Sheridan: The Life and Wars of General Phil Sheridan. By Roy Morris, Jr. (New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1992. Pp. xvi, 464).
Phil Sheridan was a physically unimpressive figure, but his accomplishments on the battlefield during his forty-year military career drew the respect of his fellow soldiers and superiors. In his comprehensive biography of Sheridan, Roy Morris, Jr. presents a man with many admirable qualities and few flaws. The geographic extent of Sheridan’s career was as impressive as the amount of time he served, as his various postings took him across the country from Virginia to the Rio Grande to the Pacific Northwest. Rising through the ranks quickly, especially after the outbreak of the Civil War, Sheridan’s reputation as a careful but aggressive commander was strengthened through his engagement with western Indians in the postwar years. Morris depicts Sheridan as a man who fully embraced military life, concluding that he was “never anything more, or less, than a soldier.” Sheridan, Morris argues, “came farther, on less, than anyone” (2). Morris’s book describes Sheridan and his career from his time at West Point (class of 1852) through his death in 1888.
Roughly two-thirds of the volume recounts Sheridan’s service during the Civil War. Morris begins with a prologue and a chapter on Sheridan’s life up to 1861, focusing on his childhood in Ohio, his time as a trouble-making cadet at West Point, and his eight years of service on the frontier as a “shavetail second lieutenant.” The heart of Morris’s book examines the activities, campaigns, and leadership of Sheridan as a Union officer during the Civil War. Early in his career, Sheridan caught the eye of Ulysses S. Grant, who was impressed with Sheridan’s abilities on the battlefield. Sheridan possessed more skills than just those of a good fighter and tactician. He was also a gifted quartermaster and kept his men supplied and well-fed through his ability to transfer goods and keep records. Furthermore, Morris notes that throughout his career Sheridan was fortunate to find loyal allies at opportune times. Through his personal and professional connections and his spreading reputation as a fighting military leader and capable manager, Sheridan rose quickly through the ranks. Morris concludes that Sheridan’s rise was “truly remarkable” (112).
During the war, Sheridan enjoyed many successes on the battlefield. The fierce fighting of Sheridan’s division at Stone’s Creek in Tennessee helped the Union avoid devastating defeat. Morris dismisses Sheridan’s notable failure at Chickamauga as an uncharacteristic performance that was more than made up for at Missionary Ridge and Chattanooga. After his successes in the West, Sheridan headed East after Grant was appointed General-in-Chief of the Union army. Morris explains that Sheridan continued to serve admirably in the eastern theater, especially in the campaigns of 1864 in Virginia, during which time he served as cavalry commander and head of the Army of the Shenandoah. Most notably, Sheridan was responsible for killing the formidable Confederate Jeb Stuart at Yellow Tavern in May, for winning a dramatic victory over Jubal Early in the fall, and for cleaning out the Shenandoah Valley and helping to bring about the end of the fighting and Confederate defeat.
The remainder of the book deals with Sheridan’s Reconstruction assignments and role in the Indian Wars following the Civil War. In the immediate aftermath, Sheridan was in Texas and preoccupied with events along the U.S. - Mexico border and the military and diplomatic stalemate between the two countries. After tensions eased with Mexico, Sheridan spent some time in Louisiana, where he helped with reconciliation and voter registration. Sheridan advocated a slow and patient process for re-admitting Confederate states to the Union. The time he spent in the Deep South frustrated him, and he grew increasingly impatient with and distrustful of southerners. The final stage of Sheridan’s career was as a commander during the Indian Wars that became more hostile in the decades following the Civil War. In the West, Sheridan employed the same aggressive tactics he had used as a Union officer, often leading to tragic encounters with Indians and high casualties on both sides. Overall, however, Sheridan was successful in his efforts to pacify the West.
Morris is clearly enamored with the life and wars of Phil Sheridan. He praises the general’s performances and makes excuses for any shortcomings. For example, in his discussion of the Union’s trouble at Chickamauga, Morris observes that “it was not, after all, Sheridan’s army…it was Rosecran’s,” and concludes that Sheridan’s actions “were professionally competent” (136). Despite its apologetic stance, this is a definitive study of Sheridan’s military career. Morris uses Sheridan’s personal papers, as well as those of other officers, to detail Sheridan’s activities on the battlefield. He places Sheridan alongside Grant and William T. Sherman as one of the Union’s greatest generals.
