Men of Our Times; Or, Leading Patriots of the Day: Being narratives of the lives and deeds of statesmen, generals, and orators. Including biographical sketches and anecdotes of Lincoln, Grant, Garrison, Sumner, Chase, Wilson, Greeley, Farragut, Andrew, Colfax, Stanton, Douglass, Buckingham, Sherman, Sheridan, Howard, Phillips and Beecher.Stowe, Harriet Beecher
History
Men of Our Times; Or, Leading Patriots of the Day: Being narratives of the lives and deeds of statesmen, generals, and orators. Including biographical sketches and anecdotes of Lincoln, Grant, Garrison, Sumner, Chase, Wilson, Greeley, Farragut, Andrew, Colfax, Stanton, Douglass, Buckingham, Sherman, Sheridan, Howard, Phillips and Beecher.
Stowe, Harriet Beecher
United States -- Biography; United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Biography
Sheridan a Full-Blooded Irishman--The Runaway Horse--
Constitutional Fearlessness--Sheridan Goes to West Point--
Sheridan's Apprenticeship to War--The Fight with the Apaches at
Fort Duncan--He is Transferred to Oregon--Commands at Fort
Yamhill in the Yokima Reservation--The Quarrel among the Yokimas
--Sheridan Popular with Indians--He thinks he has a Chance to
be Major Some Day--Sheridan's Shyness with Ladies--He Employs
a Substitute in Waiting on a Lady--Sheridan's Kindness and
Efficiency in Office Work--He Becomes a Colonel of Cavalry--His
Shrewd Defeat of Gen. Chalmers--Becomes Brigadier--The Kentucky
Campaign against Bragg--Sheridan Saves the Battle of Perrysville
--Saves the Battle of Murfreesboro--Gen. Rousseau on Sheridan's
Fighting--Sheridan at Missionary Ridge--Joins Grant as Chief of
Cavalry--His Raids around Lee--His Campaign in the Valley of
Virginia--He Moves across and Joins in the Final Operations--
His Administration at New Orleans--Grant's Opinion of Sheridan.
Major-General Philip Henry Sheridan is a full-blooded Irishman by
descent, though American by birth. He was born in poverty. So large a
share of American eminent men have been born poor, that it might almost
be said that in our country poverty in youth is the first requisite for
success in life.
Sheridan's parents, after remaining a few years at the east, moved to
Ohio, where their son grew up with very little schooling, and under the
useful necessity of working for a living. There is a story current of
his having been put upon a spirited horse when a boy of five, by some
mischievous mates, and run away with to a tavern some miles off. He
stuck fast to the horse, though without saddle or bridle, and without
size or strength to use them if he had them. It was by a mere chance
that he arrived safe, and when lifted off by the sympathizing family of
the inn, the little fellow admitted that he was shaken and sore with
his ride, but he added, "I'll be better to-morrow, _and then I'll ride
back home_." The incident is of no great importance in itself, but it
shows that even then the boy was already constitutionally destitute
of fear. He seems to have been made without the peculiar faculty
which makes people take danger into the account, and try to keep at a
distance from it. The full possession of this deficiency (if the phrase
is not too direct a contradiction in terms,) is quite uncommon. Admiral
Nelson had it, as was shown, very much in Sheridan's own style, in his
boyhood. The future victor of Trafalgar had strayed away from home, and
got lost. When he had been found and taken home, a relative remarked,
"I should have thought that fear would have kept you from going so
far away." "Fear?" said the young gentleman quite innocently; "Fear?
I don't know him!" He never afterwards made his acquaintance, either;
nor, it would seem, has Sheridan.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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