Chapter II

hen we consider the tactical and strategic use of the cavalry on each side, we find that we are dealing with five distinct realms of ideas, each of which must be examined in some detail. The expression "realms of ideas", implying as it does a degree of conscious planning, is not too strong to fit the facts in four of our five categories. These four are the Confederate cavalry in the East under Stuart, the Confederate cavalry in the West under Morgan, Forrest and Wheeler, the Union cavalry in the East under Sheridan, and the Union cavalry in the West under Wilson. The fifth category, the Union cavalry prior to the advent of Sheridan and Wilson, is merely an example of futility and waste.
 

Gen. J. E. B. Stuart

We have mentioned the well-attested fact that the Confederate cavalry in Virginia was from the start an elite organization. Made up of excellent material, it needed only active service to harden the men, (1) and the development of good leadership, to realize its full potential. It received both. J.E.B. Stuart, who had served as a lieutenant in the pre-war cavalry, distinguished himself at the Battle of Bull Run as Colonel of the First Virginia. He became a Brigadier-General at the age of 29, and after the Battle of Seven Pines, was given command of the cavalry of Lee's army. It is important to realize that all of Lee's cavalry came under the command of one man, in one full sense of the word "command", and not merely for administrative purposes. Stuart acted on the assumption that the entire body of cavalry was to serve as a unified whole under his direct leadership, as, in fact, an independent cavalry corps. This principle, in which Lee acquiesced, remained in force throughout the successive expansions of Stuart's command into a division in July, 1862, and a corps in August, 1863. Stuart refused to allow the "frittering away of the command into little detachments, on any of which the enemy could concentrate." (2) This use of the cavalry as a unit, and the cohesion and efficiency that grew from long association, contributed greatly to Confederate success. Until the Federals learned the value of concentration – and it took until 1863 for the lesson to sink in – their cavalry almost always fought with the advantage of numbers heavily in favor of the Confederates. Concentration was not the only reason for the Confederate success. There was also Stuart's own great ability, and the talents of several of his subordinates, notably, Wade Hampton and Fitzhugh Lee. Stuart himself was a brilliant leader of cavalry, but his methods were almost completely orthodox. Tactically, he added nothing to the doctrine he learned at West Point. He favored the mounted charge with pistol and sabre, and used it whenever circumstances and the nature of the ground permitted; (3) his favorite formation for the charge was a brigade in column of squadrons, a tremendously powerful disposition, because it brought to bear a solid block of horsemen two hundred yards across the front and a half-mile deep. (4) However, he fought dismounted; when he had to, (5) or combined the fire of dismounted skirmishers in front or on the flanks with the mounted charge; and in all cases, he used his horse artillery, invariably well led and well served. to prepare the way for the charge. The raids which made him famous: the ride around McClellan in June, 1862, the Chambersburg raid in October, 1862, were tactically meaningless adventures, of very little value except for their effect on morale. Stuart became a shining legend in his own lifetime, but to a student of tactics, he is only the last brilliant representative of an age that had died long before he rode gaily to war, singing, "If you want to have a good time, join the cavalry." (6)

Lt. Gen. Joseph Wheeler

Across the Alleghenies, we enter a much more prosaic world, dominated by three men: Morgan, Forrest and Wheeler. Joseph Wheeler we can dismiss with a respectful salute to an able but uninspired cavalryman. The only one of the trio who was willing to work in harness, he was beset on one side by Braxton Bragg, a most difficult superior, and on the other, by as unruly a pair of subordinates as any commander ever had, namely Morgan and Forrest. Nevertheless. he did well within the framework of his own conception of the functions of cavalry, which was much more orthodox than the ideas of Morgan and Forrest. It must also be noted to Wheeler's credit that, in an effort to introduce some degree of uniformity into his command, he found time in the midst of his campaigns to write a manual of cavalry tactics; profiting from the experience of the first two years of the war, he advocated mounted infantry as the ideal "cavalry"; "...of great value in covering the retreat of an army, or in obstructing the advance of the enemy; and in broken and wooded countries...the mounted rifleman becomes indispensable to an army." (7)

John Hunt Morgan is one of the most enigmatic figures of the Civil War. Since our task lies in the special field of tactics, we must confine our attention to Morgan's notable contribution in this area, leaving the larger issues to his biographers.

