In the process of studying history, historians are bound to discover heroes they like and people they don’t.
I’ll make no secret. I don’t much like General Philip Henry Sheridan, and I have good company. No less a person than President Abraham Lincoln described his famous general as “a brown, chunky little chap, with long body, short legs, not enough neck to hang him, and such long arms that if his ankles itch he can scratch them without stooping.”
My personal grievances against Sheridan are based more in signs of flawed character than his appearance:
For one thing, he impresses me as a hot-tempered little popinjay. Standing only 5′-5″, he seemed to carry a chip on his shoulder and was once suspended from West Point for an entire year for fighting when he threatened to run a classmate through with a bayonet over some perceived insult.
As an officer on duty, he set a poor moral example by living with his mistress, an Indian woman, while the U.S. Army was embroiled in conflicts with the Indians.
During the Civil War he was ruthless.
And if that’s not enough, he insulted Texas.
You may remember that U.S. Congressman Davy Crockett (R-Tenn), when he narrowly lost re-election in 1835, vowed “You may all to to hell, and I’ll go to Texas!” implying that those two places were opposite in nature.
But Sheridan, who began his military career with an assignment to Fort Duncan, Texas, in 1853 was ordered back there in 1865 by General Grant following the Union victory in the Civil War. Sheridan was feeling rather bitter about that, since he was supposed to have lead troops in the Grand Review of the Armies in Washington, D.C.. Instead, he gathered invaded Texas with 50,000 men to occupy and control the state. Texans hated him, and he hated them right back. In 1866 he told a reporter, “If I owned hell and Texas, I would rent Texas and live at the other place.”
Here’s a segment from a 1833 interview where he was asked to explain his insult:
The talk turned on Texas, and Sheridan was asked the origin of the saying attributed to him: “If I owned Hell and Texas I’d rent Texas out and live in Hell.”
“It’s true” he said, laughing heartily, “and I tell you how I came to say it.
I was in Texas when civil war was raging between the Mexicans, under Juarez, and the French, under Maximilian. I went down on the Rio Grande with an understanding with the American authorities to scare the French. I was there engaged with strategic movements intended to frighten the French for some days.
Then we rode to Galveston. Arriving there hot, dusty and dirty after a long day’s ride; having had no change of clothing for a week. I was disgusted with everything in the world.
I stepped up the hotel register, wrote my name, and just then a man spoke to me and said: “General, how do you like Texas?” and in the intensity of disgust I gave him for answer what you have quoted.
Next morning it was in a Galveston paper – the shortest interview you have ever read. The man I talked so frankly to was a newspaper reporter.”
Sounds like “Little Phil” wished he’d never set foot in Texas.
