When an historical event is passing into legend, it helps t have a poem written about it. Thus we have Thomas Buchanan Read’s “Sheridan’s Ride,” based on the battle of Cedar Creek, Va., fought on Oct. 19, 1864. “Up from the south at break of day/Bringing to Winchester fresh dismay,” the poem begins. The “fresh dismay,” to the Northern versifier, was Jub Early’s surprise dawn attack on Philip Sheridan’s forces camped at Cedar Creek, south of Winchester. The Confederates overwhelmed and routed the Federals then Early called off the pursu around 10 a.m. Sheridan was twenty miles away at Winchester during the battle. He could hear the sound of distant fighting: “And loude yet into Winchester rolled/The roar of that red sea uncontroll Making the blood of the listene cold.” “Little Phil”—he was all
ritic ’ s C orner of 5' 5" tall—saddled up Rienzi, his black charger, and started r ing toward his embattled army. At first he saw groups of blu clad stragglers, then retreating masses. Faced with his panicked troops, he determined to rally them for a counterattack. “What was done? What to do? A glance told him both,” as Read’s verse puts it. The rattled retreaters heart and halted. Sheridan then formed them for a counterstroke, with the general at one point ri ing the entire length of his che ing ranks: “He dashed down the line, ‘mid a storm of huzzas.”
Finally, around 4 p.m., Union in fantry and cavalry attacked Early’s left flank and began rollin up. Now it was the Rebels’ turn to run, which they did. Pursuing Union horsemen scooped up a thousand prisoners, two dozen pieces of artillery, small arms, and wagons. Sheridan’s victory was complete. “Hurrah! hurrah for Sheridan!/Hurrah! hurrah for horse and man!” Read exclaims, closing with paeans for both Sheridan and Rienzi, “the steed that saved the day.” The general died in August 1888, having just finished his reminiscences, which were published by Charles Webster in two volumes later that year. Sherida was proud of his war record, especially his dramatic triumph at Cedar Creek. In his Personal Memoirs he noted that General Grant ordered a hundred-gun salute in celebration of the victo and that President Lincoln sent him a special letter of thanks ( produced in vol. II, p. 91).1
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But in his description of the battle itself, and his ride to ral his troops, he was rather laconic. Not so his biographers. Rushing into print the very year of the general’s death was Frank A. Burr and Richard J. Hinton’s “Little Phil” and his Troopers. The Life of Gen. Philip H. Sheridan. The Romance and Reality: How an Humble Lad Reached the Head of an Army. In it Sheridan’s ride from Winchester is, of course, dramatically related. “Who, knowing the quality of the man,” they chirp, “cannot picture the restless rider urging his hors to his utmost speed to reach the field where the fate of his army was still pending in the hazard of war.” Burr and Hinton not only print Read’s “Sheridan’s Ride” in full, they tell the story of its f public reading at a Cincinnati opera house Nov. 1, 1864—just a week and a half after the event. The reader was one James E. Murdoch, friend of the poet, who recalled that the recited verses brought down the house (“cheer after cheer went up from the great concourse that shook the building to its very foundation”).2
Another early biographer, however, tried to tamp the whole thing down. Henry E. Davies, writing in 1895, reminded readers how “historic facts often destroy the romance and splendor with which a poetic imagination can invest the realities of actual life.” True, Sheridan’s troops had been routed; the general rode forth and rallied them; the Federals charged and won the day. Yet Davies sought to dispel the rosy glamour that had settled upon the ride, imparted at least partly by Read’s poem. “Upon General Sheridan’s authority,” the biographer explains, “it appears that th thrilling story of Sheridan’s Ride is a poetic conception, with as li tle foundation of truth as the heroic figure of Barbara Frietchie.” A generation later, Joseph Hergesheimer cast some scholarly detachment on the ride in his Sheridan (1931) by holding
the general’s account up to oth sources. No one, however, could disagree with the conclusion: “when General Sheridan did arrive upon the battle-field at C Creek, an enormously improved spirit and steadiness instantly pervaded the Union army.”4 Richard O’Connor, biographer of George Thomas (1948) and John B. Hood (1949), turned his attention in 1953 to Sheridan (and his ride). “Sheridan’s 14mile ride to the battlefield at Cedar Creek became the subject of heated controversy almost as soon as the clatter of the hoof
died down on the flint-hard Val Pike,” he asserts.
