Lives of Poor Boys Who Became Famous Part 15

Overlooking Ithaca and Cayuga Lake stands his home, a beautiful Gothic villa in stone, finished a year after his death. His motto, the motto of his life, is carved over the princ.i.p.al entrance, "TRUE AND FIRM."

[Ill.u.s.tration: P. H. Sheridan.

(From Appleton's Annual Cyclopedia).]

LIEUTENANT-GENERAL SHERIDAN.

It is sometimes said that circ.u.mstances make the man; but there must be something in the man, or circ.u.mstances, however favorable, cannot develop it. A poor lad, born of Irish parents in the little western town of Somerset, Ohio, working at twenty-four dollars a year, would never have come to the lieutenant-generals.h.i.+p of the United States, unless there was something noteworthy in the lad himself.

Philip Henry Sheridan, a generous, active boy, after having studied arithmetic, geography, and spelling at the village school, began to work in a country store in 1843, at the early age of twelve, earning fifty cents a week, fortunately, still keeping his home with his mother. He was fond of books, especially of military history and biography; and when he read of battles, he had dreams of one day being a great soldier.

Probably the keeper of the store where Philip worked, and his boyish companions, thought these dreams useless air-castles.

After some months, quickness and attention to business won a better position for him, where he obtained one dollar and a half a week. So useful had he become, that at seventeen he acted as bookkeeper and manager of quite a business for the munificent wages of three dollars a week.

He had not forgotten his soldier ambition, and applied to the member of Congress from his county, Perry, for appointment to West Point. Hon.

Thomas Ritchey was pleased with the boy's determination and energy, and though most of these places were given to those whose fathers had served in the Mexican War, Philip was not forgotten. He took a preliminary examination in the common branches, and much to his surprise, received the appointment. Feeling greatly his need of more knowledge, his room-mate, Henry W. Sloc.u.m, afterward a major-general, a.s.sisted him in algebra and geometry. The two boys would hang blankets at the windows of their room, and study after the usual limit for the putting out of lights and retiring.

Graduating in 1853, he was made second lieutenant in the United States Infantry, and a.s.signed to Fort Duncan on the western boundary of Texas, which at that time seemed wellnigh out of the world. Here he came much in contact with the Apache and Comanche Indians, warlike and independent tribes.

One day, as Sheridan was outside the fort with two other men, a band of Indians swooped down upon them. The chief jumped from his horse to seize his prisoners, when Sheridan instantly sprang upon the animal's back, and galloped to Fort Duncan. Hastily summoning his troops, he rushed back to save his two friends. The enraged chief sprang toward him, when a ball from Sheridan's rifle laid him dead upon the ground. His ready thought had saved his own life and that of his friends.

Two years later he was made first lieutenant, and sent to Oregon as escort to an expedition surveying for a branch of the Pacific Railway.

The region was wild and almost unknown, yet beautiful and full of interest. This life must have seemed inspiring compared with the quiet of the Somerset store.

Chosen very soon to take charge of an Indian campaign, his fearlessness, his quick decision and cautiousness as well, made him a valuable leader.

The Indians could endure hards.h.i.+ps; so could Sheridan. Sometimes he carried his food for two weeks in his blanket, slung over his shoulder, and made the ground his bed at night. The Indians could scale rocks and mountains; so could the young officer.

A severe encounter took place at the Cascades, on the Columbia River, April 28, 1856, where, by getting in the rear of the Indians, he completely vanquished them. For this strategy, he was especially commended by Lieutenant-General Scott. However, he won the confidence of the Indian tribes for probity and honesty in his dealings with them.

When the Civil War began, he was eager to help the cause of the Union, and in 1861 was made captain and chief quartermaster in south-western Missouri, on the staff of Major-General Curtis. He was quiet and una.s.suming, accurate in business matters, and thoroughly courteous.

Perhaps now that he had learned more of army life by nine and a half years of service, he was less sanguine of high renown than in his boyish days; for he told a friend that "he was the sixty-fourth captain on the list, and with the chances of war, thought he might soon be major."

It required executive ability to provide for the subsistence of a great army, but Sheridan organized his depots of supplies and transportation trains with economy and wisdom, for the brave men who fought under Sigel. With a high sense of honor, Sheridan objected to the taking of any private property from the enemy, for self-aggrandizement, as was the case with some officers, and asked to be relieved from his present position.

