to whom it was paid. With Sheridan there is something more- there is deep, enduring fraternal feeling which is unusual, even among soldiers of the higher class. 66 As a rule, an officer of rank may be judged by his staff. Sheridan's military family was composed of men trained as soldiers under his own eye. While inflexible in matters of duty, severity was mingled with a courtesy that greatly softened punishment, and no soldier ever felt that he had been snubbed" at General Sheridan's headquarters. Many will remember his assistant adjutant-general, Major George Lee, a gallant soldier and courteous gentleman, early stricken down with disease, an officer in Sheridan's confidence, and beloved by all. Then there was his brother, Colonel Michael V. Sheridan, as he will now be known in army records. There was Major Tom Moore, a great favorite of “Little Phil's," for whom he afterwards obtained a commission in the regular service. In war time, and during the earlier years thereafter, the general's constant companion was Brevet Brigadier-General James W. Forsyth, at the present time colonel of the Seventh United States Cavalry. Forsyth was the acting assistant inspector-general on Sheridan's staff, but it was seldom they were seen in public apart. A newspaper writer recalls their appearance on Canal Street, New Orleans: the short, sturdy figure of Sheridan, buttoned up with military precision in the dress coat of a major-general-he only wore two stars then — in his hand a short cane of ivory, made from an elephant's tusk, on his head a cloth hat, with a stiff rim of sailor shape—the same one he wore when on that memorable ride. Beside Sheridan walked Forsyth, his straight, slight, soldierly form towering in its nearly six feet far above the broad shoulders of his chief. Forsyth wore a jaunty straightvisored forage cap and a cavalry jacket, which set off his form and seemed to add to his stature. He remained a member of Sheridan's staff long after the war, and left him only when promotion called him. to other fields. The soldiers were together not only at West Point, but in early service on the Pacific coast. When Sheridan was gazetted in May, 1861, captain in the Thirteenth Infantry, of which William Tecumseh Sherman was made colonel, Forsyth was made a first lieutenant in the Eighteenth Infantry. Both were ordered East and came by sea to Panama, crossed the Isthmus, and thence by the regular steamship line to New York, reaching that city October 26, 1861. Forsyth was sent to the field and Sheridan to St. Louis, where he chafed under administrative duty for several months. Another ex-staff officer, Colonel Newhall, who served him as chief of staff in the closing days of the Rebellion, has written one of the most interesting war volumes on those memorable scenes. A staff officer's position in a volunteer army is not the best one for recognition and promotion, unless, indeed, the general with whom he serves is just in his dealings and careful to ensure reward to merit that he of all men can alone estimate at its proper value. Sheridan was always both prompt and just in this direction. General Sherman mentions some interesting points in the following: 66 I saw Sheridan for the last time about Christmas of 1887, in Washington. He was then apparently hale and hearty- the last man, one would think, who would succumb to illness, even of such severity as that which finally carried him away. I refrained from visiting him at Nonquit because I thought the excitement attendant upon receiving a call from an old comrade and talking over old times might prove too much for his strength. I look with the greatest possible interest for the publication of his memoirs. While Sheridan was at no time that I knew him what might be called a student, yet he wrote admirably. I have many letters from him that are models for clearness and exactness of style. Because of this, I think his memoirs cannot fail to be interesting to an extreme degree. He always had such a fashion of going right to the point he was after and making it plain that I think he will carry the same characteristic into his literary work. With the publication the three leaders of the Federal armies will have had their say, and the historian of the future will, I think, find the story of the war truthfully set forth in them." The general wrote his autobiography during the past two years and a half, completing them in December, 1887. The manuscript was then revised and sent to the printers some time in the following May. This work was done in the library of the Washington residence. Its preparation was kept a close secret until his fatal sickness came on. General Sheridan was known by a great many persons in Washington. He was seen a good deal on the streets and in the suburbs driving with his wife and children, and everybody knew and talked about his enjoyment of his home life. While he was constantly sought as a guest, it was not easy to draw him away from his home. He felt a great deal of diffidence before a large audience, and was even so in small gatherings, unless he found that he was sure to escape lionizing. At a dinner of the Gridiron Club, when he sat down with the Washington