Terrible Swift Sword (66 page)

7
Foote,
The Civil War
, 3:45.

8
O.R., V. 37, Part II, 223; Jeffry D. Wert,
Custer: The Controversial Life of George Armstrong Custer
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), 168.

9
Bowman,
Civil War Almanac
, 216; Patchan,
Shenandoah Summer
, 157, 159, 251, 260–262.

10
Early,
Memoir
, 66–70; Patchan,
Shenandoah Summer
, 271–276; Foote,
The Civil War
, 3:460–461; Freeman,
Lee's Lieutenants
, 389; Sheridan,
Personal Memoirs
, 1:460–462.

11
O.R., V. 37, Part II, 433–434; Warner,
Generals in Blue
, 159–160; Sheridan Papers, Reel 1.

12
O.R., V. 37, Part II, 433–434.

13
George Gordon Meade,
The Life and Letters of George Gordon Meade
, 2 vols. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1913), 2:218–220.

14
Warner,
Generals in Blue
, 243–244; Patchan,
Shenandoah Summer
, 27; Sheridan,
Personal Memoirs
, 1:463–466; O.R., V. 38, Part V, 408; Morris,
Sheridan,
182; McFeely,
Grant
, 185; O.R., V. 37, Part II, 558, 582.

15
Morris,
Sheridan,
184–185; Sheridan,
Personal Memoirs
, 1:471–475, 484, 446–452.

16
Longacre,
Custer
, 242; O'Connor,
Sheridan the Inevitable
, 193–194.

17
Longacre,
Custer
, 242; George Thomas Stevens,
Three Years in the Sixth Corps
(Albany, NY: S. R. Gray, 1866), 388; Newhall,
With General Sheridan
, 13–14, 26–27.

18
John L. Heatwole,
The Burning: Sheridan's Devastation of the Shenandoah Valley
(Charlottesville, VA: Howell Press, 1998), 7, 13; Jay W. Simson,
Crisis of Command in the Army of the Potomac: Sheridan's Search for an Effective General
(Jefferson, NC, and London: McFarland & Company, 2008), 6; Coffey,
Sheridan's Lieutenants
, 48; Sheridan,
Personal Memoirs
, 1:467–468.

19
Wert,
Custer
, 170; Davies,
General Sheridan
, 142, 147; Hergesheimer,
Sheridan
, 151–152; O'Connor,
Sheridan the Inevitable
, 193–194.

20
Sheridan,
Personal Memoirs
, 1:469.

21
Ibid., 466–467; Wert,
Custer
, 175.

22
Longacre,
Custer
, 243–244; Sheridan,
Personal Memoirs
, 1:488–492.

23
Early,
Memoir
, 74; Kidd,
Riding with Custer
, 377; Wert,
Custer
, 175–177.

24
Major General Wesley Merritt, “Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley,” in
Battles and Leaders of the Civil War,
ed. Robert Underwood Johnson and Clarence Clough Buel (New York: Thomas Yoseloff, 1956), 4:503; Sheridan,
Personal Memoirs
, 1:492, 499–500.

25
Hergesheimer,
Sheridan
, 191; Sheridan,
Personal Memoirs
, 1:470–471.

26
Sheridan,
Personal Memoirs
, 2:8.

27
Early,
Memoir
, 79–81; Urwin,
Custer Victorious
, 177.

28
Sheridan,
Personal Memoirs
, 1:498–499.

29
Drake,
Little Phil
, 245.

30
Starr,
The Union Cavalry,
2:249, 256.

1
O.R., V. 43, Part II, 124.

2
Greiner,
General Phil Sheridan
, 325–326.

3
Ibid., 327–328.

4
Sheridan,
Personal Memoirs
, 2:5–6; Foote,
The Civil War
, 3:553.

5
Grant Papers, 12:64, 89–90, 96–97, 109, 118, 137, 139.

6
Grant,
Personal Memoirs
, 474; Abraham Lincoln,
Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln,
ed. Roy Basler, 8 vols. (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953), 7:548.

7
John William De Forest,
A Volunteer's Adventures: A Union Captain's Record of the Civil War
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1946), 171–172.

8
Grant,
Personal Memoirs
, 474.

9
Foote,
The Civil War
, 3:553–554.

10
Sheridan,
Personal Memoirs
, 2:9–11.

11
John B. Gordon,
Reminiscences of the Civil War
(New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1903), 319–321; Sheridan,
Personal Memoirs
, 2:10.

