Reaching Dandridge a little in advance of my command, I reported to Sheridan, and he showed me the line he had selected, on which we were to occupy the left. Colonel Sterling, my inspector-general, was assigned the duty of placing the brigades in position as they arrived. The cavalry had preceded us, and we found them occupying the town and picketing the roads toward Morristown and the elbow of the Nolachucky River northeast of us, locally called the Bend o' Chucky. A range of hills known as Bay's Mountain was the water-shed between the valleys of the Holston and the French Broad, and we expected the cavalry to cover the front on a line from Kimbrough's Cross-roads near the mountain to the Bend o' Chucky. This line would be nine or ten miles from Dandridge, and would communicate also with Mott's brigade of my command, which had been left in its post at Mossy Creek, on the Holston, under orders to fall back deliberately to Strawberry Plains if attacked by superior forces. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. ii. p. 99.] If these positions could be held, the cavalry could not only collect the forage in the Nolachucky valley as far up as their detachments could reach, but would also threaten the left flank of Longstreet's position at Morristown. Those who only knew Sheridan after the war would hardly recognize him in the thin and wiry little man I met at Dandridge. His hollow cheeks made his cheekbones noticeably prominent, and his features had a decided Milesian cast. His reputation at that time was that of an impetuous and vehement fighter when engaged, rousing himself to a belligerent wrath and fury that made his spirit contagious and stimulated his troops to a like vigor. At other times he was unpretentious and genial, and whilst regarded as a good division commander was not thought of as specially fitted for large and independent responsibilities. He was not considered cool enough for the broader duties of a commander, and indeed had had rather bad luck in the great battles of Stone's River and Chickamauga, where the qualities called for were those which enable a perfectly self-possessed officer to extricate his command from a perilous position. He has told me himself that he was slow in learning to have confidence in his own power to direct in such cases, and that it was only after he had tested himself, step by step, that he came to rely on his own judgment and will, as he did in the Shenandoah valley and at Five Forks. It was his blazing impetuosity in action that made Grant think of him as specially fitted for a cavalry leader, and his growth into the able commander of an army was a later development of his talents. He received me very cordially, and in our trying wintry experience at Dandridge began a friendly acquaintance which continued unbroken till his death.