jon_norstog
06-15-2017, 09:23
The book is Sheridan: the Life and Wars of General Phil Sheridan by Roy L. Morris, jr. and it looks to be out of print, but there are a lot of copies floating around. It was bathroom reading at my brother's place in Idaho, so I got into reading it from Chickamauga through the end of the War and into a little of the Mexican border action afterwards.
Morris writes well and the book is a good read, fast paced but with enough detail to satisfy your jones for history. It is definitely written from the viewpoint of Little Phil and draws pretty heavily from his memoirs. You read it and you can see that Sheridan made his share of mistakes, but they did not include reluctance to engage the enemy. I do think he should have finished off Early in the fall instead of letting the Shenandoah Campaign drag on into the winter; and he should have listened to Grant and moved east to destroy the Virginia Central RR. He really delivered the goods during the last weeks of the War. If war is like chess, the Sheridan was like a knight in the endgame that checkmated Lee and forced his surrender.
The library here doesn't have the book, so I ordered it through Amazon so I can finish it out.
jn
Morris writes well and the book is a good read, fast paced but with enough detail to satisfy your jones for history. It is definitely written from the viewpoint of Little Phil and draws pretty heavily from his memoirs. You read it and you can see that Sheridan made his share of mistakes, but they did not include reluctance to engage the enemy. I do think he should have finished off Early in the fall instead of letting the Shenandoah Campaign drag on into the winter; and he should have listened to Grant and moved east to destroy the Virginia Central RR. He really delivered the goods during the last weeks of the War. If war is like chess, the Sheridan was like a knight in the endgame that checkmated Lee and forced his surrender.
The library here doesn't have the book, so I ordered it through Amazon so I can finish it out.
jn