12
Patchan,
Shenandoah Summer
, 15–18.

13
Sheridan Papers, Reel 85; Patchan,
Shenandoah Summer
, 30; Davies,
General Sheridan
, 157–158; Gordon,
Reminiscences
, 321; Sheridan,
Personal Memoirs
, 2:22–23.

14
Sheridan,
Personal Memoirs
, 2:24–25.

15
Flinn,
Campaigning
, 188; Morris,
Sheridan
, 200; Sheridan,
Personal Memoirs
, 2:25–26.

16
O.R., V. 43, Part I, 456; Wert,
Custer
, 182; Rutherford B. Hayes,
Diaries and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Nineteenth President of the United States,
vol. 2,
1861–1865,
ed. Charles Richard Williams (Columbus, OH: F. J. Heer Printing Company, 1922), 498, 508; Gordon,
Reminiscences
, 323; Starr,
The Union Cavalry,
2:274–277; Carlo D'Este,
Patton: A Genius for War
(New York: HarperCollins, 1995), 17; Kidd,
Riding with Custer
, 391–394; De Forest,
A Volunteer's Adventures
, 189; Morris,
Sheridan
, 200–201.

17
Sheridan was as good as his word. After the war, when Wright and her family lost their home in Winchester and she appealed to Senator Simon Cameron of Pennsylvania for compensation for her services, Cameron forwarded her request to Sheridan, jokingly advising him either to marry Wright or to find her a job. Sheridan sent her a watch and
chain as a token of his appreciation and got Wright a job at the Treasury Department, where she worked until retirement. Sheridan Papers, Reel 94; Drake,
Little Phil
, 460–461.

18
James H. Kidd,
One of Custer's Wolverines: The Civil War Letters of Brevet Brigadier James H. Kidd, 6th Michigan Cavalry
, ed. Eric J. Wittenberg (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2000), 107; Grant Papers, 12:177–178n; Sheridan,
Personal Memoirs
, 2:28–29, 31; Porter,
Campaigning with Grant
, 298; O.R., V. 43, Part I, 61; O.R., V. 43, Part II, 124.

19
O.R., V. 43, Part I, 555.

20
Foote,
The Civil War
, 3:556–557; Starr,
The Union Cavalry,
2:278–279; Sheridan,
Personal Memoirs
, 2:33–34.

21
George Crook,
General George Crook: His Autobiography
(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1960), 129–131; Sheridan,
Personal Memoirs
, 2:36–37; O.R., V. 43, Part I, 27; Davies,
General Sheridan
, 315; Starr,
The Union Cavalry,
2:279–280; Gordon,
Reminiscences
, 326; Hayes,
Diaries and Letters
, 2:511.

22
O.R., V. 43, Part I, 26; Grant Papers, 12: 192–193.

23
Hayes,
Diaries and Letters
, 2:514.

24
Starr,
The Union Cavalry,
2:286–289.

25
Ibid., 281.

26
Grant Papers, 12:119; Sheridan,
Personal Memoirs
, 2:41–45; O.R., V. 43, Part I, 500–501.

27
Urwin,
Custer Victorious
, 191; Starr,
The Union Cavalry,
2:293; Coffey,
Sheridan's Lieutenants
, xvi–xvii.

28
Grant Papers, 12:269.

29
Sheridan,
Personal Memoirs
, 2:53–55.

30
Early,
Memoir
, 91.

31
O.R., V. 43, Part I, 555–556, 558–559; Freeman,
Lee's Lieutenants
, 750–751.

1
Heatwole,
The Burning
, 99.

2
Sheridan,
Personal Memoirs
, 1:465.

3
Ibid., 486.

4
Ibid., 485–486.

5
Wert,
Custer
, 174; Michael G. Mahon,
The Shenandoah Valley, 1861–1865: The Destruction of the Granary of the Confederacy
(Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1999), 115.

6
Drake,
Little Phil
, 250–251.

7
Mark E. Neely Jr., “Was the Civil War a Total War?” in
On the Road to Total War: The American Civil War and the German Wars of Unification, 1861–1871
, ed. Stig Förster and Jörg Nagler (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 33–34; Förster and Nagler,
On the Road to Total War,
10–11; Joseph Wheelan,
Libby Prison Breakout: The Daring Escape from the Notorious Civil War Prison
(New York: Public Affairs, 2010), 19–20; see the website of the International Committee of the Red Cross at
www.icrc.org
.