 

Gen. John Hunt Morgan

Morgan came into the cavalry from civilian life, and it is therefore natural that his methods of organizing and using his troops did not follow the lines set down in the textbooks. The tactics he evolved had the twin virtues of simplicity and effectiveness. Morgan's fighting was almost always done in broken, hilly, heavily-wooded country, where cavalry charges in an extended line, a succession of lines, or in mass,. would have been impossible, even if the state of training of his men and horses had permitted such a maneuver. Also. it was basic doctrine that, to function successfully, cavalry needed the support of infantry, whereas Morgan's battles were almost without exception fought miles from any supporting infantry. He had to be his own infantry, just as he had to be his own artillery and cavalry. The logical and necessary conclusion these paths led to was the use of his troops not as cavalry but as mounted infantry. This was not a new departure. It was a revival, on a much larger scale and with better weapons, of the idea of the Kentucky Mounted Rifleman of the War of 1812, and an extension of the tactical doctrine of the Regiment of Mounted Riflemen (8) of the Regular Army. Morgan applied this idea with considerable consistency; except, on scouting expeditions, almost all his fighting was done on foot. His men did not use or even carry sabres, and for firearms used the medium Enfield, an infantry weapon, in preference to cavalry carbines. With minor variations, such as the practice of keeping a small group of mounted men in reserve to act on the flanks, cover a retreat, or press a victory, and the habit of delivering his attacks on the double or at a half-run, Morgan's tactics were essentially those of infantry. The difference is that his men rode to work. and were thus able to cover more ground and to do it faster. (9)

Morgan's second contribution was the long-range raid. The nuisance raid, to burn a bridge or to snap up a wagon train, a traditional cavalry function, was of course a routine Confederate cavalry operation from the start. Such expeditions, made in company or battalion strength and, as like as not, with the men wearing Union uniforms or overcoats, (10) were at first aimed at specific objectives in the neighborhood of the armies. (11) Morgan expanded this operation into a foray in force deep into enemy territory, with his mounted riflemen acting as a self-contained, independent, mobile army. The first such raid, in July, 1862, started from Knoxville and carried Morgan and his force of 867 officers and men to Cynthiana, for a round trip of 1,000 miles in 24 days. He remounted his entire command on blooded Kentucky horses, (12) armed all his men with good Federal equipment, (13) captured and paroled 1,200 Union troops, thoroughly demoralized the Federal forces and especially their commanders, destroyed Federal stores worth several millions of dollars, and revealed the weakness of Federal defenses in Kentucky, thus paving the way for Bragg's invasion of the state in the autumn. (14) In spite of its success, this raid in its inception had no strategic objective, but some of Morgan's later raids had definite and valid strategic goals; thus, the Christmas raid of 1862, lasting fourteen days and covering a distance of 500 miles, had as its objective the destruction of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad behind Rosecrans, in order to delay the latter's advance toward Murfreesboro by smashing his supply line. Morgan succeeded in severely damaging the railroad; (15) nonetheless, Rosecrans continued his advance, and fought and won the Battle of Murfreesboro, the outcome which might well have been different had Morgan's two thousand cavalry and Forrest's three thousand been present on the battlefield.(16)

It is very much open to question whether these far-flung raids, aimed at the Federal supply lines, were worth while. Sometimes they delayed or slowed down a Federal advance, and of course they were attended with a tremendous destruction on of Unison supplies. The mere threat of these raids served to prevent the maximum concentration of Union troops at the front by forcing the detachment of tens of thousands of men to guard strategic or vulnerable points, (17) to repair damage, and to chase the elusive raiders. The unbroken success of the raids and the sense of insecurity they created along the whole length of the lines of communication, had a notably depressing effect on Union army morale. And yet there was only one raid, or rather the twin raids of Forrest and of Van Dorn, which virtually destroyed the Mobile & Ohio between Jackson, Tenn., and Columbus, Ky., and captured and smashed the principal supply base of Grant's army at Holly Springs, that actually succeeded in stopping a Federal advance. (18) No raid ever forced a major Union army to give up a position. After 1863, Grant having shown in his Vicksburg campaign that an entire army could strike off into the blue, Federal commanders accepted cavalry raids on their lines of communication as just another calculable risk, or, like Sherman, ignored them altogether.(19) It is therefore doubtful on balance, these hit-and-run raids were ever worth the price the Confederates paid for them in dispersion of effort and in the absence, at critical times, of large bodies of cavalry from their proper place with the armies. (20) Perhaps the raids were an inevitable strategic device in the face of the overwhelming material and numerica1 superiority of the North, and a logical corollary of the essentially defensive strategy of the South, but in the long run, mere raids could not affect the outcome of the war. One is left with the distinct impression that in time, raids came to be made because they were spectacular, and not for the sake of any planned strategic purpose. (21) For example, it is difficult to imagine an operation, carried out, by the way, in direct violation of orders, (22) more vicious from a military point of view, than Morgan's which accomplished nothing, other than the virtual destruction of Morgan's command. Hence we are compelled to share the opinion of General Jacob Cox, that "the game was not worth the candle", (23) notwithstanding the high value placed upon the raids by a Civil War student of the stature of Colonel G. F. R. Henderson. (24)

Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest

You have doubtless noticed that in our discussion of Confederate cavalry operations in the West, references to Morgan have been more frequent than the references to Nathan Bedford Forrest. This apparent slighting of Forrest is not intended as a disparagement of one of the finest fighting men America has ever produced. Morgan and Forrest used very similar tactics, and their approach to their common military problem was practically identical. Yet Morgan must be awarded the priority in time for the introduction of the mounted rifleman concept and of the long-range cavalry raid, even if the mind behind these developments was that of his lieutenant, Basil Duke. Forrest's truly brilliant application of essentially the same tactics was an instinctive thing, and not a studied solution of the problem. Unquestionably, Forrest far surpassed Morgan and everyone else in the successful use of mounted infantry tactics. There is a brilliance about Forrest's operations, his disregard of odds, the use of surprise, single and double envelopments, the way in which he kept a firm grip on the development of his battles, his ability to use all arms in combination, the ruthless energy with which he pressed home an advantage, that mark him out as one of the greatest generals of the Civil War; he can therefore afford to yield to the rather tragic John Morgan the credit which we have awarded to him.

