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 13
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his cap, with a cheery smile for all, he shouted : 'Face the other way, boys, face the other way. We are going back to our camps. We are going to lick them out of their boots.' Less classic, doubtless, than Napoleon's ' My children, we will camp on the battle-field, as usual;' but the wounded raised their hoarse voices to cheer as he passed, and the masses of fugitives turned and followed him to the front. As he rode into the forming lines, the men quickened their pace back to the ranks, and everywhere glad cheers went up. 'Boys, this never should have happened if I had been here,' he exclaimed to one and another regiment. 'I tell you it never should have happened. And now we are going back to our camps. We are going to get a twist on them; we'll get the tightest twist on them yet that ever you saw. We'll have all those camps and cannon back again !' Thus he rode along the lines, rectified the forma- tion, cheered and animated the soldiers. Presently there grew up across that pike as compact a body of infantry and cavalry as that which, a month before, had sent the enemy 'whirling through Winchester.' His men had full faith in 'the twist' he was 'going to get' on the victorious foe; his presence was inspi- ration, his commands were victory.
" While the line was thus re-established, he was in momentary expectation of attack. Wright's sixth corps was some distance in the rear. One staff officer after another was sent after it. Finally, Sheridan himself dashed down to hurry it up: then back to watch it going into position. As he thus stood, looking off from the left, he saw the enemy's columns once more moving up. Hurried warning was sent to the nineteenth corps, on which it was evident the attack would fall. By this time it was after three o'clock.
" The nineteenth corps, no longer taken by surprise, repulsed the enemy's onset. "Thank God for that,' said Sheridan, gaily.
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' Now tell General Emory, if they attack him again, to go after them, and to follow them up. We'll get the tightest twist on them pretty soon they ever saw.' The men heard and believed him ; the demoralization of the defeat was gone. But he still waited. Word had been sent in from the cavalry, of danger from a heavy body moving on his flank. He doubted it, and at last determined to run the risk. At four o'clock the orders went out : 'The whole line will advance. The nineteenth corps will move in connection with the sixth. The right of the nine- teenth will swing toward the left.'
" The enemy lay behind stone fences, and where these failed, breastworks of rails eked out his line. For a little, he held his position firmly. His left overlapped Sheridan's right, and see- ing this advantage, he bent it down to renew the attack in flank. At this critical moment, Sheridan ordered a charge of General Mc Williams' brigade against the angle thus caused in the rebel line. It forced its way through, and the rebel flank- ing party was cut off. Custer's cavalry was sent swooping down upon it-it broke, and fled, or surrendered, according to the agility of the individuals. Simultaneously the whole line charged along the front; the rebel line was crowded back to the creek; the difficulties of the crossing embarrassed it, and as the victorious ranks swept up, it broke in utter confusion.
"Custer charged down in the fast gathering darkness, to the west of the pike; Devin to the east of it; and on either flank of the fleeing rout they flung themselves. Nearly all the rebel transportation was captured, the camps and artillery were re- gained ; up to Fisher's Hill the road was jammed with artillery, caissons, and ambulances; prisoners came streaming back faster than the provost marshal could provide for them. It was the end of Early's army ; the end of campaigning in the beautiful valley of the Shenandoah."
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The twenty-four cannon lost in the morning were retaken, and besides them, twenty-eight more of Early's. Beside these, there were fifty wagons, sixty-five ambulances, sixteen hundred small arms, several battle flags, fifteen hundred prisoners, and two thousand killed and wounded left on the field. The Union losses were about thirty-eight hundred, of whom eight hundred were prisoners.
In all the records of modern history, there are but three ex- amples of such a battle, lost and won on the same field, and in the same conflict-Marengo, Shiloh, and Stone River; and in the two former the retrieval was due mainly to reinforcements brought up at the critical time, while the third was not so immedia ely decisive; but here, the only reinforcement which the army of the Shenandoah received or needed to recover its lost field of battle, camps, intrenchments, and cannon, was one man-SHERIDAN.
General Grant, on the receipt of the news of the battle, tele- graphed to Secretary Stanton : "I had a salute of one hundred guns fired from each of the armies here, in honor of Sheridan's last victory. Turning what bid fair to be a disaster into a glori- ous victory, stamps Sheridan, what I have always thought him, one of the ablest of generals." General Sheridan also received an autograph letter of thanks from the President, and on the 14th of November, he was promoted to the major-generalship in the regular army, vacated by General McClellan's resignation.
