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Show Grant's Opinion of Sheridan . He Considered Him, as a Fighting Commander, an Extraordinary Combination of Great Dar-. Dar-. ing and Caution. John Russell Young, the dlstln-- dlstln-- gulshed Civil war and Franco-Russian war correspondent and newspaper editor, edi-tor, who accompanied General Grant In his tour of the world, was chatting with some friend3 at his hotel in ' Washington shortly after President ' McKinley.in 1897, had made him librarian libra-rian of the -new Congressional library, when some reference was made by one of the party to General Grant, and Especially to Grant's very high regard for General Sheridan, both as a soldier nd as a man. "Yes, I know," said Mr. Young, "In what high regard General Grant held Sheridan, for I often heard Grant Bay that he was sure that Sheridan had no superior, living or dead, as the com- ! mander of an army. "I remember, on one occasion, Grant met several Americans one evening after a reception, and In the course of conversation he was asked what . he thought Sheridan would have done bad he been in command at Gettysburg Gettys-burg instead of General Meade. General Gen-eral Grant replied practically in these words: " 'There should be very little or no criticism of the manner In which Meade fought the battle of Gettysburg. In a three days' battle there are always al-ways sure to be some mistakes. Whatever What-ever these may have been upon our eide, Meade speedily rectified them. " 'But you have asked me what Sheridan Sher-idan would have done had he been there. Sheridan, as a fighting general, was an extraordinary combination of great daring and great caution. His ludsit-" uts were intuitive. He believed v in very swift action and in taking great risks, if the chances were in his favor. He had no patience with those critics who spoke of a battle as a drawn battle. He was of the opinion that every battle was a victory to one side or the other, although the advantage advan-tage may have been slight. Now, his temperament, his understanding of warfare and his methods would, I believe, be-lieve, have persuaded Sheridan, had he been In command at Gettysburg, that there was only one thing to do after Lee began to retreat, and that was to follow Lee so swiftly that he would be unable to reform his lines. I have sometimes thought that if Sheridan Sher-idan had been there there wouldn't have been much of Lee's army left after Gettysburg was fought. However, How-ever, I do not say this in the way of any criticism of General Meade.' " 'If Sheridan had an army of not more than 20,000 men, every man in that army being a soldier trained under un-der Sheridan, as much like Sheridan , as It is possible for private soldiers to be like a commander to whom they are devoted, then I am certain that Sheridan, with such an army, could defeat any army in the world. I don't know how I can better express my opinion of General Sheridan as a soldier, sol-dier, so that I will say again, on army of 20,000 men, trained under Sheridan so tnat each man was as nearly like him as possible, and commanded by Sheridan, would, I am sure, be the match of any army In the world. He would have had an army of that kind had he been at Gettysburg. You remember re-member how, under him, and with a rather small army at his command, the Shenandoah valley was completely complete-ly cleared of Confederate soldiers and remained in our hands until the close of the war.' " (Copyright, 1'Hl, by F. J. Edwards. All Ritthta Reserved.) |
