CHAPTER IV.

AN UNEXPECTED PROMOTION.

HOW SHERIDAN WAS MADE A COLONEL — CAPTAIN ALGER'S RIDE AND ITS RESULTS- CORINTH AND PITTSBURG LANDING — GOVERNOR BLAIR'S HESITANCY THE APPOINTMENT -NOTIFIED OF HIS ADVANCEMENT SATISFIED WITH THE RANK OF COLONEL TAKES COMMAND OF HIS REGIMENT ITS IRST IMPRESSION OF HIM.

WHEN the Civil War had been going on for more than a year, Sheridan was still an issuer of rations with only the rank of captain. Had not General Grant been relieved of the command of his army after the battle of Shiloh, Sheridan might never have left the commissary department to lead men in battle. It is true that he fretted in the position he then held on General Halleck's staff. He had done the best he could to secure the command of some regiment from his native state, but he was then without fame or influence, and for each new regiment that was called out in Ohio there were a dozen aspirants for the colonelcy possessed of social and political influence. This was then a potent power as against a pure military training. Therefore Sheridan's weeks of application lengthened into months, and the months into a second year, before he found work for his military genius higher than that of looking after the rough provender which the government provided for its soldiers.

The 25th of May, 1862, came, and Halleck, an old lawyer general, full of cranks and prejudices, had virtually dug his way in six weeks all the way from the fateful field of Shiloh to within gunshot of the Confederate outposts at Corinth. Each succeeding mile, from the day when Halleck relieved Grant, a new line of earthworks was thrown up in this over-cautious advance. Graves of brave men dotted the hillsides and valleys, numbering in the aggregate more souls than would have been lost in an open combat with the Confederate army, which was only half the size of that which Halleck had gathered to build twenty miles of intrenchments in an approach on Corinth.

Just after the battle of Shiloh, Pope's army, which had been oper

ating on the Mississippi below Island Number Ten, was brought up to swell Halleck's forces. With it was the Second Michigan Cavalry, and like the other troops, this regiment fretted and grew half demoralized with the slow and uncertain policy which marked Halleck's operations after Grant's frightful wrestle with Johnston and Beauregard on the banks of the Tennessee. Its colonel, Gordon Granger, was made a brigadier-general about this time. He was a regular army officer, who had been promoted from a captaincy to the command of the regiment while it was stationed in St. Louis. His discipline was severe, but it made the regiment efficient beyond almost any other body of troopers then in the service.

His advancement left it in a condition to be very soon demoralized. During the few weeks which elapsed before a new colonel was found, the regiment drifted, under the command of a lieutenant-colonel, into that feeling of uncertainty which is harmful to any military body. As it lay one evening, in the latter part of May, within cannon-shot of the village of Corinth, its fate was dependent upon the choice of a strong hand and a new spirit to command it.

On one of those hazy, depressing summer days so common in the southern climate, Captain Russell A. Alger, of Company C, was acting field-officer of the day. He always took an active interest in the regiment's welfare. Often with the other officers had he discussed, without solution, the problem of finding a new colonel for a command, the record of which was then, and is, second to that of no regiment of horse in the army. Austin Blair was at that time governor of Michigan, and at the moment was visiting the army. He was to return home the very day when the accident occurred which gave him an opportunity to do a meritorious act, and endow with new force the cavalry regiment from his state, in which he took unusual interest.

Captain Alger had been on picket duty throughout the night of the 24th of May. Early on the morning of the 25th, he reported to General Gordon Granger upon some matters of detail, which it was his duty to do as acting field-officer of the day in front of an enemy. After the business of the moment was over, the condition of the Second Michigan Cavalry became the subject of discussion. General Granger, who still took an interest in its welfare, had been casting about for some regular army officer who would be his fit successor at the head of this splendid regiment. He had been over to Halleck's headquarters the day before Captain Alger's visit, and had met Sheridan. This morning, as he and Alger were talking, he said:

"I have found

a man who will make your regiment a good colonel."

"Who is it?"

asked Alger, earn

estly.

"Captain Phil Sheridan. He is now at Halleck's headquarters, acting as a commissary on his staff." A shade of inquiry crossed General Granger's countenance, as he said:

"He is just the man you want; but I doubt wheth

er Governor Blair

will commission

another regular officer to command a Michigan regiment. He thinks that we are too severe in our discipline, and that the troops do not like us."

Captain Alger replied that the regiment needed a commander of character and decision, and that he believed Blair would do any reasonable thing for the welfare of the troops from his state.