We must now return to Virginia, and enter upon a study of muddle and futility. From the beginning of the war until the spring of 1863, and in some essential respects until the spring of 1864, the Union horsemen in this theatre were hag-ridden by a set of tactical concepts that would have ruined the best cavalry in the world. To begin with, every commander of the Army of the Potomac before Hooker followed the practice of assigning a regiment of cavalry to each of his divisions of infantry. (25) One company or squadron was then selected as the escort of the divisional commander, and as his dispatch-riders and orderlies. (26) The rest of the regiment furnished details in company or squadron strength to guard the divisional wagon train and artillery, to act as advance scouts and flank guards for the division on the march, and as patrols behind it. (27) Hence, as we have seen, in any collision with the Rebel horse, the latter could almost always count on having the advantage of numbers. (28) There are only a very few instances before 1863, of the use of Union cavalry in larger groups, one being the employment of a temporary brigade of three regiments of cavalry and four batteries of artillery under the command of General Stoneman, to lead McClellan's advance up the Peninsula in 1862. (29)

When scouting for, or the screening of, the entire army was called for, the task was ordinarily assigned to a single regiment, but since it was usually impossible to assemble all the scattered bits and pieces of the regiment on short notice, it was common practice to place under command an odd battalion or two, snatched from other regiments. (30) The handicap of working with strange troops and under strange leadership was thereby added to the already excessive burdens of the poor troopers.

When the infantry was resting quietly in winter quarters, the real agony of the Union horse began; immediately a chain of cavalry videttes was thrown around the entire army. (31) We have already noted the crippling effects of this duty. It remains only to add that while this more than normally severe service during periods that should have been devoted to recuperation and training, was sapping the strength of the Federal cavalry, (32) the Confederate cavalry lay quietly and sensibly in camp, only a few frequently-relieved squadrons or regiments guarding a minimum number of strategically vital points in the immediate neighborhood of the army. Hence, when the campaigning season began, the well-rested Confederates were ready for service, whereas the Federals were well-nigh unable to function. When General J. H. Wilson assumed command of the 3rd Cavalry Division early in the spring of 1864, a year after Hooker's reforms had been instituted, the seven regiments of his two brigades had a theoretical strength of 7,500, but there were present for duty only 3,436, of whom 2,692, an unusually high proportion, were mounted, but 378 of these had horses which had been condemned as unserviceable. The greater part of the division was on picket duty, covering an unbroken line 28 miles long, and when Wilson had the division turned out for drill on the day after taking command, only 615 men responded. (34)

During these years of frustration, each army and department had its Chief of Cavalry, but the title was an honorific, and the existence of the position did not imply that there were cavalry officers with the vision to realize that cavalry could be used to better advantage, and with the authority to act upon their ideas. The Chiefs of Cavalry were nothing more than ornamental staff officers, with some degree of administrative responsibility for the troops they in theory led in combat. They were usually selected for their cavalry experience in the pre-war army, and were then left to define their own duties. The majority were cavalrymen with orthodox ideas on the uses of cavalry, no combat experience except with small units, (35) and they worked under army commanders whose ideas on the proper functions of cavalry were as limited as their own. They therefore followed the one tactical rule that has never changed since armies and rank first came into being; they did no more than was expected of them – they played it safe.

Gen. Joseph Hooker

The first change for the better came when Joseph Hooker was given command of the beaten and demoralized Army of the Potomac in January, 1863. As part of the general reorganization of the army, the cavalry was consolidated into one corps under General George Stoneman, all of the cavalry regiments being grouped into four divisions under Pleasonton, Averell, Gregg and Buford. (36) By administrative changes, the weeding out of incompetent officers, the establishment of schools of instruction, by steps deliberately taken to foster morale, (38) by admonishment and exhortation, (39) Hooker - or Daniel Butterfield, his very able Chief of Staff – sought to raise the efficiency and tone of the cavalry service. As soon as the state of the ground and the rivers permitted, expeditions in brigade strength were sent against Confederate advanced posts, to accustom the men and officers to working in large groups and to create a feeling of confidence by letting them win a series of minor successes. All this was done without the benefit of motivation research, but it worked wonders. This was the start of a new era for the Union cavalry. It began to prove itself, and in a succession of engagements, Kelly's Ford, Brandy Station, Buford's fight on the first day at Gettysburg and Gregg's on the third day, it gave as good as it got. There were failures still, failures of leadership for the most part. There was Averell's somewhat excusable failure of nerve at Kelly's Ford, and the double fiasco of Stoneman's raid, (40) but no longer did the Confederates automatically have "the bulge" on the Federals. (41) There was a new spirit in the air, and both the Confederate and the Union cavalry knew it.

