William Hepworth Dixon, White Conquest: Volume 2

[38] excel the charge by which he shook, shattered, and destroyed the enemies who had burnt Chambersburg and menaced Washington. He reaps a rich reward. America has only one Lieutenant-general, and Philip Sheridan is that one.

Sheridan has seen hard service, in a region where the nicer feelings have no field; for he has spent six years among the Cheyennes and Sioux, learning their dialects and mixing in their feuds. It is a saying in the camp that Little Phil is one-half Irish savage, the other half Indian savage. If a merciless deed has to be done, everyone expects Sheridan to do it. When a cruel need of war induced General Grant to order the Shenandoah Valley to be burnt, the torch was placed in Sheridan's hands. “The whole country, from the Blue Ridge to the North Mountain, has been made untenable!” was his brief report; and never since the French generals, under advice of Louvois, ravaged the Palatinate, have eyes of man beheld a wreck so awful as that of the beautiful Virginian dale. When the Government wished to make example of an Indian tribe, Sheridan was sent into the Plains. The Piegans were selected for a sacrifice;