Biography:

Philip Henry Sheridan was born to an Irish laborer and his wife who migrated from Ireland to Somerset, Ohio, with a brief stay in Albany, New York, in 1830–31. It is not clear exactly where Philip was born. In Ohio, Sheridan received a rudimentary education and then worked as a bookkeeper in a dry goods store before winning an appointment to the US Military Academy at West Point in 1848. After graduation, Sheridan served on frontier duty in the West, until he was ordered to Missouri in September 1861 to join a new infantry unit under General Halleck. Sheridan was made chief commissary and quartermaster for the Army of the Southwest Missouri District. While he excelled in this position, he longed to command troops in the field. He finally secured such a command in spring 1862 when he was offered the position of commander of the volunteer Second Michigan Cavalry. From there, Sheridan quickly moved up, winning the admiration of his troops and superiors alike. He was promoted to brigadier general of US Volunteers by mid-1862. His battlefield courage and skills were admired by General U. S. Grant, who appointed Sheridan chief of cavalry in early 1864. Now brigadier general, US Army, in May 1864 Sheridan led his cavalry to Richmond, where he defeated Confederate cavalry forces under Jeb Stuart, further earning him the Grant’s respect. A year later, in April 1865, Sheridan’s cavalry played an important role in Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, though Sheridan himself was disappointed that he was not given the opportunity to crush the Confederate troops and instead they were allowed to negotiate their surrender.
 
After the Civil War, Sheridan was sent to New Orleans, where he commanded the Military Division of the Gulf and then was briefly military governor of Louisiana and Texas. In 1867, Sheridan returned to the West, where, except for a two-year hiatus when he served as an official observer of the Franco-Prussian War, he directed several campaigns against the Plains Indians. In 1883, Sheridan was named general in chief of the US Army. Sheridan published his memoirs in 1888. In that same year, he suffered a series of heart attacks, and he died at his summer cottage in Nonquitt, Massachusetts.