Kelly's Ford was a minor engagement, Averell's brigade of 3,000 against Fitzhugh Lee's badly depleted brigade of 800, but it was the first large-scale fight for the Federals, the first time so large a force of Union cavalry had been concentrated in one command, and the first time the Federals went looking for a fight with no infantry to fall back on. Kelly's Ford was, in fact, the first battle between Confederate and Union cavalry. Averell's leadership was weak and unduly cautious, and some of his troops behaved badly, (42) but the Federals executed at least one well-delivered charge, (43) and at the end of the fight, recrossed the Rappahannock without molestation and without disgrace. The field of battle being quite open, the Confederates fought entirely on horseback; (44) the Federals combined mounted charges with the carbine fire of dismounted regiments.

Gen. Alfred Pleasonton

Brandy Station, or Fleetwood Heights, fought on June 9, 1863, was a rather chaotic affair, mismanaged by both commanders. Stuart, with nearly ten thousand cavalry, (45) allowed himself to be surprised by the determined advance across the Rappahannock of 8,000 Federal cavalry and two small infantry brigades under Alfred Pleasonton, who had replaced Stoneman in command of the cavalry of the Army of the Potomac. Pleasonton's attack took the form of a wide envelopment. His forces, divided almost equally, crossed the river by two fords about four miles apart. Stuart recovered quickly, and his reaction took full advantage of his central position; on the other hand, the direction of ten thousand men in two widely separated wings was beyond Pleasonton's limited capacity. The result was an uncoordinated fight and a drawn battle. Except for the initial advance of Buford's brigade

Battle Map of Brandy Station, Va. (click to enlarge)

 of Regulars, the fighting was entirely on horseback, brigades and regiments charging and countercharging in the dust and powder-smoke. Although this was the greatest cavalry battle of the war, (46) its military results were nil; the fight did not even delay the execution of Lee's plans for the invasion of Pennsylvania. Nevertheless, Brandy Station marks an important change in the relative positions of the Northern and Southern horse. For the first time, the North held its own in a purely cavalry battle, with the numbers almost equal. The North not only provoked the battle, but it fought the hitherto invincible Stuart to a draw. And the battle had a vitally important, although unintended aftermath. Newspaper comment (47) on the battle stung Stuart to the quick, and the explanation for his absence from Lee's army in the Gettysburg campaign is, in my opinion, to be sought in his desire to show up his critics by the performance of a spectacular feat of arms.

Stuart met the Federal cavalry again on July 3, northeast of Gettysburg. In this fight, his objective was to reach the rear of the Federal infantry on Cemetery Hill. Again he was fought to a standstill, this time by Gregg's cavalry division, and was prevented from accomplishing his mission. However, the most important contribution of the Union cavalry at Gettysburg was made on the first day, by two brigades of Buford's (48) First Cavalry Division. Fighting dismounted and without support, depending on the fire power of their carbines, Buford's regulars held off the attacks of four strong brigades of Heth's division of infantry, backed by some of the best artillery of Lee's army under Pegram, for the two hours needed by Reynolds' I Corps to reach the field. This too was a novel accomplishment for the erstwhile pariahs of the Union army: the ability to stand up to the attacks of good Confederate infantry.

When Meade replaced Hooker, he retained the existing cavalry organization with Pleasonton in command, but when the Mine Run campaign ended operations for the year and winter camps were set up, he gave the cavalry its old assignment of establishing a picket line almost completely encircling the army. (49) Kilpatrick's Richmond raid at the end of February, 1864, was the only event of importance of the winter, and that only because it led to the sensational incident of the "Dahlgren Papers." (50)

In March, 1864, Grant was given command of all the Union armies. In one of his first interviews with the President after his appointment, Grant expressed his "dissatisfaction with the little that had been accomplished by the cavalry so far in the war, and the belief that it was capable of accomplishing much more...if under a thorough leader." (51) Halleck suggested that Sheridan be given command of the cavalry of the Army of the Potomac, a remarkable, and rather unexpected, piece of insight on his part; (52) his suggestion was immediately accepted. Sheridan's appointment to this post marks a turning point not merely in the history of the Union cavalry, but also of the Civil War and, indeed, in the history of tactics as well; for Sheridan's innovations not only revolutionized the accepted concepts of the proper employment of cavalry, but established a new tactical pattern which, by a process of logical and conscious growth, led eventually to the tank tactics of Guderian, Rommel and Patton.

Gen. Phillip Henry Sheridan

We cite Sheridan as the author of these changes. Actually, great as he was (53) – and we use the word advisedly - he deserves only the credit of being the first to use, and to use with consummate skill, ideas which came from the brain of one of the ablest soldiers this country has ever produced, General James H. Wilson. We here state a conclusion based on probability, for there is no single document, or series of documents, to provide direct evidence of authorship. In any case, such ideas are "in the air", as it were, for months or years before someone comes along with a synthesis in which this inchoate and incomplete material is organized into a logical, coherent, and perhaps even obvious whole. So it was in this case. Sheridan himself contributed a great deal. So did the Confederates. So did John Buford before he died in the winter of 1863. So did many others; and some portions of the whole went back to the War of 1812 and to European practice before that. But the man who "saw it whole" was James Wilson.

