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WINCHESTER [VA] NOV 5 1864 headed UNION SOLDIER’S LETTER to brother to sister (can’t read his signature, perhaps Albert but no last name) saying, in part, “We left Cedar Creek Near Strasburg where the late Battle was fought to escort Genl Sheridan down to Martinsburg. We passed Winchester and got about 10 miles beyond and Sheridan was taken sick and we fell back to Winchester. They had to send for an ambulance to carry him a part of the way. They say his sickness was cause by eating some cheese that was given him at a house a little North of here…[Winchester] must have been a very pretty town before the war…Wallace was killed about a mile from here.” First person account of General Sheridan falling ill. $80.
US Major General Philip Sheridan (1831-1888) was a career Army officer noted for his rapid rise to major general and close association with General-in-chief Ulysses S. Grant. He was one of the first to use the “scorched earth” tactics in war. In 1865, his cavalry pursed General Robert E. Lee and was instrumental in forcing his surrender at Appomattox. In 1988, he was promoted to the rank of General of the Army under President Grover Cleveland. Sheridan’s horse was named Winchester (formerly Rienzi, a jet-black Morgan horse standing 16 hands high) by Sheridan after he carried Sheridan on his famous ride from Winchester, Virginia, to Cedar Creek, Virginia on October 19, 1864, in time to rally his troops and turn almost certain defeat into victory.
Misc-1 LL
