to army commander his talents shone.  His tremendous vigor, incredible mental alertness, and genius for detail, added to his skill and outreach, continually set him forward.  He stood 5 feet 5 inches high, but somehow looked taller, owing to his erect, splendid bearing.  There was something in the full chest, the thick muscular neck, the heavy head, the dark blazing eyes, and the quick bodily movements that arrested attention.  His name has come down to this generation mainly as a great cavalry leader, but he was a natural commander of all arms, a great tactician, a born strategist.  His campaign of the Shenandoah Valley was a whirlwind of success.  His great battles around Richmond were wonderful.  General Grant’s opinion of Sheridan, given thirteen years after the war, sums up the man.  It is here quoted from J.R.  Young’s book, Around the World with General Grant.  It runs, in part, as follows: 

“As a soldier, as a commander of troops, as a man capable of doing all that is possible with any number of men, there is no man living greater than Sheridan.  He belongs to the very first rank of soldiers, not only of our country but of the world.  I rank Sheridan with Napoleon and Frederick and the great commanders in history.  No man ever had such a faculty of finding things out as Sheridan, of knowing all about the enemy.  He was always the best informed of his command as to the enemy.  Then he had that magnetic quality of swaying men, which I wish I had, a rare quality in a general.  I don’t think anyone can give Sheridan too high praise.”

Praise from U.S.  Grant is praise indeed.  A peculiar feature of the Civil War was the growth of the generals:  Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Thomas, Meade, all conspicuously experienced it.  With Sheridan, however, one point is notable, namely, that He triumphed in every branch in each successive extension of the field of his duties, and he went from captain to major-general in three years of the regular army.  His care for his men was constant.  His troops were always the best fed, best clothed, best rested in the armies en either side, but on no troops was there more constant call for endeavor, and they were never found to fail him.  In action he is described as severe, peremptory, dominating, but his determinations were mighty things, not to be interfered with.  He wanted things done and done at once.  His men of all grades soon conceded that he knew best what to do, and set about doing it accordingly.  Out of action he was joyous of spirit, but, in fight or out of it, his alertness and his lightning-like decisions marked him apart from every other commander.  His career in the Tennessee campaign was meteoric.  Of his score and more of great conflicts, the most picturesque was his wonderful battle at Cedar Creek, to fight which he rode at breakneck speed “from Winchester twenty miles away” through the dust and debris of a broken army to the extreme front, rallying the scattered regiments and turning a defeat