Maj.Gen. James Harrison Wilson

Wilson graduated from West Point in the Class of 1860. Upon graduation, he was assigned to duty with the Engineers in Oregon, where he spent his leisure time in professional studies. His reading gave him several noteworthy ideas, one of them being the establishment in each division of a special reconnaissance battalion to obtain and digest combat intelligence. (54) This was a revolutionary idea for the times; when McClellan became Commanding General of the Union armies a year later, the best he could do was to use Pinkerton detectives for that purpose - and a very poor alternative it turned out to be.

When war broke out, Wilson was ordered East, and after a brief tour of duty building fortifications, became a member of Grant's staff. There, his principal assignments were intelligence and what we would now call Combat Engineering, but in that non-specialized age, Wilson was permitted and even encouraged to interpret his duties very broadly. His fertile mind and his ability to present his ideas in a logical, forceful way, gave him in a few months an influence over Grant second only to that of the Chief of Staff, John Rawlins. As testimony to his abilities, we have not only Grant's reliance upon his judgment, but the high praise given him by Assistant Secretary of War Dana in a secret report to Secretary Stanton that Wilson had "...remarkable talents and uncommon executive powers, and will be heard from hereafter." (55) That Wilson possessed military judgment of the highest order is borne out by the fact that the final, successful campaign against Vicksburg was, in the main, his conception. (56)

Through the combined influence of Grant and Dana, Wilson was promoted to Brigadier-General - three years after graduation from West Point – and placed in charge of the Cavalry Bureau in the summer of 1863, with the understanding that after a short tour of duty in that position, he was to be given a field command with the cavalry. It is quite likely that he solicited these appointments. Doubtless ambition and a desire to distinguish himself were a part of Wilson's motivation, but his personality and his whole course of conduct then and later, indicate strongly that his basic motive was something much more objective. He tells us that he "...had already reached certain conclusions, not only from the study of military history, but from observation in the field, as to the proper function of cavalry and the necessity of handling it in masses against the enemy's front, flanks and communications..." (57) With complete self-assurance, he knew that his theories were sound, and he therefore saw to it that he was given the opportunity to put them into practice. We have previously mentioned that his first step was the adoption of the Spencer carbine as the standard cavalry firearm. However, when he took over as commander of the 3rd Cavalry Division of the Army of the Potomac, he was much too junior to be able fully to exploit his ideas. For that, he needed a sympathetic commanding officer with adequate rank. Wilson remained in constant touch with Grant through Rawlins even after he left Grant's staff, and the conclusion seems inescapable that it was from Wilson in Washington and in no other way that Grant obtained the information about the state of the cavalry and of the cavalry command of the Army of the Potomac which led to Grant's comments, already quoted, on that subject to President Lincoln. It appears equally evident that Grant's request that a new Chief of Cavalry be appointed for the Army of the Potomac is directly traceable to Wilson's influence and perhaps pressure. (58) Thus, Wilson was at least indirectly responsible for Sheridan's appointment In Sheridan, Wilson obtained a superior who, to a great extent, shared his ideas, whether or not he had ever formulated them as explicitly as Wilson had done. Sheridan also had the force of character to stand up for his convictions, whatever their source may have been, against Meade, and when necessary, against Grant himself, and he had sufficient rank and prestige to give his opinions a great deal of added force. And he had ample military skill to make these ideas work spectacularly well in practice.

There was an incident in Sheridan's earlier career that was certain to predispose him in favor of Wilson's ideas. This was the action at Booneville, Miss., on July 1, 1862. Sheridan, still a colonel of cavalry at the time, was at Booneville with two cavalry regiments totaling 827 officers and men. He was attacked by a Confederate cavalry division of between five and six thousand, under General James Chalmers. Sheridan had the advantage of an excellent position, and most of his men had Colt's revolvers and Colt's revolving rifles. Dismounting his force, Sheridan accepted battle, with the numerical odds heavily against him. The fight lasted from early morning until late afternoon, with Sheridan repelling one Confederate attack after another. Then, with an all-out frontal attack of his own, coordinated with a noisy mounted diversion by 90 of his men in the Confederate rear, he not merely defeated, but actually routed, the enemy. (59) Two points in this minor affray are notable; first that, except for the diversionary attack at the end, Sheridan fought dismounted, and second, that Chalmers was persuaded by the volume of fire facing him, that he was fighting an infantry division. (60) Sheridan was not the man for abstract reasoning, but, he had a sure eye for anything that worked. One would not expect him to construct a system of tactics on the basis of his Booneville fight, but he was just the man to adopt without reservations and to exploit with outstanding success tactical ideas propounded by Wilson that meshed so well with his own experience.

