; we marched back to Petersburg, again took the advance and led the army to victory. In all these operations, the percentage of cavalry casualties was as great as that of the infantry, and the question which had existed-' who ever saw a dead cavalry- man ?' was set at rest."
Of the many remarkable actions hinted at in these pregnant sentences, we have space only to allude to two or three. His first raid toward Richmond was one of the most daring and successful of the war. He penetrated the outer line of defences of that city ; bewildered and confounded the rebels by his au- dacity, fought two battles to extricate himself from his apparent- ly critical position, in one of which General J. E. B. Stuart, the ablest cavalry officer of the rebels, was slain; defeated the enemy in both battles, built a bridge across the Chickahominy under fire, and finally returned to the Army of the Potomac after sixteen days with but slight loss, after inflicting serious and permanent injury upon the enemy. His second raid, under- taken to co-operate with Hunter in the valley of Virginia was less successful, owing to the utter failure of that officer's plans, but it kept the rebel cavalry out of the way of the Union army in crossing the James. On his return, he guarded the vast train of the Army of the Potomac (an irksome task to him), to and across the James, not without some sharp battles; made some raids south of the James, and took an active part in the feint at the north side of the James, ir. the last days of July. Appoint- ed to the command of the Army of the Shenandoah, in August, he exhibited such ability in handling his troops, such alternate
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caution and daring in his manœuvring with Early, that the confidence of the nation was soon reposed in him. That that confidence was not misplaced, he speedily gave decisive evidence
On the 19th of September, after a fierce and stubborn fight at Opequan creek, he had defeated and routed Early, and as he expressed it, " sent him whirling through Winchester," follow- ing him relentlessly to his defences at Fisher's Hill, thirty miles below, killing in the battle and retreat, three, and wounding severely four more of his ablest generals, among the latter Fitzhugh Lee, the commander of the rebel cavalry of the army of Virginia. With his usual celerity, and a strategic skill of which, hitherto, he had not displayed the possession, he proceed- ed to attack Early's stronghold, Fisher's Hill, which that general had believed perfectly impregnable, and, on the 22d, carried it by storm, attacking in front, in rear, and on the flank; drove the rebels out and chased them without mercy till the 25th, driving them below Port Republic, at the extreme head of the valley.
For this splendid series of victories, he was made a brigadier- general in the regular army in place of the lamented McPher- son. Twice more before the 13th of October he had driven back Early or his lieutenants, who, loth to give up the valley of the Shenandoah, the garden of Virginia, had obtained rein- forcements and again essayed encounters with this western rough rider. At length, believing Early sufficiently punished to remain in obscurity for a time, Sheridan made a flying visit to Washington, on matters connected with his department. Early was quickly apprised of his departure, and resolved to profit by it. Collecting further reinforcements, and creeping stealthily up to the camp of the Union army at Cedar creek, eighteen or twenty miles below Winchester, the rebel soldiers being required to lay aside their canteens, lest the click of their
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bayonnets against them should apprize the Union troops of their approach, they reached and flanked Crooks' corps, which was in advance, at about day dawn. The Union troops were unpardonably careless, having no suspicion that the rebels were within twenty miles of them. They were consequently taken at unawares, and many of them bayonetted before they were fairly awake; in a very few minutes they were forced back, disorganized, upon the nineteenth corps, who were en echelon beyond them; they at first made a stand, but in a short time were forced back, though not completely disorganized ; and the sixth corps in turn were compelled to stand against heavy odds. In the end all were driven back three or four miles, to the Middletown plains, and the fugitives were carrying the news of a total defeat and rout, at full speed toward Winchester But deliverance was nearer than they thought. They had lost twenty-four guns and twelve hundred prisoners, but they were beginning to recover from their fright, and were re-organizing, while the rebels, hungry and thirsty, wayworn and in rags, were stopping to plunder the camp. Still they would hardly have regained any portion of their lost territory and might have fallen back to Winchester, had not Sheridan, just at this juncture, appeared riding at full speed among them. He had heard the firing at Winchester, where he arrived late the night before, and at first was not alarmed by it, but, coming out of Winches- ter, he was met by some of the foremost of the fugitives, a mile from the town.
" He instantly gave orders to park the retreating trains on either side of the road, directed the greater part of his escort' to follow as best they could; then, with only twenty cavalrymen accompanying him, he struck out in a swinging gallop for the scene of danger. As he dashed up the pike, the crowds of stragglers grew thicker. He reproached none; only, swinging
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