I was hugely impressed with this book. It is a biography of perhaps the third best general of the Union army in the Civil War. Sheridan was a very flawed human being but he was a superb general able to see a very broad scene in battle, and then drive for the weakness. Politically, he was far less successful but with Grant backing him, he seems to have ignored his readily apparent weaknesses. I was struck by how he brought Lee to the finish with skillful actions. ( )

I decided to read this biography of Phil Sheridan for a couple of reasons. One, that although Sheridan is a 'local' to this area and someone I'd heard about all my life, I didn't really know much about him. And two, earlier this year I read Roy Morris Jr.'s excellent biography of Walt Whitman, and was curious to see what he'd made of Sheridan.

In fact, his local roots are taken care of in the first few pages, at which point, Sheridan moves on to West Point, then a commission in California, before returning eastward for assignments during and after the Civil War. Never a likable character, he was usually an interesting one, particularly I think, during his early Civil War years when he very rapidly rose in rank and importance because of his daring and willingness, one way or another, to do what had to be done.

But an unfortunate side issue, it seemed to me, was that the higher he rose in rank, the more likely he was to ponder the effects regarding his personal fame and reputation before taking action - if he did at all. Case in point: His delaying tactics when Grant repeatedly urged Sheridan to take action to cut the Confederate supply lines to Petersburg where Grant's troups were under seige, and Sheridan's balking for months even though his own troops were sitting idle at the time. He also ignored orders later to march his troops to meet Sherman's as they wound their way up from Georgia, because Sheridan wanted to be at Appomatox for Lee's surrender. I was surprised that time and again, it seemed, Sheridan ignored any orders that he didn't like, and got away with it because of his reputation. (It apparently caught up with him later, though, because after the war officially ended, he was ordered to an assignment which could not be delayed, and much to his chagrin, missed marching in the big victory parade in Washington, DC.)

Never an easy man, he became more stubborn and arrogant, the older he got, as evidenced by his Army career after the Civil War in Texas and Louisiana during Reconstruction (he 'fired' the governor of Texas, and famously said that if he owned Texas and Hell, he'd rent out Texas and live in Hell), and later out West during the Indian Wars, where his hatred of the native Americans caused him to be harsher than necessary (he denied saying that the only good Indian was a dead Indian, but his exact words weren't far off). A side note, I didn't realize before reading this book that George Armstrong Custer served under Sheridan during the Civil War, and had returned to Sheridan's command at the time of Little Big Horn. Morris provides a sketchy biography of Custer in writing about his interactions with Sheridan.

I knew going in that Phil Sheridan was a difficult man, in the best of circumstances, and while he might be someone I could admire for his accomplishments, he was never going to be someone I particularly liked. I'm glad to have read this book, a good overview of his life, as in-depth as I care to read about. To me, the book was most interesting up through the Civil War. After that, much of his life and work were constrained by politics, which I found less interesting, or maybe less exciting or thrilling would describe it better.

Includes a good selection of photographs of Sheridan throughout his life, as well as Custer, and other military, political, and Native American figures.
On the strength of the two biographies (Sheridan and Walt Whitman) I've read by Roy Morris, Jr., I would recommend him as a writer to seek out. ( )