newspaper men and their guests, he was not urged to speak, but he fell in with the unconventional spirit of the after-dinner exercises, and delighted everybody by relating, in a most charming manner, several stories of his own experience. The plan of permitting him to have his own way worked so well that he seized an opportunity, after he had spoken and others had followed him, to get up again and beg to be allowed to add another incident that he had recalled and regarded as too good to keep. He had the reputation of being reticent to the press, but it seems to have been given to him by writers who had not known him long enough to learn that he needed to be very sure of a man's discretion before becoming confidential with, or even communicative to him. President Cleveland had learned to know Sheridan well, and to have a strong admiration for him. The general was obliged, in the line of his official duty, to call occasionally at the Executive Mansion. Many have wondered at times who was the modest little man that came puffing into the ante-rooms, breathless with the effort of climbing two steep flights of stairs, took a back seat as if to wait, but who was speedily invited, before all the rest, to join the President in the library. Colonel Lamont noticed that the stair climbing was hard work for General Sheridan, and suggested to him once or twice that he could save himself a good deal of exertion by using the private elevators. Sheridan, however, made light of his shortness of breath, and attributed it to his growing weight and laziness. He was aware for some time that his health was not good, although he had seemed to be the picture of robust vigor up to the date of his prostration. When General Rosser, of Virginia, indiscreetly revived the story about the Shenandoah Valley fight, General Sheridan treated the letter humorously, and referred to the reports of the Valley Campaign as furnishing the only answer that he could give to what he spoke of as "a rather late resumption of the fight by General Rosser." Then he turned the conversation to other subjects, dwelling upon the pleasure he had enjoyed in his long rides through the Wind River country and the Yellowstone Park, and recalling some incidents of his trip through the park in 1883 with President Arthur. He admitted that he was never in such good health as when he was on the back of a good horse and in the open country. It was suggested that he appeared to be enjoying the most vigorous health. "Yes," he said; "everybody tells me the same thing. But, do you know, it's a mistake. I'm a miserable dyspeptic. I have to be ex tremely cautious about everything that I eat and drink, for I find that many things that I once enjoyed with absolute freedom now give me most painful distress-make me irritable and miserable and good for nothing." He spoke of his intention to make a radical change in his diet to see what the effect would be, but afterward laughingly admitted that he had never quite come to the point of making the change he had decided to be so important to his health. Colonel Herbert E. Hill, of Somerville, Massachusetts, who was with Sheridan in the Valley Campaign, and to whom the general sent interesting letters after the war relative to the rally and victory of Cedar Creek, contributes to the flood of reminiscence the following interesting incident: "As showing a little glimpse of Sheridan's kindly heart and the affectionate regard in which he held all who fought with him, let me tell a little anecdote. There now stands a memorial battery on Central Hill, Somerville, behind the identical breastwork which the revolutionary army threw up on the night before the battle of Bunker Hill. There are four guns in the battery, and they are the ones which were sent by General Grant to Fort Standish in Plymouth Harbor. When this fort was discontinued these were returned to the Ordnance Department at Washington. They were just the ones I wanted to bring to Somerville, but other parties were after them, and I was not sure of getting them. In this dilemma I was sitting in General Sheridan's office, chatting, and finally broached the matter of these guns. There is a great deal of etiquette among the different departments at Washington, and one does not like to interfere with another, as it mixes things all up. I knew this, and I knew that Sheridan had nothing to do with the Ordnance Department; but I ventured to suggest the matter to him. He thought of it, and then explained to me the difficulty he was in. He, the General of the Army, did not wish to break over any rule of etiquette between departments, as it would at once. create a dangerous precedent. I will do anything else for you,' said he, but I don't see how I can do this.' "General,' said I, twenty years ago this month I remember helping you capture forty-eight guns from the enemy on the field of battle, one day; now, am I not justified in time of peace to ask you to help me capture only four guns for memorial purposes?' 66 Instantly a change came over his face; recollections of the hot fight at Winchester and the men who were with him then came over him, and, turning around in his chair, he pulled out an order, and |