Sheridan's Ride sterling silver souvenir spoon

When General Ulysses S. Grant was appointed General in Chief of the Union Armies in March, 1864, he quickly reassigned General Philip Henry Sheridan to command the Union Cavalry. Sheridan then was ordered by Grant to assume leadership of the Shenandoah Valley Campaign, subordinating military forces already there to his own command. What followed was a series of stunning successes for the North that were reminiscent of the Stonewall Jackson's Valley campaign of 1862, but with the North-South roles reversed.

Part way through the campaign, Sheridan was required to visit Washington, D. C. for a short time. While on his return to the front, during an over-night stop in Winchester, VA, Sheridan was awakened by the sound of heavy artillery fire a few miles away. Though he did not know it until arriving on the scene late in the morning, Gen. Jubal Early's confederate forces (the same troops that had served under Jackson) were routing the Union armies.

Sheridan rallied his troops and saved the day for the North by mounting an audacious counter-attack. Within just a few weeks, he had thoroughly defeated the confederates and deprived them of their "bread basket". The flow of food and supplies from the Valley to Richmond and Petersburg, where Robert E. Lee was under siege by Grant, virtually stopped.

Thomas Buchanan Read wrote this poem celebrating Sheridan's dash from Winchester to the front and his superb generalship during the battle. Sheridan's horse, Rienzi, a large Morgan, also is a hero in the poem and even "talks" in the next to last stanza. The illustration is a print from a painting by Read several years after the event.

Some give major credit to this poem's effect on the electorate for the reelection of Abraham Lincoln in November, 1864.

Gen. Philip Sheridan sterling teaspoon by E. A. Whitney (manufactured by Gorham).

Sheridan's Ride
Thomas Buchanan Read, 1864

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.

Still sprung 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 battle-field calls;
Every nerve of the charger was strained to full play,
With Sheridan only ten miles away.

Used by permission of Aquarian
Gallery.

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 barque fed with furnace ire,
Swept on, with his wild eyes 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 nostril's 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!"

Hurrah! hurrah for Sheridan!
Hurrah! hurrah for horse and man!
And when their statues are placed on high,
Under the dome of the Union sky,
The American soldier's Temple of Fame;
There with the glorious general's name,
Be it said, in letters both bold and bright,
"Here is the steed that saved the day,
By carrying Sheridan into the fight,
From Winchester, twenty miles away!"