Personal Memoirs of P. H. Sheridan, General, United States Army — Volume 2

Philip Henry SheridanProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 4.2
Word count
553K words
Chapters
56

Tags

English Originals Political and Military LeadersMilitary Military HistoryMilitary StrategyBattle NarrativeMilitary CommandersPower GameHeroismCivil War MemoirDocumentary Narrative

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today. Personal Memoirs of P. H. Sheridan, General, United States Army — Volume 2. Author: Sheridan, Philip Henry, 1831-1888. Language: English. Class: E456: History: America: Civil War period (1861-1865). Release Date: Jun 1, 2004

Editor's review

This is the second volume of General Sheridan's personal memoirs, a primary source for the history of the American Civil War and military history. Its value lies not in literary style but in immediacy: the author, as a participant, recounts battle deployments, marches, and combat details, offering direct material for studying late-war military operations. As a free Project Gutenberg eBook, it is easy to search and cite, and is suited as a historical source rather than a general history. Reading it requires some historical background, or one easily gets lost among place names, unit designations, and personal names. Its strength is restrained, unadorned narration that preserves the plain style of nineteenth-century military writing, letting readers sense the military thinking and linguistic habits of the time. It is best read alongside a general Civil War history or maps, as historical fragments rather than a complete narrative.

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Reading tips

  1. First read a general history of the American Civil War to establish a timeline, then read chapter by chapter alongside maps.
  2. Keep pen and paper to note unit designations and place names, and check personal names and battle backgrounds as you go.
  3. Read it as selected historical source material, prioritizing chapters on campaigns you study or find interesting.
  4. Read it together with Volume 1 to understand the continuity of the author's experience.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53
  54. 54
  55. 55
  56. 56

FAQ

Is this book a complete history of the Civil War? No. It is the second volume of General Sheridan's personal memoirs, a participant's primary source focused on the military operations he took part in or knew about; it does not serve as a general history. Readers need other works to fill in background and the overall picture.
Can I read it if my English is not good? The book is in the English original and bears the stylistic traits of nineteenth-century military writing, so sentence structure and vocabulary pose some difficulty for modern readers. If English reading is a struggle, it is advisable to first read a general history or related studies in Chinese translation, then decide whether to consult the original directly.
Why is it recommended to read with maps? The memoirs deal extensively with march routes, positions, and troop movements; without spatial information the reading easily becomes fragmentary. Reading with Civil War maps grounds the narrative in specific geography and battle lines, helping you understand the logic of the author's decisions and actions and markedly improving reading efficiency.

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About the author

Philip Henry Sheridan Author · American · 1831–1888

Philip Henry Sheridan (1831–1888) was a celebrated Union cavalry general during the American Civil War and a graduate of West Point. In 1864 he commanded the Army of the Shenandoah, inflicting heavy defeats on Confederate forces at battles such as Winchester and Cedar Creek. He later served as general-in-chief of the U.S. Army and was promoted to the rank of four-star general. The library holds nine of his works, all different volumes and parts of his Personal Memoirs. Written from a first-hand perspective, the book recounts marches, battles, and command decisions of the Civil War in a direct style rich in detail. It combines military historical value with the immediacy of personal recollection and is an important source for studying the Civil War, especially cavalry operations and the Shenandoah campaign. Beyond his life and works, public information on his early years, specific postings, and the making of the memoirs is limited, so no conjecture is offered here.