Fortunately he was appointed on the staff of General Halleck in Tennessee, a man who soon learned the faithfulness and ability of his captain; and when the Governor of Michigan asked for a good colonel for the Second Michigan Cavalry, Sheridan was chosen. After sharing in several engagements around Corinth, he was attacked July 1, 1862, at Booneville, by a force of nine regiments, numbering nearly five thousand men. He had but two regiments! What could he do? Selecting ninety of his best men, armed with guns and sabres, he sent them four miles around a curve to attack the enemy's rear, and promised to attack at the same time in front. When the moment came, he rushed upon the foe as though he had an immense army at his back, while the handful of men in the rear charged with drawn sabres. The Confederates were thrown into confusion, and, panic-stricken, rushed from the field, leaving guns, knapsacks, and coats behind them. Sheridan chased them for twenty miles.

This deed of valor won the admiration of General Grant, who commended him to the War Department for promotion. He was at once made brigadier-general. Perhaps the boyish dreams of being a great soldier would not turn out to be air-castles after all. Men love to fight under a man who knows what to do in an emergency, and Sheridan's men, who called him "Little Phil," had the greatest faith in him.

In the fall, he was needed to defend Louisville against General Bragg.

This Confederate officer had been told that he would find recruits and supplies in abundance if he would come to Kentucky. He came therefore, bringing arms for twenty thousand men, but was greatly disappointed to find that not half that number were willing to cast in their lot with the Secessionists. General Buell, of the Union army, received, on the contrary, over twenty thousand new soldiers here. Bragg prepared to leave the State, sending his provision train ahead, and made a stand at Perryville, Kentucky. Here 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. The loss in Sheridan's division in killed and wounded was over four hundred, but his generals.h.i.+p had saved the army from defeat."

Bragg determined now to make one great effort to hold Tennessee, and Dec. 31, 1862, gave battle at Stone River, near Murfreesboro'. General Rosecrans had succeeded Buell as commander of the Army of the c.u.mberland. Being a Romanist, high ma.s.s was celebrated in his tent just before the battle, the officers, booted and spurred, standing outside with heads uncovered. The conflict began on the right wing, the enemy advancing six lines deep. Our troops were mowed down as by a scythe.

Sheridan sustained four attacks of the enemy, and four times repulsed them, swinging his hat or his sword, as he rode among his men, and changing his front under fire, till, his ammunition exhausted, he brought out his shattered forces in close column, with colors flying.

Pointing sadly to them, he said to Rosecrans, "Here is all that are left, General. My loss is seventeen hundred and ninety-six,--my three brigade commanders killed, and sixty-nine other officers; in all seventy-two officers killed and wounded." The men said proudly, "We came out of the battle with compact ranks and empty cartridge-boxes!"

Even after this Sheridan recaptured two pieces of artillery, and routed the same men who had driven him. For n.o.ble conduct on the field he was made major-general of volunteers.

General Rosecrans says of him in his official report, "At Stone River he won universal admiration. Upon being flanked and compelled to retire, he withdrew his command more than a mile, under a terrible fire, in remarkable order, at the same time inflicting the severest punishment upon the foe. The constancy and steadfastness of his troops on the 31st of December enabled the reserve to reach the right of our army in time to turn the tide of battle, and changed a threatened rout into a victory."

General Rosecrans showed himself dauntless in courage. When a sh.e.l.l took off the head of his faithful staff-officer, Garesche, riding by his side, to whom he was most tenderly attached, he only said, "I am _very_ sorry; we cannot help it. This battle must be won." Das.h.i.+ng up to a regiment lying on the ground waiting to be called into action, he said, while shot and sh.e.l.l were whizzing furiously around him, "Men, do you wish to know how to be safe? Shoot low. But do you wish to know how to be safest of all? Give them a blizzard and then charge with cold steel!

Forward, men, and show what you are made of!"

After the day's b.l.o.o.d.y battle, the troops lay all night on the cold ground where they had fought. "When," says the heroic General Rousseau, "I saw them parch corn over a few little coals into which they were permitted to blow a spark of life; when they carved steak from the loins of a horse which had been killed in battle, and ate, not simply without murmuring, but made merry over their distress, tears involuntarily rolled from my eyes."

At midnight it rained upon the soldiers, and the fields became ma.s.ses of mud; yet before daylight they stood at their guns. "On the third day,"

says Rosecrans, "the firing was terrific and the havoc terrible. The enemy retreated more rapidly than they had advanced. In forty minutes they lost two thousand men." All that night the Federals worked to entrench the front of the army. Sat.u.r.day hundreds of wounded lay in the mud and rain, as the enemy had destroyed so many of our hospital tents.