It was glorified by the poe of T. Buchanan Read (which made the general’s horse Rienzi almost as famous as his rider), it was given a muck-raking by historians of a more skeptical era, it was argued in the newspapers and at veterans’ reunions for years afterward. There were those who said it was only a curious canter, and there were others who contended it was the maddest gallop since the headless rider pursued Ichabod Crane.
O’Connor concludes simply, “i was good hard ride, everything considered.”5 It seems that Thomas Buchanan Read’s poem casts its shadow on virtually all narratives Cedar Creek. An example comes from Edward J. Stackpole’s Sher idan in the Shenandoah (1961). The author of books on Gettysburg (1956) and other eastern theater campaigns, Stackpole
took upon himself the estimatio of how fast Little Phil rode fr
Winchester to the battlefield. simple calculation on the distance covered, approximately 12 miles from Mill Creek to the position where he came up with
his disorganized army 1 ½ miles north of Middletown,” the autho reasons, “proves rather conclusively that he did not proceed an extended gallop, as the poet would have us believe.” Stackpole, as you see, did not name “the poet.” At this point in th erature, he really didn’t need In the past three decades, no fewer than five works on Sheridan have appeared. Paul Andrew Hutton, Phil Sheridan and His Army (1985) concerns the general’s campaigns against the Indi after the Civil War, summarizing his life before 1867 in few than thirty pages.7 Roy Morris is known as editor of America’s Civil War magazine and author of books on subjects as varied as Walt Whitman (2000) and the election of 1876 (2003). In his biography of Sheridan (1992), he seems to have some fun with Read’s poem.
In the usual progress of worldly fame, the sublime soon gave way to the ridiculous. A minor poet named
Thomas Buchanan Read, at the urging of retired actor James E. Murdock, who had visited Sheridan’s campaign a year earlier at Chattanooga to claim his son’s body, unburdened himself of a
in galloping octometer, on the subject of “Sheridan’s Ride.” The poem was considerably short of a masterpiece, the best lines going to the horse Rienzi, but as a piece of Republican campaign rhetoric it was unexcelled. Debuted by Murdock at Cincinnati’s Pike Opera Hall on Nov. 1, 1864, “Sheridan’s Ride” took the North by storm and made its bemused subject even more of a household name. When Lincoln swamped McClellan in the presidential election a week later, many observers credited Read’s poem— as much as its inspiration’s achievements on the battlefield—with swelling the rout. Sheridan himself, perhaps ironically, renamed Rienzi “Winchester” in honor of the poem’s famous refrain: “Winchester, twenty miles away.”
Morris suggests that had it no been for Read’s poem, Sheridan’s ride would have been consigned, well, to the dustbin of history. “[G]enerations of schoolchildren as yet unborn would stand before blackboards in northern cities re citing Read’s anthropomorphic epic.” Indeed, the poem won “a place in every elementary school
primer for the next fifty years.” Eric Wittenberg, historian of Union cavalry, stands apart from the rest of the literature i what Jeffry D. Wert has called “a scathing indictment of Sheridan’s record,” his Little Phil: A Reassessment of the Civil War Leadership of Gen. Philip H. Sheri-
ry Corps Commander: Mediocrity Reigns;” “Little Phil in the Shenandoah Valley: A Victorious Campaign Bereft of Decision;” and “Sheridan’s Disobedience of Orders.” As balance to all of this—you guessed it—Wittenberg’s opening pages reprint the complete text of Read’s “Sheridan’s Ride.”9 David Coffey, in Sheridan’s Lieutenants (2005), makes at least passing reference to Read’s poem.10 So does Joseph Wheelan
The 1862 Maryland 2-8 hour tours or customized t
(2012), adding that Read’s poem was “widely reprinted in newspa pers across the North.”11 You get the idea. I happen t a fan of Western films, includi John Ford’s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962). One of its characters famously declare “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” In the case Sheridan at Cedar Creek, biographers and military historians have detailed the memorable events of Oct. 19, 1864. But on may argue that it was Thomas Buchanan Read’s famous poem that allowed Sheridan’s ride to pass from fact into legend.
