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Biographical Notes
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Philip Sheridan
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On February 27, 1865, Sheridan led a large cavalry column, augmented with artillery, to destroy the Virginia Central Railroad and the James River Canal - both important supply lines for Lee. A sharp engagement at Waynesburo on March 2, pretty much destroyed the remnants of Early's army and Sheridan continued on east to join Grant at Petersburg. Grant used Sheridan's cavalry units to block Lee's retreat from Petersburg through the hard fought battles around Dinwiddie Court House and force the Confederate to surrender at Appomattox. Sheridan was one of the small group of Union officers present with Grant and Lee at the surrender negotiations on April 9, 1865. After the surrender Lincoln, Grant and Sherman all credited Sheridan with having played a critical role in the final battles leading up to Appomattox. On April 12, Grant ordered Sheridan to reinforce Sherman in North Carolina, but the last major Confederate army in the field surrendered to Sherman before Sheridan even left Virginia. On May 17, Grant ordered Sheridan to New Orleans to immediately take command of all U.S Army forces west of the Mississippi River.
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Sheridan's instructions were to being about the surrender of all remaining Confederate forces operating in his area of responsibility, ensure that civil order was maintained, and provide a strong military presence along the southern border. Grant was concerned with French involvement in Mexico and wanted Sheridan to covertly assist Benito Juarez in his fight against Emperor Maximillian. Sheridan provided clandestine support to Juarez, became heavily involved in the tumultuous and often violent politics of reconstruction, and managed to anger a lot of people including the French Ambassador, a number of Southern politicians, and the president of the United States, Andrew Johnson. (Lincoln had been assassinated on April 14, 1865.) Like Grant, Sheridan moved closer to the views of the radical Republicans and further from the president during the years right after the Civil War. On August 17, 1867, President Johnson, over Grant's strong objections, transfered Sheridan from command of the Fifth Military District in New Orleans to command of the Department of the Missouri with headquarters at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Johnson felt that Sheridan was too close to his Congressional foes and too zealous in his implementation of the various reconstruction acts that had been passed by Congress over presidential vetoes.
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After leaving New Orleans, Sheridan proceeded directly to Fort Leavenworth and assumed his new command. Once the transfer of command had taken place, Sheridan went on an extended leave. He first visited his family in Somerset, Ohio, and then went on to New York to visit with friends. At the end of 1867, he went to Washington where he served with Sherman on an army review board. At the end of February 1868, he returned to Fort Leavenworth and began educating himself on the military ramifications of increased Anglo-European settlement of lands formally occupied solely by Native Americans - the so-called "Indian problem." He found that warriors among the Native American tribes living in his area of responsibility vastly outnumbered his own troop levels. In the summer of 1868 violence flared up in Kansas where a party of Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Sioux killed a number of settlers and kidnapped two young girls. In September a military patrol led by Major George A. Forsyth was searching for the attackers and was itself attacked and forced to dig in on a small island in the middle of Aricakaree Creek. The siege lasted a week, but was finally broken by black "Buffalo Soldiers" from the Tenth Cavalry.
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The ineffectiveness of the Forsyth expedition and a similarly unsuccessful one led by Lieutenant Alfred Sully, convinced Sheridan that it would be useless to continue to try and catch up with and destroy highly mobile mounted warriors. It would be necessary to fight a total war against the Native Americans similar to that he practiced in the Shenandoah Valley. The new Commanding General of the Army, William Sherman, wholeheartedly agreed with him. (Grant had been elected president and Sherman had replaced him in command of the army.) In order to implement the new strategy Sheridan proposed to harry all "hostile" Indians throughout the year. By so doing he would deny them the ability to amass sufficient food stores to carry them through the winter months and would eventually force them onto the reservations where the government promised to provide them food and supplies. Critics in the East labeled this a policy of extermination while most citizens in the West applauded it. A critical element of the new strategy was aggressive military activity during the winter months when most Indians were in winter camp. Sheridan's army units were better supplied than their Indian adversaries and their horses were better fed.
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In 1868 Sherman reinforced Sheridan with additional troops and agreed to the reinstatement of Colonel George Armstrong Custer to command of the Seventh Cavalry. Sheridan launched a three pronged attack on Cheyenne Indians from Fort Dodge, Kansas, Fort Bascom, New Mexico, and Fort Lyon, Colorado. Custer was attached to the force from Fort Dodge and, late in November, cavalry units he led attacked a Cheyenne village located on the Washita River. A large number of Indians were killed, Custer added to his reputation as an Indian fighter, and Sheridan proved that U.S. Army units could operate effectively against Indians in winter. Again, critics in the East chastised Sherman, Sheridan, and Custer for attacking a "peace chief" and for killing women and children. In the West the general reaction was supportive of Sheridan's total war. Although there is an argument about who expressed it first, the feeling was that the "only good Indian was a dead Indian." In March 1869 Sheridan was promoted to Lieutenant General. (Grant had been elected President and Sherman had replaced him as General-in-Cief of the Army.) Sheridan replaced Sherman in command of all army units in the West with his new Division headquarters in Chicago, Illinois. Major General John Schofield replaced Sheridan in command of the Department of the Missouri.
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