Reviewed by Robert Swan

Joseph Wheelan reminds us that Philip Sheridan (“Little Phil” to his troops; he was all of 5’5” tall) was one of the “triumvirate” of Union generals who helped win the Civil War. The other two, Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman, have been written about frequently; Sheridan is in need of fuller treatment. He gets it here, in a well written, thoroughly researched biography. Wheelan has produced that rare combination of excellent scholarship encompassing the life of a complex person, presented in a narrative that reads like a novel. It is a wonderful book.

Wheelan dispenses with Sheridan’s early life quickly — like Grant, he came from nothing and worked odd jobs as a boy until a fateful appointment to West Point — and focuses on Sheridan’s rise to prominence during the Civil War. Rapid promotion was standard among the more gifted officers. Wheelan reminds us that George Armstrong Custer went from captain to brigadier general in one promotion, something virtually unthinkable in today’s army, even on a brevet (temporary) basis.

Sheridan, too, benefited from this system, and although he began the war a mere first lieutenant, he quickly came to the attention of superiors as an officer of immense courage, audacity and brilliance, and rapid promotion followed. He was not only a fighter but also an excellent and scrupulous administrator, and immensely popular with his troops. In the words of one of his officers (quoted by Wheelan):

“He wore the uniform of a major general, but there was no constraint in his manner in talking to us. … I thought this very strange—this love at first sight, and without apparent reason. … Soon, however, I found that others felt much as I did.”

One of Sheridan’s most famous successes was the killing of the Confederate cavalry commander J.E.B. Stuart. Wheelan’s abilities as historian and storyteller are fully on display in his description of the cat-and-mouse game played between Sheridan’s forces and Stuart’s, with its tragic denouement for the South. Wheelan’s description of Stuart’s last goodbye to his wife and children is beautifully drawn, with something reminiscent of the departure of Hector from Andromache.

Wheelan is also excellent on Sheridan’s hounding of Robert E. Lee from Petersburg to his surrender at Appomattox Courthouse. Readers, whether familiar with the military aspects of the battle or not, will enjoy Wheelan’s expert dissection of the campaign, which is concise, thorough and filled with some fine prose writing (Wheelan’s description of Major General George Pickett as “the war’s embittered doyen of futility,” beautifully capturing Pickett’s character as well as the tragic quality of his wartime experiences, is an example).

I confess that I found the most interesting chapters of the book to be those dealing with Sheridan’s post-Civil War career. Grant, of course, went on to become president of the United States, and Sherman to command the U.S. Army. Sheridan became a lieutenant general (he achieved four stars only at the very end of his life, when Congress learned he was dying of heart disease) and was given charge of Sherman’s old Department of the Missouri. When Sheridan learned of the Franco-Prussian War, he asked permission to travel to Europe and in a fascinating interlude visited Prussian commanders, met and formed a fast friendship with Bismarck, and gave some advice at dinner, which clearly expressed Sheridan’s attitude to war. He, like Grant and Sherman, with whom the policy was most closely associated due to his famous march, was a staunch advocate of total war as the most expedient as well as the most humane method of bringing a conflict, and the killing, to a speedy conclusion. How extreme was Sheridan? He even shocked the Prussians:

“The people must be left with nothing but their eyes to weep with after the war. … The proper strategy consists … in causing the inhabitants so much suffering that they must long for peace, and for their government to demand it.”

Sheridan was, like Grant and Sherman, ruthless, and his attitude toward the Native-American population reflects this. Through the Department of the Missouri, Sheridan directed the final campaign to “settle” the West. The chapters make sober reading. He defended one notorious instance of murder by asserting that the killing of women and children was “the fault of Indian raiders ‘whose crimes necessitated the attack.’ ”

He was also largely responsible for the policy of exterminating the buffalo, and his words to Congress in this regard will not endear him to environmentalists:

“Send them powder and lead, if you will; but, for the sake of lasting peace, let them kill, skin, and sell until the buffaloes are exterminated. Then your prairies can be covered with speckled cattle, and the festive cowboy, who follows the hunter as a second forerunner of an advanced civilization.”

Somewhat incongruously, this man who advocated the extermination of the buffalo to end the “Plains Indian problem” became an advocate for conservation. The end of Sheridan’s career saw him a staunch defender of Yellowstone National Park from the depredations of excessive hunting and rapacious railway officials, and in later years, according to Wheelan, he “mellowed,” indicating that he believed in a coming “period when war would eliminate itself” and “Arbitration would rule the world.”

How wrong he was.

Robert Swan teaches history and philosophy in the International Baccalaureate program at Richard Montgomery High School in Rockville, Md.