1. Personal Memoirs of P. H. Sheridan. General United States Army, 2 vols. (New York: Charles L. Webster & Co., 1888), II, 74-92. 2. Frank A. Burr and Richard J. Hinton, “Little Phil” and his Troopers. The Life of Gen. Philip H. Sheridan. Its Romance and Reality: How an Humble Lad Reached the Head of an Army (Providence R.I.: J.A. and R.A. Read, 1888), 233-36. 3. Henry A. Davies, General Sheridan (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1895), 182-87. 4. Joseph Hergesheimer, Sher-
idan: A Military Narrative (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1931), 250-54. 5. Richard O’Connor, Sheridan the Inevitable (Indianapolis Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1953), 226. 6. Edward J. Stackpole, Sheridan in the Valley: Jubal
7. Paul Andrew Hutton, Phil Sheridan and His Army (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1985), 2-27. 8. Roy Morris Jr., Sheridan: The Life and Wars of General Phil Sheridan (New York: Crown Publishers, 1992), 220. 9. Eric J. Wittenberg, Little Phil: A Reassessment of the Civil War Leadership of Gen. Philip H. Sheridan (Washington: Brassey’s, 2002), vi-vi
10. David Coffey, Sheridan’s Small Talk Lieutenants: Phil Sheridan, His Generals, and the Final Year of the Civil War (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005), 94. By Stephen Davis 11. Joseph Wheelan, Terrible Swift Sword: The Life of Gen- 1. The first Confederate major eral Philip H. Sheridan (New general to die in the war w York: Da Capo Press, 2012), not from battle causes—just 156. old age. He was in fact the South’s oldest general, bor in 1790 and dying on July 1 Steve Davis of Atlanta is a 1862. While in the old army regular contributor to Civil War he surrendered all U.S. pro News and is the Book Review erty in Texas to secessioni Editor. in February 1861. Can you His book, A Long and Bloody name him? Task: The Atlanta Campaign 2. “General Grant is a great from Dalton through Kennesaw general. I know him well. Mountain to the Chattahoochee He stood by me when I was River May 5-July 18, 1864, crazy and I stood by him was published as part of Savas when he was drunk; and now, Beatie’s Emerging Civil War sir, we stand by each other paperback series. ways.” Who is alleged have The companion volume, All said this? The Fighting They Want: The At- 3. Jefferson Davis had six sec lanta Campaign From Peachtree retaries of war; Lincoln ha Creek To The City’s Surrender, two. Who was Lincoln’s firs July 18-September 2, 1864, was war secretary? published this Spring.
A Long and Bloody Task The Atlanta Campaign from Dalton through Kennesaw Mountain to the Chattahoochee River May 5–July 18, 1864
Davis’ narrative history of the Atlanta Campaign is divided into two paperbacks from Savas Beatie’s Emerging Civil War Series. Volume One, A Long and Bloody Task, carries Sherman’s forces from Dalton in northwest Georgia
relieve its army commander, Joseph E. Johnston, and replace him with Gen. John B. Hood. Paperback, 192 pages.