For six weeks following, there were occasional skirmishes with small bands of regular cavalry, the debris of Early's army, but this was all. In December, the sixth army corps returned to the Army of the Potomac, and Sheridan, for two months, recruited and rested his cavalry, using it only as an army of observation. About the first of March, with a force of about 9,000 men, well mounted and disciplined, he moved forward
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under instructions from General Grant, to destroy the Virginia Central railroad, and the James River canal, the two arteries of supply for the rebels at Richmond and Petersburg, and then strike at, and if possible, capture Lynchburg, and either join Sherman at Goldsboro, or returning to Winchester, descend thence to City Point. The destruction of the railroad and canal ยท were thoroughly performed, but, delayed by heavy rains, he found that Lynchburg was probably too strong to be attacked, and as every route of communication between that city and Richmond was broken, its garrison could not render any assist- anee either to Lee or Johnston. He had captured Early's remaining force of 1,600 men at Waynesboro; and now, instead of returning to Winchester, or going on to join Sherman, he resolved to march past Richmond, to join the Army of the Poto- mac. The resolve was a bold one, for he knew Longstreet was on the watch for him, and would show him no mercy, if he could have a fair opportunity of attacking him. Nevertheless, he made the march, fooled Longstreet, and arrived safely at City Point, having completely desolated the country through which he passed, and destroyed property, estimated by the rebels themselves, at over $50,000,000.
And now came the end of the war, and in its closing scenes, so far as the rebel army of Northern Virginia was concerned, Sheridan had the most conspicuous part. Arriving at City Point OL the 25th of March, 1865, he was directed by General Grant to move, on the 29th, southwestward by way of Reans' station to Dinwiddie Court-house, and from thence either strike the Southside railroad at Burkesville station, some forty miles! distant ; or, if it should seem best, support the infantry, one or two corps of which should, in that case, be put under his com- mand, in an attempt, by way of Halifax road, to cross Hatcher's run at the point which had been held since February. He 10
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chose, after reconnoissance, the latter plan, and pushed on toward Dinwiddie, and connected with the left of the fifth corps, on the Boydton road. The enemy were found strongly intrenched at Five Forks, about six miles west of the Boydton plank-road, and also held in some force the White Oak road, by which the Five Forks were approached from the east. On the 31st of March there was heavy fighting all along the line. The fifth corps, or rather two divisions of it, were driven back in some disorder on the White Oak road, and a part of Sheridan's cav- alry were separated from the main body, and his whole force imperilled. By dismounting his cavalry in front of Dinwiddie Court-house, and fighting desperately till late at night, he suc- ceeded in holding his position, and the two contending forces lay on their arms through the night. The next morning, April 1st, the fifth corps, now under his command, did not advance as he expected, and his enemy of the night before having retreated to Five Forks, he followed, and finding the fifth corps, directed them to assault when he gave the order, and completed his arrangements for carrying Five Forks by a simultaneous assault in front and on both flanks. In this assault the fifth corps par- ticipated. It was successful, after some hard fighting, and the rebel troops who were not either slain, wounded or prisoners, were driven off westward so far as to be unable to return to aid in the defence of Petersburg. Being dissatisfied, perhaps with- out quite sufficient cause, with the management of General G. K. Warren, the commander of the fifth corps, during the day, General Sheridan relieved him of his command, and ordered General Griffin to take his place. The two men were so unlike in their temperament and modes of thought, though both brave and patriotic officers, that they could hardly have been expected to work well together.
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Sheridan followed up his successes the following day, by ham- mering the enemy's line along the Southside railroad, and an assault being made at the same time on the defences of Peters- burg, that city and Richmond were evacuated, and the rebel army fled along the route of the Southside railroad and the Appomattox river toward Appomattox Court-house, pursued relentlessly by Sheridan, who acted on the Donnybrook Fair principle, and whenever he saw a rebel head, hit it. There were some sharp actions, for the rebels were fighting in sheer despair ; but finding their trains captured and themselves brought to bay, without hope, at Appomattox Court-house, they surrendered, and the war in Virginia was over.