After taking up his new post and reviewing his command, Sheridan, never one to mince words to hide his light under a bushel, had an interview with Meade, which he reported in the following words:

"I...gave him my idea as to what the cavalry should do, the main purport of which was that it, ought to be kept concentrated to fight the enemy's cavalry...my proposition seemed to stagger General Meade not a little. I knew that it would be difficult to overcome the recognized custom of using the cavalry for the protection of trains and the establishment of cordons around the infantry corps, and so far subordinating its operations to the movements of the main army that, in name only was it a corps at all...At first General Meade would hardly listen to my pro-position...(he) wanted to know what would protect the transportation trains and artillery reserve, cover the front of moving infantry columns, and secure his flanks from intrusions if my policy were pursued. I told him that if he would let me use the cavalry as I contemplated... I could make it so lively for the enemy's cavalry that, so far as attacks from it were concerned, the flanks and rear of the Army of the Potomac would require little or no defense, and claimed, further, that moving columns of infantry should take care of their own fronts..." (61)

There was much more discussion along the same lines. Meade was not at all convinced, but he knew that Sheridan had the backing of Grant and of the government. He therefore yielded to the extent of relieving the cavalry of the greater part of the picket duty it was then performing, thus giving Sheridan two weeks in which to get his horses up to par and his command into some sort of shape before the start of Grant's Wilderness Campaign. When the campaign began in the early hours of May 4, 1864, Sheridan had under his command a Cavalry Corps of three divisions, totaling 12,424 officers and men "present for duty equipped".(62)

In the discussions with Meade, the question of the exercise of command remained unsettled. Meade's idea of the function of the Chief of Cavalry was that the latter should be primarily a staff officer, through whom, or even around whom, Meade would issue such detailed orders as in his opinion, the occasion required. This was quite contrary to Sheridan's conception of his responsibilities, especially because of his awareness of the fundamental disagreement between Meade and himself on the question of how the cavalry was to operate. After Spottsylvania, the question of command was brought into the open through a typical Sheridan outburst, which must be quoted in his own words as an example for you to follow in dealing with superior rank:

"...I told (Meade) that he had broken up my combinations, exposed Wilson's division to disaster, and had kept Gregg unnecessarily idle, and...that such disjointed operations as he had been requiring of the cavalry...would render the corps inefficient and useless before long. Meade was very much irritated and I was none the less so. One word brought on another until, finally, I told him that I could whip Stuart if he (Meade) would only let me, but since he insisted on giving the cavalry directions without consulting or even notifying me, he could henceforth command the Cavalry Corps himself - that I would not give it another order." (63)

Grant settled the argument without really settling the problem; in effect, he gave Sheridan a semi-independent command. Sheridan was ordered to cut loose from the Army of the Potomac, and to proceed against the Confederate cavalry. (64) Lest there be any misunderstanding about his intentions and wishes, Sheridan thereupon announced to his division commanders that "We are going out to fight Stuart's cavalry in consequence of a suggestion from me...and in view of my recent representations to General Meade, I shall expect nothing but success." (65) The means he chose to accomplish this objective was a raid deep behind Lee's army, and aimed ostensibly at Richmond. (66) He thus forced Stuart to come after him, and so managed the affair that when the two cavalry corps met at Yellow Tavern on May 11, the Federals were concentrated, rested and fit, and the Confederates divided and exhausted by the effort of catching up with the Federals, to interpose between them and Richmond. (67) After facing the revitalized Union cavalry for a week in the Wilderness, Stuart knew that he had a hard fight ahead of him, (68) but having lost the initiative to Sheridan, he had to accept battle on the latter's terms. Stuart was attacked by the dismounted troopers of two of Sheridan's divisions and was driven from the field by a smashing mounted charge of Custer's brigade of Michigan cavalry. Stuart himself was mortally wounded by one of Custer's men, and when he died a day later, the legend of the "invincible Southern cavaliers" died with him. (69)

For the next three months, Sheridan's corps was constantly on the go, sometimes leading Grant's advance, more often operating independently of the main army in raids against Lee's communications. As engagements succeeded each other, Sheridan's tactics showed an increasing assurance. More and

Battle Map of Trevilian Station, Va. (click to enlarge)

 more, as he observed the effect of his great preponderance in fire power over that of the enemy, he tended to fight dismounted, (70) holding in reserve one brigade, ordinarily Custer's, led by that flamboyant 24 year old Brigadier-General with flowing hair, wide-brimmed hat, Navy shirt and velvet jacket, for the mounted charge that was usually decisive. The outnumbered and outgunned Confederate cavalry performed wonders, and Hampton, (71) Fitzhugh Lee and Rosser led their men with all of Stuart's gallantry and much of his skill. As Wilson learned on his raid to break up the Danville and Southside Railroads below Petersburg, and as Sheridan himself found out at Trevilian's Station, (72) the Confederates, even without Stuart, and in spite of the increasingly preponderant material advantage enjoyed by the North, were far from being a force to he trifled with. It was not until 1864 was drawing to a close, and the cumulative effect of six months of almost continuous fighting was making itself felt, that the Confederate cavalry lost much of its fighting power.