All the Fighting They Want The Atlanta Campaign from Peachtree Creek to the City’s Surrender July 18–September 2, 1864
With the Yankee army five miles outside of Atlanta, Hood promise to give up with city without a f which is all President Jefferson asked. Davis’ companion volume, the Fighting They Want, describe Hood’s efforts to defend Atlanta fall in early September 1864 was mortal blow to Confederate hopes
for independence and a big boost Lincoln’s hopes for presidential
To order a signed copy from author Stephen Davis
lexander Stephens, Confederate Vice President, was imprisoned after the war for five months at a U.S. fort i Boston harbor. Which one? ho was the Maryland physician who set John Wilkes Booth’s leg on April 15, 1865, was arrested, convicted for complicity in the assassination plot, and served four years of a life sentenc oungest Union general KIA/MW died July 3, 1863, after being ordered to lead cavalry brigade in a charge against Confederate infantry Who? n May 10, 1864, his infantry attack, a “lightning foray,” Gordon Rhea terms it, broke Lee’s line at the Mule Shoe salient at Spotsylvania, and led to Grant’s decision for a bigger attack on May 12. Name the officer. hat was a “shinplaster”? a) a military jail or brig; soldier’s ration of hard bak bread; c) a monetary note of small denomination; or d)
a moist poultice for wound treatment. n Nov. 29, 1863, outside Knoxville, Tenn., Longstreet’s Confederates were repulsed attacking a Union fort, hindered by telegraph wire strung among tree stumps, and blocked by a deep wide moat dug outside
deceaber/His face was sharp as a butcher’s cleaber/But dat did not seem to greab er These lines are from a lesse known stanza of a song popular in the wartime South. Which song?
e Davis is the Civil War Book Review Editor. He be contacted by email at Ste
Meade Frets While Lee Escapes Ag Meade and Lee After Gettysburg: The Forgotten Final Stage of the Gettysburg Cam-
paign, from Falling Waters to Culpeper Court House, July 14-31, 1863. By Jeffrey Wm Hunt. Maps, bibliography, notes, index, 291 pp., 2017, Savas
Maj. Gen. George G. Meade and his Army of the Potomac were unable to exploit the prospect of further damaging the Army of Northern Virginia near Williamsport, Md., following Gen. Robert E. Lee’s defeat at Gettysburg on July 1 to 3, 1863. Other opportunities, however, presented themselves during a 17-day retrograde movement south toward the Rappahannock River. Jeffrey Wm Hunt addresses events that took place beginning July 14, after Lee’s forces crossed the Potomac, until July 31 when both armies arrived back at the point from which the campaign began. The author examines the strategic and tactica maneuvering for advantage on the part of Meade and Lee in thi groundbreaking study of a segment of the Gettysburg campaign that has not received the attent it deserves. Hunt relates that another maj battle could have been in the of ing, if Meade had orchestrated his forces and operated in a tim ly manner. Yet, in a reprise of the Gettysburg aftermath, Meade fretted about what Lee would do
teresting Account of Union initiative to his opponent.
Meade’s hesitancy to make decisions in crucial situations
demonstrated the difficulty of his leap from corps to army command, and how clarity of vision dims and self-motivation dissipates as responsibility increases. The odds of success lessened further for Meade given his audacious and more experienced opponent. Meade placed himself in a deeper hole from a command point of view after Gettysburg by choosing three generals with limited credentials to replace t hard-charging Maj. Gens. John Reynolds, Winfield Scott Hancock, and Daniel Sickles —a three casualties at Gettysburg. In particular, selection of Maj. Gen. William French for Third Corps command would prove to be costly. Hunt summarizes Lee’s expedition into the North beginning in early June, his defeat at Get tysburg, and the aftermath of th battle in which Lee’s army escaped damaged but still intact. The author describes how Meade’s delay in crossing the Poto mac in pursuit allowed Lee time to rest his fatigued troops befo marching in the direction of saf ground on the south side of the Rappahannock River. Although not specifically addressed, Meade’s indecision about employing pontoon bridges to cross the Potomac was a factor in the delay. The author explains that, as happened after Gettysburg, the Union cavalry engaged in combat with the enemy, while the infantry played catch-up given Lee’s head start. Brig. Gen. David Gregg’s cavalry division initial ly carried the heaviest load, an suffered substantial casualties. Although Brig. Gen. Benjamin Kelley forded the Potomac above Williamsport on July 15 with nearly 6,000 infantry and cavalry of his West Virginia command intending to inflict damage on t Rebels, his efforts came to naug and his troops narrowly avoided capture or annihilation thanks t timely information provided by a local citizen. This segment of the campaign focused on gaining control of th gaps in the Blue Ridge Mountains