But not yet was our cavalry general to find rest. He was ordered at once to Texas, with a large force, to bring the rebels there, who still held out, to terms. E. Kirby Smith, the rebel commander of the Trans-Mississippi Department, surrendered about the time of his arrival, and, with his surrender, the war closed. On the 27th of June, 1865, General Sheridan was ap- pointed commander of the military Division of the Gulf, em- bracing the departments of Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas.
To preserve order in this division, so recently in rebellion, was a difficult task, the more difficult because the acting President was not true to his pledges, but encouraged the rebels, who at first were disposed to yield, to raise their heads again in defiance. But General Sheridan proved himself the man for the occasion. He was unfortunately absent in Texas when the riot and mas- sacre occurred in New Orleans, but his prompt and decided action in regard to it, his denunciation of the course of the mayor and police, even when he knew that they were in favor with the President, his removal of them from office, and with them of others who obstructed reconstruction, and the thorough
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loyalty he manifested all the way through, endeared him greatly to the nation. In Texas, too, he had his troubles: a disloyal governor was placed in power by the abortive reconstruction plan of Mr. Johnson, and when Congress armed Sheridan with the needed power, he removed him as promptly as he had done the rebel mayor and treacherous governor of Louisiana.
There were border difficulties to encounter, also ; many of the rebel officers had escaped to Mexico, and most of them were in Maximilian's service. Like his chief-General Grant-General Sheridan's sympathies were wholly with the Juarez or Repub- lican party in Mexico; but our relations with France were such that we could only give them our moral, not our military, sup- port. Demagogues of both the Republican and Imperial par- ties did their best to involve us in the imbroglio in some way, and one of Sheridan's subordinate commanders was so unwise as to cross the Rio Grande, at Matamoras, on the invitation of one of the guerrilla chiefs, and mingle in the fray. For this he was promptly removed from command, and General Sheridan exhibited so much prudence and discretion in the whole affair as to receive the approval of all parties.
That Andrew Johnson should not be pleased with so straight. forward and loyal a commander was to be expected; and not withstanding the earnest protest of General Grant, he removed him in August, 1867, from the command of the Fifth District, and ordered him to command on the plains, where he would have only Indians to contend with. Before proceeding to his new command, however, Major-General Sheridan, by permission of General Grant, visited the East, and was everywhere received with ovations and honor by the people, who were duly mindful of his great services in war and peace.
In person, Major-General Sheridan is small, being barely five feet six inches in height. His body is stout, his limbs rather
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short. He appears, however, to good advantage on horseback, being an admirable horseman, and always riding a spirited, and what most people would think a vicious, horse. His broad, deep chest, his compact and firm muscles, his large head, and his active, vigorous motions, indicate a man of great vitality and endurance, and such he is. His dark eyes are his finest features ; but the whole expression of his face indicates intellectual power and intensity of will. His voice is usually soft and low, but musical ; but on the field, in action, it rings out clear as a silver bell. Take him all in all, the country has cause to be proud of its cavalry general.
MAJOR-GENERAL GEORGE H. THOMAS.