Sheridan thus made good on his promise to Meade and Grant. In the process, his tactics developed to the point where the cavalry became the "mechanized striking force" of the Union army. He is open to the criticism that many of his operations were tangential, and he was prone to operate with one or two of his divisions instead of using all three. Tactically, however, he had a sure grasp, employing a combination of infantry tactics, fire power and mounted tactics with equal skill to fight the enemy cavalry or infantry on better than even terms. The horses supplied the element of mobility only, and pure shock tactics became a thing of the past.

At the beginning of August, 1864, Sheridan was given command of all the Union troops in the Shenandoah Valley, to meet the threat to Washington posed by the Confederate army under Jubal Early. Sheridan was shortly followed to the Valley by two of his cavalry divisions. It is significant that the Valley command was given to an officer who was now identified with the cavalry, and it is a striking feature of Sheridan's operations in this theatre that when he completed the organization of his Army of the Shenandoah, it had a cavalry-to-infantry ratio of one to four, the highest proportion of cavalry of any army in the Civil War. This was a far cry indeed from the days when one cavalry regiment to ten regiments of infantry was considered quite adequate. Moreover, Sheridan kept the cavalry in the forefront of the fighting throughout the campaign; it played a major role in the three full-dress battles he fought, and had twenty-six other engagements of its own in a period of less than two and a half months, losing over 3,700 killed, wounded and prisoners in the process. (73) The Valley being relatively open, with much cleared land, the cavalry was able to fight on horseback to a greater extent than had been possible east of the Blue Ridge, but by this time, the Union horse fought equally well on foot or on horseback, and in either case, was almost invariably successful.

The outstanding feature of the Valley Campaign was, however, Sheridan's generalship. Exercising independent command for the first time, (74) he displayed qualities of leadership and a degree of skill which justify completely Grant's opinion, previously quoted, that Sheridan was the ablest general of the war on either side. The campaign is from beginning to end a model of generalship. It is a spectacular achievement, (75) and a wonderful demonstration of Sheridan's ability to commit al1 his forces, to use all arms in judicious combination, to modify battle plans on the spur of the moment, to seize the decisive instant in battle, and to plan each step of a campaign to take maximum advantage of the total strategic situation.

In the Battle of the Opequon, (76) on September 19, 1864, Sheridan fought the tactical masterpiece of our entire military history, a battle far more deserving of detailed study, even in terms of (or especially in terms of) the combined tactics of World War II, than the much more dramatic, but tactically sterile, Battle of Gettysburg. Only Second Bull Run approaches it in brilliance, and Lee's tactical show-piece suffers by comparison, to the degree that John Pope was below Jubal Early in ability.

Battle Map of Winchester/Opequon Creek, Va.    September 19, 1864 (click to enlarge)

It was not in Sheridan's nature merely to fight Early; he intended and planned to bag Early's entire army, or at least a major part of it. (77) The nature of the terrain around Winchester favored such an enterprise. The Confederates occupied a plateau east of the town; their position faced east, the town lying approximately a mile to their rear. The Valley Turnpike, running roughly north and south, bisected the town. The countryside being quite open, the Confederate position could be bypassed on either flank, and the Turnpike reached above or below the town. Sheridan's battle plan called for Wilson's cavalry division to lead the infantry into position opposite the center of Early's line, and then to work around Early's right flank to reach the Turnpike south of Winchester, thus cutting Early's only line of retreat. An entire Union infantry division was to support Wilson in this turning operation. Meanwhile, Merritt's and Averell's divisions of cavalry, having crossed Opequon Creek about five miles north of Winchester, were to advance eastward to the Turnpike, and were then to drive to the south, enveloping the Confederate left-rear, unhinging the entire Confederate position, and forcing the rebels to retreat into the waiting arms of Wilson and his infantry support. The plan, therefore, called for a classical double envelopment on a grand scale. In keeping with the textbook maxim that "combinations rarely work", the operation did not accomplish all that Sheridan intended. Early's army was not bagged; the bulk of it managed to get away after a bad mauling in which it lost a quarter of its total strength. However, the fault did not lie with the cavalry. Made aware of the threat to his left, Early sent a division of infantry and Fitzhugh Lee's cavalry to stop Merritt and Averell, but Merritt attacked with such momentum that these units were unable to contain him. Averell's division, echeloned to the right of Merritt, passed behind the Confederate left and center, whereupon Early's entire line gave way in considerable disorder. Meanwhile. Wilson had completed his wide circuit around Early's right and was approaching the Turnpike, forcing Early to detach a part of Fitzhugn Lee's cavalry to protect his only possible line of retreat, at a time when Lee already had more than he could handle in trying to stop the Union cavalry attack from the North; this unit did, however, manage to keep Wilson away from the Turnpike long enough to allow Early to make good his retreat.

