General Philip Sheridan
38.912158, -77.050623 | Military
A statue to honor General Sheridan was originally proposed to stand at on the north side of Pennsylvania Avenue NW near 13th Street NW, at what is now Freedom Plaza. Gen. Sheridan’s widow advocated to erect the statue at Sheridan Circle instead, with which the statue commission agreed. John Quincy Adams Ward was selected to sculpt the statue. Mrs. Sheridan rejected his original model, saying it was not a good likeness of Gen. Sheridan, and the statue commission rejected Ward’s model. The commission and Mrs. Sheridan both approved of a model created by Gutzon Borglum. The statue was dedicated on November 27, 1908.
Philip Henry Sheridan was a career United States Army officer and a Union general in the American Civil War. His career was noted for his rapid rise to major general and his close association with General-in-chief Ulysses S. Grant, who transferred Sheridan from command of an infantry division in the Western Theater to lead the Cavalry Corps of the Army of the Potomac in the East. In 1864, he defeated Confederate forces in the Shenandoah Valley and his destruction of the economic infrastructure of the Valley, called “The Burning” by residents, was one of the first uses of scorched earth tactics in the war. In 1865, his cavalry pursued Gen. Robert E. Lee and was instrumental in forcing his surrender at Appomattox.