AJOR-GENERAL GEORGE H. THOMAS, was born in Southampton county, Virginia, on the 31st of July, 1816. His father, John Thomas, was of English, or more re- motely of Welsh descent, while his mother, Elizabeth Rochelle, was of an ancient Huguenot family; and both, by birth, connections and social condition were ranked among the " first families" of the Old Dominion. Having received a fair academic education, he accepted a deputy-clerkship under his uncle, James Rochelle, then county-clerk, and commenced at the same time the study of the law. Receiving, in the spring of 1836, and through the influence of family friends, an appoint- ment to a cadetship in the United States Military Academy at West Point, he entered as a cadet in the following June; and, after four years of study, graduated in June, 1840-twelfth in a class which numbered forty-two members. He was assigned to a second lieutenancy in the 3d artillery, joined his regiment in Florida in November, and after a year's participation in the duties and dangers of that service, was breveted (Nov. 6, 1841) first lieutenant, "for gallant conduct." In January, 1842, he accompanied his regiment to New Orleans, and, in June follow- ing, to Fort Moultrie, Charleston harbor. In December, 1843, he was ordered with company C, of his regiment, to Fort
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McHenry, Maryland; was promoted first lieutenant, April 30th, 1844, and in the spring of 1845 joined company E, at Fort Moultrie. In July, 1845, Lieutenant Thomas and his company reported to General Zachary Taylor at Corpus Christi; being, together with the 3d and 4th infantry, the first United States troops who occupied the soil of Texas-in anticipation of threatened difficulty with Mexico. Marching with the army of occupation from Corpus Christi to the Rio Grande, Lieu- tenant Thomas's company, together with detachments from the 1st artillery and 7th infantry, was left to garrison Fort Brown opposite Matamoras-the main body of the army, under General Taylor, being at Point Isabel, where their base of supplies was established. He thus participated in the successful defence of Fort Brown, against the Mexicans, from the 2d to the 9th of May; and had the pleasure of contributing to the decisive vic- tory obtained by Taylor at Resaca de la Palma on the 9th, by pouring in an unremitting and galling fire upon the demoralized masses who sought safety in flight over the Rio Grande, near the fort. After the evacuation of Matamoras, Lieutenant Thomas, with a section of his battery, was on detached service with the advance of the army ; rejoined his command in Septem- ber, and took part in the battle of Monterey, September 23d, 1846, where, for his gallantry, he was breveted captain. From the 1st of November, 1846, until February 14th, 1847, he com- manded company E as senior lieutenant, during which time he was with the advance of General Quitman's brigade. Compa- nies C and E of the 3d artillery were among those selected by General Taylor in the formation of a division, with which, in accordance with General Scott's orders, he occupied the country which he had conquered. In the glorious and decisive battle of Buena Vista, on the 21st of February, Thomas ex- hibited distinguished gallantry, which won for him the warmest
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encomiums of his chief, and the brevet rank of major. At the close of the Mexican war he was appointed to the charge of the commissary depot at Brazos Santiago, and in December, 1848, received a six months, leave of absence, the first he had enjoyed since entering the service. Rejoining his company in June, 1849, at Fort Adams, Newport, Rhode Island, he was ordered on the 31st of July to take command of company B, of the 3d artillery, and proceed to Florida, where he remained until December, 1850. From thence he was ordered to Fort Independence, Boston harbor ; but, on the 28th of March, 1851, was relieved by Captain Ord, and assigned to West Point as instructor of artillery and cavalry, in which capacity he served for three years, during which time he was promoted to a full cap- taincy, dating from December 24th, 1853. He was next as- signed, with a battalion of artillery, to Fort Yuma, Lower California, the command of which he assumed July 15, 1854. Appointed, May 12, 1855, as junior major of the 2d United States cavalry, he left Fort Yuma in July, 1855, to join his new regiment at Jefferson Barracks, St. Louis, Missouri ; and, from May 1st, 1856, to November 1st, 1860, was on duty in Texas. During three years of this time he commanded the regi- ment, and in the summer of 1860, was engaged in an important exploration of the head waters of the Canadian and Red rivers and the Conchas, during which he met and skirmished with roving bands of hostile Indians, and in one of these rencontres, August 26th, 1860, was slightly wounded in the face. In November, 1860, he was favored with a short leave of absence- and when he returned to duty, the country was on the eve of a stupendous struggle, in which Providence had marked him as a prominent actor.
When the rebellion broke out in April, 1861, Major Thomas was one of the few southerners who maintained their allegiance
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to the " Old Flag," and was ordered to Carlisle Barracks, Penn- sylvania, to command and refit his regiment, which had, during the previous November, been dismounted and ordered out of Texas, by the traitor General Twiggs.