separating the two armies. The Rebels managed to maintain
Rappahannock River. A potential confrontation at Manass Gap or Front Royal occurred when Meade directed French’s Third Corps to intercept and attack Lee’s forces that were making their way south up the Shenandoah Valley. Mirroring his commander’s approach, “a very much confused French” hesitated and mismanaged his assignment leading to frustration and failu Yet the ultimate responsibili ty for the lack of success of th Union army during this period was Meade’s, for inherent caution and defensive-mindedness in dealing with combat situations. Mimicking Generals Joseph Hooker and George B. McClellan, his predecessors, Meade attributed to Lee and his army a strength that was non-existent. contrast, Lee was determined to accomplish specific objectives, and outmaneuvered his opponent. The Confederate army desired to avoid a confrontation and find refuge south of Fredericksburg, while Meade maintained the unrealistic concern that Lee may g back on the offensive. Having done extensive research, Jeffrey Wm Hunt describes this battle of wits betw Meade and Lee with assurance. Included are maps, a bibliography and an index. Missing, however, are eight reports that the Army of the Potomac’s intelligence staff under Col. George H. Sharpe prepared for chief of staff Maj. Gen. Andrew A. Humphreys from July 19 through July 29. Inclusion of these reports a another intelligence-related doc ument (available at the National Archives) would have enhanced the narrative. Meade and Lee After Gettysburg is a welcome study that demonstrates the final encounters of the Gettysburg campaign occurred at the end of July 1863 rather than the commonly accepted date of July 14th. During thi time, Lee achieved the goal of preserving his army to fight another day, while Meade experienced disappointment similar to the immediate post-Gettysburg period when caution became the watchword of his command style and performance.
Gettysburg Campaign. His latest book, with co-author Richard R. Schaus, is Eleven Fateful Days in July 1863: Meade Tracks Lee’s Army after Gettysburg (due out i
Ordered West: The Civil War Exploits of Charles A. Curtis. Edited by Alan D. Gaff and Donald H. Gaff. Photos, maps, footnotes, bibliography, index, 575 pp., 2017, University of North
Charles Curtis began his service in the Civil War at the Bat of First Bull Run, where he received a crippling wound in the knee. Unable to march, instead o returning to Maine and spending the remainder of the war comfort ably at home, he enlisted in the 5th United States Infantry. The 5th U.S. was stationed on the American frontier, in the territ ries of New Mexico and Arizona. Through the pages of Curtis’ journal, we can experience his trip by stagecoach over the Sant Fe Trail to reach his duty stati at Fort Craig, N.M.. The journey was not uneventful and neither were the rest of Curtis’ exploit During his service, Charles Curtis commanded several forts and constructed Fort Whipple, Ariz. He led many expeditions against
Capital of the Confederacy Civil War Show November 11 & 12, 2017 Decemb
the Navajo and Apache, in one of which, while attempting to escape from an Apache ambush, he was wounded in the side by an arrow. Curtis imparts much information on Indian tribes that h encountered. Charles had a good relationshi with most of his fellow officers and with the regular infantrymen under his command. Everyone serving there had to endure inevitable practical jokes and Curtis was as often a target of thes pranks as he was the perpetrator. His friends often took advantage of his fear of snakes, which were abundant. There is also much detail on the towns he passed through. Of a naturally curious bent, Charles explored every town and Indian village he encountered, chronicling tales of the people and the customs, some of them a little cu rious to modern readers. Curtis’ memoirs present many harrowing and amusing accounts of his life on the frontier. He m many noteworthy frontier characters, Mexican ranchers and mountain men (Kit Carson among others). The two Gaffs do a great jo in the footnotes; I found it hard to believe the details they found on so many individuals and locations. There are very few people mentioned in the journal on which they were not able to find information. While not a Civil War book per se this would be an interesting volume to add to your bookshelf. I enjoyed it thoroughly and am sure most readers would appreciate Curtis’ frontier encounters
Robert L. Durham of Centerville, Ohio, is a longtime contributor t CWN. His articles on the battles Richmond, Ky. and Raymond, Ms. appeared in our June-July issues.
