Philip Sheridan

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Major General Philip Henry Sheridan signature

Philip Henry Sheridan (born March 6, 1831 in Albany , New York , † August 5, 1888 in Nonquitt , Massachusetts ) was an officer in the US Army and, as Lieutenant General, Commander in Chief of the Army .

biography

family

Sheridan was the sixth child of Irish Catholic immigrants John and Mary Meenagh Sheridan of Killinkere, County Cavan . He grew up in Somerset, Ohio . Because he was only 1.65 meters tall, he was nicknamed Little Phil . He worked in a shop as a boy and then worked as an office worker and accountant for the grocery store.

From 1875 Sheridan was married to Irene Rucker, the daughter of a quartermaster of the army. They had four children. The son Philip Henry Jr. became an officer and died of heart failure in 1918 at the age of 38. Sheridan lived in Washington, DC from 1875

Education, early years

From 1848, Sheridan attended the Military Academy at West Point , New York, and graduated in 1853.

Upon graduation, he was transferred to the 1st US Infantry Regiment in Fort Duncan, Texas , and then to the 4th US Infantry Regiment in Fort Reading, California , as a lieutenant in 1853 . He fought in the Yakama from 1855 to 1857 - and in the Rogue River Indian campaign in the Washington Territory . After that, Sheridan was stationed in Oregon . In March 1861 he was promoted to First Lieutenant ( Oberleutnant ) and two months later to Captain ( Hauptmann ).

In the Civil War

General Philip Henry Sheridan, May 1864

The first year of the Civil War he served as quartermaster in the US 13th Infantry Regiment in Missouri . In the Battle of Pea Ridge in Arkansas in March 1862 he took part under the command of Brigadier General Samuel Ryan Curtis and fought under Major General Henry Wager Halleck from April to June 1862 in the First Battle of Corinth .

Sheridan was appointed with effect from 25 May 1862 the commander of the 2nd Michigan Cavalry Regiment and Colonel ( Colonel transported). He fought with the regiment on May 30 near Booneville, Mississippi , during a reconnaissance against a Confederate cavalry regiment. Because of his skill, Sheridan was given command of a cavalry brigade, which he successfully led in the cavalry battle, again at Booneville, Mississippi, on July 1, 1862. In September 1862 he was therefore appointed division commander and promoted retrospectively to July 1, 1862 to brigadier general of the volunteers. Sheridan led the 11th Division of III. Major General Don Carlos Buell's Corps of the Ohio Army at the Battle of Perryville in October 1862. He and his division served in the battles on the Stones River and Chickamauga under Major General William Starke Rosecrans and at Chattanooga under Major General Ulysses S. Grant . Retroactive to December 31, 1862, he had been promoted to major general of the volunteers.

In 1864, Ulysses S. Grant brought Sheridan to the Potomac Army as commanding general of the Cavalry Corps . During the fighting in May 1864, he defeated the southern cavalry in the battle of the Yellow Tavern . At Trevilian Station, Sheridan was defeated by the Northern Virginia Army Cavalry Corps in June .

Grant then gave Sheridan command of the newly formed Shenandoah Army to counter the threat to the Shenandoah Valley from a Confederate corps under the command of Lieutenant General Jubal Anderson Earlys . His warfare was a first example of the " scorched earth " tactics here as well as in his later deployment in the Indian Wars . He beat the Confederates at Winchester, Fishers Hill, and Cedar Creek . For his successes, he was promoted to Brigadier General and Major General in the regular army.

In March 1865 he returned to the Potomac Army outside Petersburg and played a major role in the success of the Appomattox campaign under Grant, which led to General Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House .

After the Civil War

Philip Henry Sheridan, around 1870

After the war, Sheridan commanded US troops on the Mexican border. This served primarily as a warning to the Mexican government under Emperor Maximilian . In the course of the Reconstruction he was military governor of the 5th Military District ( Texas and Louisiana ) from March 1867 . But only for six months, because he was quickly replaced due to his tough decisions and his unpopular remarks. He is said to have said "If I own Texas and Hell, I would rent Texas and live in Hell".

After that he was u. a. Commander in the Missouri Defense Area , observer in the Franco-German War and worked on the establishment of Yellowstone National Park . In his work against Indian peoples, he systematically destroyed the basis of their way of life, the buffalo herds, and burned down villages. He was u. a. responsible for the attack on the Indian village on Washita on November 27, 1868, during which the sleeping Indians were attacked and 100 Cheyennes were killed along with women and children.

On March 4, 1869, he was promoted to lieutenant general; the fifth holder of this rank in the USA since Washington (1798). In 1870/71 he observed the Franco-Prussian War in Europe on behalf of the government . On November 1, 1883, he was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Army . Shortly before his death, after Grant and Sherman, Congress promoted him as the third soldier to General of the Army of the United States .

Sheridan died in 1888 and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery , where there is a headstone with his portrait.

His "Indian" utterance

Carl Schurz and Sheridan dispute jurisdiction over the Indians - Harper's Weekly , December 21, 1878

The saying "Only a dead Indian is a good Indian" is said to come from him. The American original read: "The only good Indians I ever saw were dead" (German = The only good Indians I ever saw were dead). In his biography, “Sheridan, the Inevitable,” Richard O'Connor writes: “Although the principle commonly attributed to him, 'The only good Indian is a dead Indian' is an inaccurate quotation of what Sheridan really said, he thought and acted exactly that way quoted accordingly. "Sheridan above, cynical response to the remark by the Comanches -Häuptlings Tosowi he was a good Indian, but also a reversal of 200 years ago could quote made by Metacomet be. In the war speech given by Wampanoag chief Metacomet, known as King Philip (1675), he complained about the breach of contracts and immorality by whites, the destruction of the Wampanoag's hunting grounds and concluded with the assessment that it would be impossible “with the white-skinned predators "To live in peace (quote:" We did not want to believe it in the past, but it is a fact: .. only a dead white is a good white. Brothers, we must unite or we will perish! ").

Honors

Sheridan Memorial in Washington, DC
Sherman , Grant and Sheridan, postage stamp from 1937

Trivia

Sheridan's Ride , painting by Thomas Buchanan Read, 1871

During the battle of Cedar Creek, after an hour and a half ride on his horse Rienzi from Winchester , Virginia to the front, Sheridan succeeded in stopping the dispersed and fleeing soldiers and motivating them to fight again, presumably avoiding the impending defeat. This was processed by Thomas Buchanan Read both poetically and painterly. The ballad Sheridan's Ride made all three, the general, the horse, and the poet famous.

literature

  • Richard O'Connor: Sheridan, the Inevitable. Indianapolis, IN 1953.
  • Roy Morris, Jr .: Sheridan: The Life and Wars of General Phil Sheridan. New York 1992.
  • Stefan Papp jr .: General Phil Sheridan: Military biography . Wyk on Föhr 1990.
  • Joseph Wheelan: Terrible Swift Sword: The Life of General Philip H. Sheridan. Da Capo Press, Boston 2013, ISBN 978-0-306-82198-1 .
  • Eric J. Wittenberg: Little Phil: A Reasessment of the Civil War Leadership of General Philip H. Sheridan . Washington, DC 2002.

Web links

Commons : Philip Sheridan  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ HJ Stammel: The Indian, legend and reality from AZ , Orbis-Verlag, Munich. 1989
personal data
SURNAME Sheridan, Philip
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sheridan, Philip Henry (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Commander in Chief of the US Army
DATE OF BIRTH March 6, 1831
PLACE OF BIRTH Albany , New York
DATE OF DEATH August 5, 1888
Place of death Nonquitt , Massachusetts