Battle Map of Fisher's Hill, Va.  September 22, 1864 (click to enlarge)

The Opequon was a serious defeat for Early. Sheridan gave him no time to recover, but defeated him again three days later at Fisher's Hill, in a battle in which Early was driven out of an "impregnable" position, losing another 1,300 men whom he could neither spare nor replace. At the Battle of Cedar Creek, a month later, Early's army was completely routed, losing 3,000 more men and almost all of its trains and artillery, and its days as an effective fighting force were ended. (78) Ten days earlier, Early's cavalry, under General Lomax, had met the Union cavalry under Torbert, Merritt and Custer (79) at Tom's Brook, and in this fight, known also as the "Woodstock Races", was irretrievably beaten, losing everything it possessed on wheels - artillery, transports and ambulances - except for one gun. (80) The subsequent devastation of the Valley, which Sheridan carried out as thoroughly as he did everything else, effectively ended all possibility of further Confederate operations in what had been the arena of Stonewall Jackson's glory.

At the beginning of March, 1865, Sheridan marched his cavalry from the Shenandoah Valley. Almost incidentally, at Waynesboro, he destroyed the remnant of what had once been a fine Confederate army; "All Early's supplies, all transportation, all the guns, ammunition and flags, and most of the officers and men of the army were captured and sent to the rear." (81) Breaking up the Virginia Central Railroad and the James River Canal on the way, Sheridan rejoined Meade in front of Richmond, his command consisting at this time of "...two superb divisions...which had been recruited and remounted during the winter.." (82) His arrival in the lines of investment around Petersburg and Richmond coincided with the coming of campaigning weather, and Sheridan's role in the operations which began only two days after he rejoined the Army of the Potomac was to exercise a controlling influence on the outcome of the war. (83) Grant now had the strategic mobility he needed to pry Lee loose from his entrenchments, and the man with the imagination and the drive to get the job done. The first move in the final campaign against Lee was a sweep by Sheridan's 13,000-man Cavalry Corps, (84) every man armed with a repeating rifle or repeating carbine, and with two corps of infantry in support, out beyond the flank of the Union army and toward the right flank and rear of Lee's trench system. The goal of the operation was to reach, or at least to menace, the only two remaining railroad lines supplying Richmond from the south, and thus to pose a threat that Lee would be compelled to meet, being thereby forced to deplete still further the already too thinly-stretched forces manning his trenches. Beyond a statement of the general objectives, Grant's directions to Sheridan, who was to be in overall command, were wholly discretionary. (85) With a full realization of the probable consequences, Lee had to react to Sheridan's move in the only way open to him. Holding 27-1/2 miles of trenches with but 31,500 men, Lee thinned out his lines still further and scraped together 6,400 infantry and 4,200 cavalry under Pickett (86) and Fitzhugh Lee respectively, and sent them off to his far right, with orders to stop Sheridan by attacking him on the move, if possible.(87)

Sheridan moved off on March 29, after a downpour lasting several days had turned the heavily-wooded, low-lying countryside into a huge swamp. (88) The first day's fighting, on the 31st, ended with the Confederates holding an illusory advantage; Pickett met the advance of Sheridan's troopers, checked it, and in a bushwhacking action, pressed Sheridan back to Dinwiddie Court House, where the Federals rallied and held. Pickett was now in a fatally isolated position, with Sheridan in his front and to his right, and Warren's V Corps of Union infantry a few miles to his left and well behind him. This created an opening which Sheridan was not slow to exploit. During the night, he arranged for an attack on Pickett's left and rear by Warren's infantry, to coincide with a frontal attack by two divisions of the cavalry. The combination did not come off, and (89) Pickett, attacked only in front, made good his retreat to Five Forks where he occupied an L-shaped line of old trenches which his men hastily improved. However, he was still isolated, and, the Union infantry having reached the field, Sheridan was able to stage an attack based on his original plan. The fight ended in a victory that would have satisfied anyone but Sheridan. Pickett's force was all but wiped out, the Federals capturing six guns, thirteen battle flags and nearly 6,000 prisoners. (90)

The disastrous defeat at Five Forks ended any hope Lee may still have entertained of holding out in the Richmond-Petersburg defenses. When the Federa1s, capitalizing quickly on Sheridan's victory, broke into Lee's attenuated lines on the morning of April 2, Lee was forced to give up the defense of the Confederate capital. That night, Richmond was evacuated, and what was left of the Army of Northern Virginia began its trek (91) toward the mountains and a junction with Johnston's army in the Carolinas. That, was the plan, or the forlorn hope, but it was frustrated by Sheridan and the cavalry. Intercepting the supplies Lee was counting on to feed his starving troops, harassing his retreat without respite, capturing at Sayler's Creek between 7,000 and 8,000 men, a third of Lee's remaining force, (92) the Union cavalry was everywhere at once. There remained merely the formality of killing off the exhausted, starving wreckage of an army that had nothing left but its courage. The Union infantry behind him, Sheridan's cavalry attacking almost incessantly from the left and ultimately forcing its way across the head of his column, Lee had no option but to surrender, and the long war in the east came to an end at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865.

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