On Sunday morning it was found that the Confederates had departed, leaving twenty-five hundred of their wounded in Murfreesboro' for us to take care of. Burial parties were now sent out to inter the dead. The Union loss in killed and wounded was eight thousand seven hundred and seventy-eight; the enemy's loss ten thousand one hundred and twenty-five.

Sheridan's next heavy fighting was at Chickamauga. The battle was begun by Bragg on Sept. 19, 1863. The right of our army had been broken to pieces, but General Thomas, the idol of his men, stood on the left like a rock, Sheridan a.s.sisting, and refused to be driven from the field.

General Henry M. Cist, in his "Army of the c.u.mberland" says, "There is nothing finer in history than Thomas at Chickamauga." Sheridan lost over one-third of his four thousand men and ninety-six officers. The Federal loss was over sixteen thousand; the Confederate, over twenty thousand.

There were heroic deeds on this as on every battle-field. When a division of the Reserve Corps--brave men they were, too--wavered under the storm of lead, General James B. Steedman rode up, and taking the flag from the color-bearer, cried out, "Go back, boys, go back, but the Flag can't go with you!" and dashed into the fight. The men rallied, closed their column, and fought bravely to the death. Even the drummer-boy, Johnny Clem, from Newark, Ohio, ten years old, near the close of the battle, when one of Longstreet's colonels rode up, and with an oath commanded him to surrender, sent a bullet through the officer's heart. Rosecrans, made him a sergeant, and the daughter of Secretary Chase gave him a silver medal.

Two months later, the battle of Chattanooga redeemed the defeat of Chickamauga. Near the town rises Lookout Mountain, abrupt, rocky cliffs twenty-four hundred feet above the level of the sea, and Missionary Ridge, both of which were held by the enemy. On Nov. 24, Lookout was stormed and carried by General Hooker in the "Battle above the Clouds."

On the following day Missionary Ridge was to be a.s.saulted. Sheridan held the extreme left for General Thomas. Before him was a wood, then an open plain, several hundred yards to the enemy's rifle-pits; and then beyond, five hundred yards covered with rocks and fallen timber to the crest, where were Bragg's heaviest breastworks. At three o'clock in the afternoon the signal to advance--six guns fired at intervals of two seconds--was given. As Sheridan shouted, "Remember Chickamauga!" the men dashed over the plain at double-quick, their glittering bayonets ready for deadly work. Says Benjamin F. Taylor, who was an eye-witness, "Never halting, never faltering, they charged up to the first rifle-pits with a cheer, forked out the rebels with their bayonets, and lay there panting for breath. If the thunder of guns had been terrible, it was now growing sublime. It was rifles and musketry; it was grape and canister; it was sh.e.l.l and shrapnel. Mission Ridge was volcanic; a thousand torrents of red poured over its brink and rushed together to its base.

"They dash out a little way, and then slacken; they creep up, hand over hand, loading and firing, and wavering and halting, from the first line of works to the second; they burst into a charge with a cheer, and go over it. Sheets of flame baptize them; plunging shot tear away comrades on left and right; it is no longer shoulder to shoulder; it is G.o.d for us all! Under tree-trunks, among rocks, stumbling over the dead, struggling with the living, facing the steady fire of eight thousand infantry, they wrestle with the Ridge.... Things are growing desperate up aloft; the rebels tumble rocks upon the rising line; they light the fusees and roll sh.e.l.ls down the steep; they load the guns with handfuls of cartridges in their haste; and as if there were powder in the word, they shout 'Chickamauga' down upon the mounters. But it would not all do, and just as the sun, weary of the scene, was sinking out of sight, with magnificent bursts all along the line, the advance surged over the crest, and in a minute those flags fluttered along the fringe where fifty rebel guns were, kennelled.... Men flung themselves exhausted upon the ground. They laughed and wept, shook hands, embraced; turned round, and did all four over again. It was as wild as a carnival."

Grant had given the order for taking the first line of rifle-pits only, but the men, first one regiment and then another, swept up the hill, determined to be the first to plant the colors there. "When I saw those flags go up," said Sheridan afterward, "I knew we should carry the ridge, and I took the responsibility." Sheridan's horse was shot under him, after which he led the a.s.sault on foot. Over twelve hundred men made Missionary Ridge sacred to liberty by their blood.

All seemed heroes on that day. One poor fellow, with his shoulder shattered, lay beside a rock. Two comrades halted to bear him to the rear, when he said, "Don't stop for me; I'm of no account; for G.o.d'S sake, push right up with the boys!" and on they went, to help scale the mountain.

