Sheridan Rallying His Troops.
As he rode forward he could hear the booming of cannon. Then he saw a part of his army in full retreat, and fugitives told him that a battle had been fought against General Early’s Confederates and everything lost.
With two aides and twenty men the gallant Sheridan dashed forward to the front as fast as his foaming steed could carry him. On meeting a retreating officer who said, “The army is whipped,” Sheridan replied: “You are, but the army isn’t.”
As he pushed ahead he said to his soldiers: “If I had been with you this morning this disaster would not have happened. We must face the other way. We must go back and recover our camp.”
As soon as his troops caught sight of “Little Phil,” as they liked to call him, they threw their hats into the air and, with enthusiastic cheers, shouldered their muskets and faced about. Sheridan brought order out of confusion and in the battle that followed drove Early’s army from the field in utter rout.
Great was the rejoicing in the North over this victory, and Sheridan himself was raised to the rank of major-general.
This victory was largely due to Sheridan’s magnetic influence over his men. The following incident illustrates this remarkable power of “Little Phil”: At the battle of Five Forks, which took place near Richmond the next spring (1865), a wounded soldier in the line of battle near Sheridan stumbled and was falling behind his regiment. But when Sheridan cried out, “Never mind, my man; there’s no harm done!” the soldier, although with a bullet in his brain, went forward with his fighting comrades till he fell dead.
TWO GREAT GENERALS
Let us now return to Grant. After remaining near Petersburg all winter, in the spring of 1865 he pressed so hard upon the Confederate army that Lee had to leave Richmond and move rapidly westward in order to escape capture. For a week Grant closely followed Lee’s troops, who were almost starving; all they had to eat was parched corn and green shoots of trees, and the outlook was so dark that many had deserted and started for home.