"Come ahead," said Sheridan. "You'll see some beautiful fighting!"
Sheridan loved fighting, but he made no pretense of never being afraid. He thought a general should be close to the front, to keep his soldiers' spirits high.
"Are you never afraid?" Charles A. Dana, then Assistant Secretary of War, once asked him.
"If I was, I should not be ashamed of it. If I should follow my natural impulse, I should run away always at the beginning of the danger. The men who say they are never afraid in a battle do not tell the truth."
March 29, 1865, the twelve-day campaign began. The cavalry swung out towards Five Forks, where Lee's right wing lay behind deep entrenchments. April 1, Sheridan attacked in force. Americans fought Americans with stubborn bravery on both sides. The issue was long in doubt. Sheridan and his staff were close to the firing-line, so that Tom had but a few hundred yards to gallop under fire when his general said to him:
Statue of Gen. Philip H. Sheridan
Sheridan Square, Washington, D. C.
Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, New York.