When the men were seen going up the hill, Grant asked by whose orders that was done? "It is all right if it turns out all right," he said; "but if not, some one will suffer." But it turned out all right, and Grant knew thereafter how fully he could trust Sheridan.

The following spring Sheridan was placed by Grant in command of the cavalry of the Army of the Potomac, numbering nearly twelve thousand men. Here he was to add to his fame in the great battles of the Shenandoah Valley. From May to August Sheridan lost over five thousand men in killed and wounded, in smaller battles as he protected Grant's flank while he moved his forces to the James River, or in cutting off Lee's supplies. Meantime General Early had been spreading terror by his attempt to take Was.h.i.+ngton, thus hoping also to withdraw Grant's attention from Lee at Richmond.

The time had come for decisive action. Grant's orders were, "Put yourself south of the enemy and follow him to the death. I feel every confidence that you will do the best, and will leave you as far as possible to act on your own judgment, and not embarra.s.s you with orders and instructions." About the middle of September Grant visited Sheridan with a plan of battle for him in his pocket, but he said afterward, "I saw that there were but two words of instruction necessary, 'Go in.' The result was such that I have never since deemed it necessary to visit General Sheridan before giving him orders."

The battle of Opequan was fought Sept. 19, 1864, Early being completely routed and losing about four thousand men, five pieces of artillery, and nine army flags, with an equal loss of men by the Federals. The fight was a bitter one from morning till evening, a regiment like the One Hundred and Fourteenth New York going into the battle with one hundred and eighty men, and coming out with forty, their dead piled one above another! Sheridan at first stood a little to the rear, so that he might calmly direct the battle; but at last, swinging his sword, and exclaiming, "I can't stand this!" he rode into the conflict. The next day he telegraphed to Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War, "We have just sent them whirling through Winchester, and we are after them to-morrow.

This army behaved splendidly."

This battle quickened the hope and courage of the North, who begun to see the end of the devastating war. "Whirling through Winchester" was reported all over the land. Abraham Lincoln telegraphed, "Have just heard of your great victory. G.o.d bless you all, officers and men!

Strongly inclined to come up and see you." Grant ordered each of his two Richmond armies to fire a salute of one hundred guns.

The next day Sheridan pa.s.sed on after Early, and gave battle at Fisher's Hill, the Confederates losing sixteen guns and eleven hundred prisoners, besides killed and wounded. Many of these belonged to Stonewall Jackson's corps, and were the flower of the Southern army. "Keep on,"

said Grant, "and your good work will cause the fall of Richmond."

Secretary Stanton ordered one hundred guns to be fired by various generals, fifteen hundred guns in all, for Fisher's Hill. Early was now so thoroughly beaten, that the Richmond mob wrote on the guns forwarded to him by the South the satirical sentence, "General Sheridan, care of General Early!" Grant's orders were now to lay waste the valley, so that Lee might have no base of supplies. Over two thousand barns filled with grain, over seventy mills, besides bridges and railroads were burned, and seven thousand cattle and sheep appropriated by the Union army. Such destruction seemed pitiful, but if the war was thereby shortened, as it doubtless was, then the saving of bloodshed was a blessing.

Oct. 15 Sheridan was summoned to Was.h.i.+ngton for consultation. Early, learning his absence, and having been reinforced by twelve thousand troops, decided at once to give battle at Cedar Creek. His army marched at midnight, canteens being left in camp, lest they make a noise. At daybreak, Oct. 19, with the well-known "rebel yell" the enemy rushed upon the sleeping camps of the Union army. Nearly a thousand of our men were taken prisoners, and eighteen guns. A panic ensued, and in utter confusion, though there was some brave fighting, our troops fell back to the rear. Sheridan, on his way from Was.h.i.+ngton, had slept at Winchester that night, twenty miles away. At nine o'clock he rode out of the town on his splendid black horse, unconscious of danger to his army. Soon the sound of battle was heard, and not a mile away he met the fugitives. He at once ordered some troops to stop the stragglers, and rushed on to the front as swiftly as his foaming steed could carry him, swinging his hat, and shouting, "Face the other way, boys! face the other way! If I had been here, boys, this never should have happened." Meeting a colonel who said, "The army is whipped," he replied, "You are, but the army isn't!"

Rude breastworks of stones, rocks, and trees were thrown up. Then came desperate fighting, and then the triumphant charge. The first line was carried, and then the second, Sheridan leading a brigade in person.

Early's army was thoroughly routed. The captured guns were all retaken, besides twenty-four pieces of artillery and sixteen hundred prisoners.

Early reported eighteen hundred killed and wounded.