"Very well," replied General Granger, "I will give you a letter to him, asking Sheridan's appointment. He is now at Pittsburg Landing, and leaves for the North by the steamer at 2 o'clock."

It was now breakfast time. Governor Blair was more than twenty miles away, and there was no time to be lost. General Granger called an orderly, had Captain Alger's horse fed, and insisted on his taking his morning meal with him. During breakfast the subject of Captain Sheridan's appointment was earnestly discussed. Before they had finished the meal Lieutenant Frank E. Walbridge, Quartermaster of the Second Michigan Cavalry, rode up. Captain Alger asked permission to take him with him for his interview with Governor Blair.

General Granger assented, and the two officers prepared for the journey. It was almost half-past nine in the morning when, armed with an earnest request for Sheridan's appointment, they left the front of the Federal lines and rode toward Pittsburg Landing. Captain Alger, who afterwards became a brigadier-general, has frequently spoken of the anxieties of that ride, when he must have recalled something like the lines:

"Ho, pony! down the lonely road,

Strike now your cheeriest pace;
Camp-fires cannot burn brighter
Than burns my anxious face."

As each mile was passed, the hour for the governor's departure drew nearer and nearer. It was only thirty-five minutes before 2 o'clock when Alger and his companion reached the landing. In less than half an hour of the leaving time of the boat, General Granger's letter was placed in Governor Blair's hands.

As General Granger had foreseen, the governor hesitated. He disliked the severity of regular army officers, and thought their influence over volunteers was harmful, rather than effective. The condition of the regiment was described by Captain Alger in a few words, and both he and Lieutenant Walbridge strongly urged the force of General Granger's recommendation. The governor, impressed with their earnestness, yielded to their arguments, and just a few moments before the boat which was to convey him to Michigan started, he turned to General John Robertson, his adjutant-general, and said :

"Write an order appointing Captain Sheridan colonel of the Second Michigan Cavalry, to take command at once."

Only a few moments were left for the adjutant-general to act. He took a half sheet of note paper, and hurriedly wrote these words:

PITTSBURG LANDING, May 25, 1862. Captain Philip H. Sheridan is hereby appointed colonel of the Second Michigan Cavalry. He is directed to take command at once. AUSTIN BLAIR, Governor.

This was handed to Captain Alger; the boat pushed out into the Tennessee, and a great soldier had been started on his way to fame.

Captain Alger and Lieutenant Walbridge fed themselves and their horses, and as the gathering shadows of night drew over the battle-field of Shiloh, they started for an all night's ride toward the front. It was near daylight when they arrived. The exertion killed Alger's horse. Mounting another, he rode to General Granger's headquarters and

announced to that officer that he had Captain Sheridan's appointment in his pocket.

General Granger directed him to carry it to Sheridan, who was some two miles distant at Halleck's headquarters. Alger obeyed, and a half hour later met for the first time his new colonel and the future general. He presented him with his appointment, and Phil Sheridan was that morning the happiest man in the whole of Halleck's army. The colonelcy which Ohio did not give her own son, Michigan had provided. The officers of the staff were at once summoned to celebrate the occasion. As the officers drank their bumpers in his tent to his good luck, there was an interesting scene. One brother officer of the staff, more enthusiastic than the rest, pledged the new colonel's health with the toast:

"Here's hoping that this is a long step towards a brigadier's star." How little men know of themselves! Sheridan, flushed with the joy of the occasion, replied:

"No, gentlemen; I thank you for your good wishes, but I want no higher honor. I am now a colonel of cavalry, and have all the rank I want or expect."

The news of his appointment spread rapidly through the regiment, and every one wondered what manner of man the new colonel was. They very soon found out. The next day he came over and took command, and was introduced to a regiment, the officers and men of which he had never seen before. He appeared at dress parade, and his appearance by no means revealed his ability. He was then very slight in figure, with little, short legs that hardly reached over his horse's sides, and quite broad shoulders. He was so small that he could scarcely be seen from one end of the regiment to the other. The first impression he made was not very satisfactory to either officers or men. Two days later he started off on a raid to Booneville, Mississippi, and proved his quality. The regiment at once took new life under his direction. Both officers and men felt perfect confidence in him, and in less than four days after his appointment the soldiers named him "Little Phil.” They always afterwards felt an unbounded pride in their commander. He was made a brigadier-general before he had received his commission as colonel; in fact, he was not commissioned as colonel of the Second Michigan Cavalry until after the war. While he was in command at New Orleans, the commission was issued to him by the gov ernor as a matter of sentiment. At a much later period, to make his army record complete, he was mustered in as the colonel of his old regiment.