8
Sheridan,
Personal Memoirs
, 1:487–488.

9
Lincoln,
Collected Works
, 8:151.

10
Jay W. Simson,
Custer and the Front Royal Executions of 1864
(Jefferson, NC, and London: McFarland & Company, 2009), 13–16; John F. Marszalek,
Sherman: A Soldier's Passion for Order
(New York: Free Press, 1993), 294.

11
O.R., V. 39, Part III, 162, 660; O.R., V. 44, 798.

12
James M. McPherson, “From Limited War to Total War in America,” in
On the Road to Total War: The American Civil War and the German Wars of Unification, 1861–1871
, ed. Stig Förster and Jörg Nagler (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 306–307; O.R., V. 30, Part III, 403.

13
William Tecumseh Sherman,
Memoirs of General William T. Sherman
, 2 vols. (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1875), 2:126–127.

14
Marszalek,
Sherman
, 285, 294–295, 382, 298–300; James A. Ramage,
Gray Ghost: The Life of Colonel John Singleton Mosby
(Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1999), 191; Grant Papers, 12:13, 15; O.R., V. 43, Part II, 552–553; V. 39, Part II, 378.

15
O.R., V. 43, Part II, 142–143.

16
McFeely,
Grant
, 186.

17
O.R., V. 43, Part I, 822, 841, 880; Ramage,
Gray Ghost
, 194–194.

18
Starr,
The Union Cavalry,
2:48; C. W. Denison,
Illustrated Life, Campaigns and Public Services of Philip H. Sheridan
(Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson & Brothers, 1865), 122; James Joseph Williamson,
Mosby's Rangers: A Record of the Operations of the Forty-Third Virginia Cavalry
(New York: Ralph B. Kenyon, Publisher, 1896), 41–42; Freeman,
Lee's Lieutenants
, 151.

19
Ramage,
Gray Ghost
, 194–195; Wert,
Custer
, 174–175.

20
Williamson,
Mosby's Rangers
, 240–241; Wert,
Custer
, 185.

21
Williamson,
Mosby's Rangers
, 259, 261–263; Morris,
Sheridan,
226–227; Heatwole,
The Burning
, 115; Starr,
The Union Cavalry,
2:344–345.

22
Years later, an account found among the papers of Frank Shaver, another of the Rebels, corroborated this version. Shaver wrote that he shot Meigs in the head, and the third Rebel, Private F. M. Campbell, shot him a second time, in the chest. George F. Skoch, “In the Shadow of the Valley,”
Civil War Times Illustrated
23, no. 5 (September 1984): 37; Heatwole,
The Burning
, 90–92; Sheridan,
Personal Memoirs
, 2:50–52.

23
Skoch, “In the Shadow of the Valley,” 37–38; Heatwole,
The Burning
, 97–98; Sheridan,
Personal Memoirs
, 2:52.

24
O.R., V. 43, Part I, 442; Heatwole,
The Burning
, 51–52.

25
Sheridan,
Personal Memoirs
, 2:55–56; O.R., V. 43, Part I, 916–917.

26
Merritt, “Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley,” 512–513; Heatwole,
The Burning
, 99, 62; Foote,
The Civil War
, 3:564.

27
Sheridan,
Personal Memoirs
, 2:55–56.

28
Greiner,
General Phil Sheridan
, 314.

29
Starr,
The Union Cavalry,
2:302–303; Heatwole,
The Burning
, 151, 169.

30
Kidd,
Riding with Custer
, 397–399.

31
Heatwole,
The Burning
, 19.

32
Grant Papers, 12:269.

33
Drake,
Little Phil
, 347;
Daily Richmond Whig
, October 15, 1864.

34
O.R., V. 43, Part I, 560; Mahon,
The Shenandoah Valley
, 126.

35
Major General Thomas L. Rosser,
Riding with Rosser
(Shippenburg, PA: Bud Street Press, 1997), iv–v; Urwin,
Custer Victorious
, 170, 195.

36
Rosser,
Riding with Rosser
, 44–45.

37
Ibid., 45–47.

38
George B. Sanford,
Fighting Rebels and Redskins: Experiences in Army Life of Colonel George B. Sanford, 1861–1892,
ed. E. R. Hagemann (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1969), 283.