Jensen Branscombe Texas Christian University
Sheridan: The Life and Wars of General Phil Sheridan. By Roy Morris, Jr. New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1992. 464pp.
General Phil Sheridan continually holds favor among American Civil War historians as one of the preeminent examples of effective and praiseworthy military leadership within the Union Army. Like U.S. Grant and William T. Sherman, the hagiography surrounding Phil Sheridan is daunting. Refraining from officious platitudes, Roy Morris’s biography of General Sheridan provides a highly readable and notable assessment of this prominent general. Though focusing mostly on the military endeavors of Sheridan during the Civil War, the author gives sufficient attention to the general’s childhood and adolescence, his education at West Point, his early military career on the frontier, and his commanding role in the Indian Wars subsequent to the Civil War. Perhaps more importantly, Morris illustrates the beneficial link between Sheridan’s personality, his fastidious nature, and the indisputable success of his military career.
Born in 1831 into a family of recent Irish immigrants, Sheridan’s childhood and adolescence was spent in the small town atmosphere of Somerset, Ohio. Neither a particularly devout Catholic nor a very serious student, the physically awkward youth (Sheridan possessed a short, ill-proportioned physique all his life) quickly acquired an interest in various aspects of soldierly life and sparring with local boys. He also worked in the local dry goods store where he developed a formidable talent for bookkeeping and stock maintenance. This particular acumen served Sheridan well throughout his early military career, as he was soon singled out by high-ranking Union military officers for his quartermaster abilities. Sheridan next managed to secure an opportunity to attend West Point where, after struggling through the physical hardships and classroom challenges, he graduated into a life-long career in the U. S. military.
Stationed at fortifications along the Cherokee frontier line in Texas, and then along the Pacific Northwest, Sheridan quickly proved himself adept at quelling various American Indian uprisings in the region. Not long thereafter, the country became enmeshed in civil war and Sheridan happily received orders to move back eastward in order to serve in the Western Theater of the war. Here, again, Sheridan rapidly came to the favorable attention of his military superiors. According to the author, Sheridan’s innate political skills, his willingness to keep counsel to himself, his notable abilities as quartermaster, and, most importantly, his aggressiveness conjoined with careful deliberation, along with a calm demeanor during the heat of battle, all combined successfully to account for Sheridan’s meteoric rise within the Union military leadership. In roughly a year and a half after war commenced, Phil Sheridan obtained the rank of brigadier general.
Sheridan’s military performance at Stones River, Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge, and especially the Shenandoah Valley campaign, constitutes the majority of Morris’s biographical examination. Though not offering a novel analysis or newly discovered details, the author successfully engages the reader in Sheridan’s behavior and decisions in battle while demonstrating the ways in which the individualism of Sheridan shaped the respective outcomes. Happily, the author eschews any psychological analysis or abstract evaluation of Sheridan’s military conduct, tactics, and strategies. Instead, Sheridan emerges as a figure exhibiting shrewd calculation and controlled aggression, qualities possessed at an early age.
The remaining quarter of the text encompasses Sheridan’s involvement in Reconstruction and the war in the West with Native Americans. Sheridan demonstrated a less than favorable attitude toward American Indians and worked diligently to pacify the region. Sheridan, along with General George Armstrong Custer, tirelessly fought to suppress Indian rebellion and forcibly implement the official reservation system and assimilation policy. Sheridan never amended his belief in the obdurate nature and negative role played by Native Americans in the West: “It was indicative of his state of mind that he preferred the sight of hobos, saddle tramps, and sodbusters swarming over the virgin territory to the native ecology of its original inhabitants” (p. 368).
Marrying late in life, at the age of forty-four, Sheridan nonetheless embraced family life, and four children provided him with much happiness. As the author readily demonstrates, though Sheridan’s life was a soldier’s life, a genuine desire for life aside from the military was equally present.
In sum, Morris’s use of Sheridan’s memoirs along with countless others among the officer class, both Union and Confederate, grounds this informative and enjoyable biography of the celebrated general. The author’s familiarity with the massive scope of secondary literature concerning the subject also emerges throughout the work. The reader is presented with a concise and comprehensive account of the character, actions, and motivations that constituted this remarkable military figure.
Bryan Cupp