On the 25th of April he was created lieutenant-colonel, and on May 3d, 1861, colonel of the 2d cavalry, transferred to the 5th cavalry, August 3d, 1861, being assigned also, to the command of a brigade in Patterson's Army of Northern Virginia. On the 17th of August, 1861, he was made brigadier-general of volun- teers, and was ordered to Kentucky, then in the Department of the Cumberland, where, on the 15th of September, he took com- mand of Camp Dick Robinson. Having organized the troops collected there, he established Camp Wildcat, thirty miles to the south-east, in order to resist the advance of General Zolli- coffer through the Cumberland Gap. After the defeat of Zolli- coffer, October 26th, Thomas commenced a forward movement into Tennessee, but was sent to Lebanon, by General Buell, with a view of dislodging the rebel general A. J. Johnston from Bowling Green. Organizing, at Lebanon, the first division of the Army of the Cumberland, he defeated the rebels at Mill Spring, Kentucky, January 19th 1862 (during which battle Zollicoffer was killed), and moved through Kentucky, after the fall of Forts Henry and Donelson, to occupy Nashville, Tennessee. During the second day of the battle of Shiloh, April 7th, 1862, Thomas's division formed the reserve of the Army of the Cum- berland, and, consequently, was not engaged in action. On the 25th April, 1862, he was confirmed major-general of volunteers, his division being transferred (May 1st) to the Army of the Ten- nessee, the right wing of which (consisting of five divisions) was placed under his command. Participating with that army in the siege of Corinth, he was, on the 10th of June, re-transferred to his old army, that of the Ohio, and on the Sth of September
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was placed in command of Nashville. On the 19th, acting under orders, he overtook Buell near Cave City, and was im- mediately made second in the command of the army, holding the position during the whole of the rapid and exciting pursuit of Bragg's forces out of Kentucky. When, in November, 1862, General Rosecrans took charge of the army, which re-assumed its old name of "the Army of the Cumberland," General Thomas was given the command of the centre, consisting of five divisions.
During the series of contests at Stone river, December 31st, 1862, to January 4th, 1863, which resulted in the flight of Bragg's rebel army from Murfreesboro, Thomas held the ad- vance with a spirit which elicited from General Rosecrans, in his official report, the praise of " being true and prudent, distin- guished in council, and on many battle-fields celebrated by his courage." In the brilliant strategic movements through Middle Tennessee, which compelled the rebels first to seek refuge in Chattanooga, and then to abandon it, Thomas and his 14th army corps bore a conspicuous and honorable part. He bore also the brunt of the terrible onset made by Bragg at Chicka- mauga (September 20th, 1863), in his desperate attack to win back this stronghold. When each flank of the Union army was swept back and so completely routed, that Rosecrans himself gave up the day as lost, Thomas, resting his flanks on the sides of the mountain gap, repulsed, with terrible slaughter, every attempt of the rebel hosts to force him from his position. It is not too much to say that had it not been for the undaunted courage and extraordinary military ability of General Thomas on that eventful day of shifting, persistent and arduous conflict, Chattanooga, the results of the previous year's labor of the Army of the Cumberland, and even the existence of that army, would have been irremediably lost. On the 19th of October,
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1863, General Thomas succeeded Rosecrans in the chief com- mand of the Army of the Cumberland, which was then in (General Grant's) Military Division of the Mississippi; and was made a brigadier-general in the regular army, for gallantry at Chickamauga, his commission dating from the 27th of October, 1863.
After a month spent in strengthening the Army of the Cumber- land and the defences of Chattanooga, Thomas and his men, on the 24th of November, rallied forth from that city, and, by a rapid dash, siezed one of the rebel positions on Orchard Knob; from which, on the 25th, they made that wonderful charge up Mission Ridge, which history records as one of the most extra- ordinary and daring ever performed in modern warfare. Upon the appointment of General Grant to the command of the armies of the United States, General Sherman was placed in command of the Military Division of the Mississippi, and Thomas was thus subordinated to one who was his junior in years, experi- ence and commission, and only two years before his subordinate. Thomas, however, was too true a patriot to take exception to this, as many would have done, but cheerfully rendered to Sherman all the prompt obedience and service which is due from the loyal soldier to his chief.
When Sherman set out in May, 1864, on his great march to Atlanta, Thomas's army formed the centre, and, during this cam- paign of extraordinary hardship and endurance, did its full share of work. At the battles of Buzzard's Roost, Resaca, Dallas, and Kenesaw Mountain, he led the advance, and at the battle of the 20th July, near Atlanta, his army alone sustained the shock of Hood's attack, driving him back to his intrenchments, with heavy losses, participating also in the subsequent battles of the 22d and 28th. Again, at Jonesboro, he drove the enemy south- ward; and, after the capture of Atlanta, followed Hood to keep
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