SHERIDAN'S RIDE

OTHING that has been written about Gen. Philip H.

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Sheridan has done so much to place him among the military heroes of the nation as the poem "Sheridan's Ride," by Thomas Buchanan Read. The ride from Winchester to Cedar Creek was made October 19, 1864, and the great feat of Sheridan in turning, as he did, a defeat into a victory for the Union side, electrified the North and had brought from President Lincoln a telegram of thanks to Sheridan. Six days after the battle of Cedar Creek October 25 there was opened in Cincinnati, Ohio, a sanitary relief fair. James E. Murdoch, one of the citizens interested in the success of the fair and a friend of Mr. Read, the poet, then visiting in the city, urged him to write an original poem for the opening ceremonies. He showed him newspaper accounts and pictures already appearing of Sheridan's ride, and suggested that the event was a good theme for a poem.

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Mr. Read at first demurred, remarking that rides" had been done to death. But Murdoch continued to urge him, expressing faith in his ability to turn out something worth while. Mr. Read retired to his room and in three hours and a half composed the poem as it finally appeared, with the exception of the third verse. Lacking this verse it was read by Mr. Read at the fair that night and created great enthusiasm. William Cullen Bryant, then a poet of world-wide fame, complimented Mr. Read, predicting that " Sheridan's Ride" would live as long as Sir Walter Scott's "Lochinvar."

SHERIDAN'S RIDE

BY THOMAS BUCHANAN READ

Up from the south at break of day,
Bringing to Winchester fresh dismay,
The affrighted air with a shudder bore,
Like a herald in haste to the chieftain's door,
The terrible grumble, and rumble, and roar,
Telling the battle was on once more,

And Sheridan twenty miles away.

And wider still those billows of war
Thundered along the horizon's bar;
And louder yet into Winchester rolled
The roar of that red sea uncontrolled;
Making the blood of the listener cold,
As he thought of the stake in that fiery fray
And Sheridan twenty miles away.

But there is a road from Winchester town,

A good broad highway leading down;

And there, through the flush of the morning light,

A steed as black as the steeds of night

Was seen to pass, as with eagle flight,

As if he knew the terrible need;

He stretched away with his utmost speed;
Hills rose and fell; but his heart was gay,
With Sheridan fifteen miles away.

Still sprang from those swift hoofs, thundering south
The dust, like smoke from the cannon's mouth,
Or the trail of a comet, sweeping faster and faster,
Foreboding to traitors the doom of disaster.

The heart of the steed and the heart of the master
Were beating like prisoners assaulting their walls,
Impatient to be where the battlefield calls;
Every nerve of the charger was strained to full play,
With Sheridan only ten miles away.

Under his spurning feet the road,

Like an arrowy Alpine river flowed,
And the landscape sped away behind

Like an ocean flying before the wind;

And the steed, like a bark fed with furnace ire,
Swept on, with his wild eye full of fire,

But lo he is nearing his heart's desire:

He is snuffing the smoke of the roaring fray,
With Sheridan only five miles away.

The first that the general saw were the groups

Of stragglers, and then the retreating troops;

What was done? What to do? A glance told him both. Then striking his spurs with a terrible oath,

He dashed down the line, 'mid a storm of huzzas,

And the wave of retreat checked its course there, because

The sight of the master compelled it to pause.

With foam and with dust the black charger was gray;

By the flash of his eye and the red nostrils' play

He seemed to the whole great army to say

"I have brought you Sheridan all the way From Winchester down, to save the day."