Gutzon found it easy to open correspondence with the committee in charge of the memorial. He had long been acquainted with President Theodore Roosevelt, and he had met some of his military aides through their common love for horses. It was arranged to have Mrs. Sheridan and her son visit the Thirty-eighth Street studio. They came and reported that they liked what they had seen--the model for the Grant monument with its three horses, the dashing horses of the “Mares of Diomedes” group, the marble head of Lincoln. There was still some delay about the granting of a new contract. Gutzon was interviewed. He sent photographs of his work to the committee. Presently, however, he was contemplating his old annoyance. The committee suggested a competition. Gutzon Borglum refused. “I shall be happy to make a sketch model for the committee’s consideration,” he said, “but only after I have received a contract.” After much discussion the committee gave in. The contract was awarded, and Gutzon made the sketch model as he had agreed. The sketch was eventually cast in bronze and presented to the Officers’ Club of Rio de Janeiro as a gift from the Officers’ Club of Washington. The uncovering of the general’s life brought contacts with many of his old comrades in arms, including a close friend, General George Forsyth. Colonel Royal E. Whitman, an old Indian fighter who had ridden with Sheridan in the Civil War, wrote Gutzon dozens of letters covering all sorts of details. He even declared he could produce the actual accouterments of Sheridan’s horse. Sheridan’s horse, as is well known, is preserved stuffed and mounted on Governor’s Island. Borglum wasn’t much interested in it. It was unthinkable to him that a dead horse could pose for the one that carried Sheridan on his wild ride to Winchester. Through Colonel Whitman he had bought a Virginia hunter named “Smoke” who had the run of the studio and was a tractable pet. In due course “Smoke” qualified as Sheridan’s mount. One remarkable thing about the memorial--an innovation that now has become almost commonplace in art--assured its success. Sheridan was presented not as the older man he lived to be, but in his prime and at a supreme moment in his career--the turn of the Federal retreat at Winchester. Gutzon pictured the moment when the general, returning from a conference with Lincoln, came galloping to meet his fleeing soldiers. In the statue he has pulled up his horse and is waving the men back into the fight. There is fury in his eye and, as the sculptor felt, a historic phrase on his lips: “You will sleep in your tents tonight or you will sleep in hell!”