Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 2.djvu/204

 < 358 SOLDIERS AND SAILORS After his retirement he made his home, first in St. Louis and then in New York, where the last five years of his life were passed, and where he speedily became one of the great city's familiar, honored, and notable figures. Here, too, the final call came to him. On February 14, 1891, when he had just passed his seventy-first birthday, sounded the order " parade is dismissed," and Sherman died in his own home, in West Seventy-first Street, mourned by an entire nation. He was buried in St. Louis by the side of his wife, who had died in 1 890. William Tecumseh Sherman was, in the strictest sense of the word, a soldier. His bearing and presence told of camp and uniform. With a military education and military environments, he could not understand, and could not calmly brook, the cautious conservatism of the civilian, which would often temporize when swift, determined action seemed necessary, and which was often boastful at home, and timorous in the field. Able in action, fierce in assault, unerring in judgment, watchful in detail ; with a sagacity and foresight that amounted almost to genius, and a memory that was marvellous. General Sherman was a great military leader, and one who, when the opportunity came, rode straight into fame and reputation. As determined as he was daring, as magnanimous as he was impul- sive, as clear-headed as he was energetic, and as gentle-hearted in peace as he was ruthless in wai; he was indeed a unique figure in America's history, and, as time goes on, his name will stand as that of one of the great Republic's most famous men and most cherished memories. PHILIP HENRY SHERIDAN (1831-1888) HiLip Henry Sheridan, Commander-in-chief of the United States Army, and the last and most brilliant of the great generals of the North, was born at Albany, N. Y. March 6, 1831. He had few ad- vantages of early education and training, but in 1848 he obtained a cadetship at West Point. Sheridan's hot blood and impulsive tem- perament were manifested even in his student days, and a quarrel with a comrade resulted in his suspension for a year. He was consequently unable to graduate in 1852, as he should have done, but in the following year he concluded his stud- ies and was appointed a brevet second lieutenant of infantry. In 1854 he was assigned to the First Infantry in Texas, and the same year he received his com-