Page:Hine (1904) Letters from an old railway official.djvu/83

 palm off inferior animals on the government. Not so with the future commander of the army. He tried all the harder and his work was efficient, clean and honest. In the spring of 1862 a Michigan cavalry regiment needed a colonel and the officer hailing from Ohio, who had bought horses so well, had a chance to drill both horses and men. A year and a half later he was commanding a division of infantry, and six months after that as major general a corps of cavalry. Popular opinion pictures Sheridan as a dashing fighter, executing the plans of some one else. Never was there a more incomplete conception. No matter how hard had been the fighting, how wearing the march, it was Sheridan who rose in the night to see that the sleeping camp or bivouac did not suffer from laxity in guard duty, that all was ready for the plans of the morrow. The general manager did not have to tell him that the switch lamps on his division were not burning. The general superintendent did not have to wire him that his water cranes were out of order. The superintendent of motive power did not have to complain that his enginemen were not kept in line. The traffic manager did not