General Philip Henry Sheridan - Albany, NY
Posted by: 
sagefemme
N 42° 39.113 W 073° 45.366
18T E 601959 N 4722908
Union Major General Philip Henry Sheridan riding Rienzi, to be renamed Winchester after the Battle of Cedar Creek.
Waymark Code: WMGHBN
Location: New York, United States
Date Posted: 03/07/2013
Views: 20
Sheridan is purportedly born in Albany (1831) and was trained at the United States Military Academy at West Point. His military career included rise to the rank of Major General under Ulysses S. Grant during the American CIvil War, where he led the Cavalry Corps of the Army of the Potomac, pursued General Lee through the Shenandoah Valley, where he was among the first to deploy the "scorched earth" policy of economic destruction of territory held by the confederate forces, and his relentless pursuit of General Lee led to The confederate surrender at Appomattox. After the war, he prosecuted the Indian Wars, eventually rising to the position of general-in-chief of the army (1883) and General of the Army in 1888 by President Grover Cleveland.
Sheridan had only one mount from 1862 through the remainder of the Civil War. It was a black Morgan, named "Rienzi" when it was presented to him in Rienzi, Mississippi. This horse is the subject of the poem "Sheridan's Ride" by Thomas Buchanan Read, describing from Winchester to Cedar Creek, Virginia. After the Battle of Cedar Creek, General Sheridan changed the horse's name to Winchester. See Equestrian Statues waymark (
visit link) for a more detailed account of the horse!
Sheridan headed the Reconstruction government of Texas and Louisiana, but his approach was so severe that he was moved from that effort after six months. He is more fondly remembered for his work to create Yellowstone National Park (along with Theodore Roosevelt) and his work toward its preservation. He died of heart failure after several heart attacks in 1888, and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.