General Philip Henry Sheridan (1831-1888) was the most important Union cavalry commander of the Civil War, and ranks as one of America's greatest horse soldiers. From Corinth through Chickamauga and Missionary Ridge, he made himself a reputation for courage and efficiency; after his defeat of J.E.B. Stuart's rebel cavalry, Grant named him commander of the Union forces in the Shenandoah Valley. There he laid waste to the entire region, and his victory over Jubal Early's troops in the Battle of Cedar Creek brought him worldwide renown and a promotion to major general in the regular army. It was Sheridan who cut off Lee's retreat at Appomattox, thus securing the surrender of the Confederate Army. Subsequent to the Civil War, Sheridan was active in the 1868 war with the Comanches and Cheyennes, where he won infamy with his statement that the only good Indians I ever saw were dead. In 1888 he published his
Personal Memoirs of P. H. Sheridan,
one of the best first-hand accounts of the Civil War and the Indian wars which followed.