The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1908-11-26
TRIBUTES PAID To
SHERIDAN'S VALOR
Statue Is Unveiled To The War
Hero At Washington
GRAND REVIEW Of TROOPS
~
President Roosevelt Delivers an Ad-
dress in Which He Accords Honor
to the Man Whose Famous Ride
Created History.
GRAND REVIEW Of TROOPS

washington, November a. L he SplenulQ
military achievements of Gen. Philip H.
Sheridan, whose famed ride was the in
spiration of one of the most stirring
poems of the Civil war, WIS celebrated at
the national capital today when u heroic
equestrian statue of the gallant soldier
was unveiled amid scene of martial
splendor.
The President of the United States
Brig. Gen. Horace Porter and Luke
| Wright, Secretary of War, all paid glow
ing tribute to the memory of the brill
liant leader. One of the most impressive
features of the occasion was the parade
of troops under command of Maj. Gen.
J. Franklin Bell, chief of staff United
States army, reviewed by President Roose-
welt and a large assemblag.e
RooseveIts Address.
president Roosevelt said:
1t is eminently fitting that the ma
tion's illustrious men, the men who
loom as heroes before the eyes of our
people, should be fittingly commem-
GRATED here at the national capital and
I am glad indeed to take part in the
unwilling of this statue to General
Sheridan. His name will always stand
/ high on the list of American worthless.
Not only was he a great general but he
sh owed his greatness with that touch
of originality which We call genius
Indeed this quality of brilliance has
been in one sense disadvantage to
his reputation for it has tended to
overshadow his solid ability. We tend
to think of him only as the dashing
cavalry leader, whereas he was in real
ity not only that but also great
commander. OF course the fact In his
career most readily recognized was
his mastery in the necessarily modern
art of handling masses of modern
cavalry so as to give them the fullest
possible effect, not only in the or
binary operations of cavalry which pre-
cede and follow a battle but in the
battle itself. But in addition he
! showed in the Civil war that he was
| first-class army commander, both as a
subordinate of Grant and when in in
| dependent command. His record in the
valley campaign and again from Five
| Forks to Appomattox is one difficult
to parallel in military history. After
| SAtS SAN5S "a bhC 6lCdl WAL III u IleiQ
where there was scant glory to be
Won by the general-in-c he rem
dered a signal service which has gone
almost unnoticed; for in the tedious
| weary Indian wars on the great plains
1t was he who developed in thorough
going fashion the system of campaign
ing in winter, which, at the cost of
| bitter hardship and peril, finally broke
down the banded strength of those
formidable warriors, the horse Indians
Typical American.
His career was typicaly American, for
from plain beginnings he rose to the
highest military position in our land We
honor his memory itself; and moreover,
as in the case of the other great COM
manders of his day, his career SYM
| bolizes the careers of all those men who
in the years of the nations direst need
sprang to the front to risk everything,
including life itself, and to spend the
| days of their strongest young manhood
| in valorous conflict for an ideal. Often
! we Americans are tainted with having
| only a material ideal. The empty folly
of the taunt is sufficiently shown by the
presence here today of you men of the
| Grand Army, you the comrades of the
dead general, the men who served with
| anu uiiuci iilHl Ill all HlStO1y we hive no
greater instance of subordination of self,
of the exalting of a lofty ideal oveS
merely material wel-being among the
people of a great nation, than was shown
by our own people in the Civil War.
| Suffering of the War;
And you, the men who wore the blue,
would be the first to say that this same
| lofty indifference to the things of the
body, when compared to the things of
the soul, was shown by your brothers
who wore the gray Dreadful was the
suffering, dreadful the loss, of the Civil
| War. Yet it stands alone among wars
in this, that, now that the wounds are
! healed, the memory of the mighty deeds
! of valor performed on one side no less
! than on the other has become the COM
mon heritage of all our people In every
quarter of the country. The complete
| ness with which this is true is shown
by what is occurring here today. We
meet together to raise a monument to
a great union general in the presence
! of many of the survivors of the union
army; and the Secretary of War; the man
at the head of the army, who, by virtue
of his office, occupies a special relation
| to the celebration is himself man who
fought in the Confederate service. Few
indeed have been the countries where
such a conjunction would have been pos
| sible and blessed indeed are we that in
| our own beloved land it is not only pos
| sible but seems SO entirely natural as
| to excite comment whatever.
Sheridan's Parents.
| There Is another point in General
| Sheridan's career which it is good for |
! all of us to remember. Whereas |
! Grant Sherman and Thomas were of
| the old native American stock, the
| parents of Sheridan, like the parents !
7 of Farragut, were born on the other |
! side of the water. Any one of the |
| five was just as much a type of the |
| real American, of what is best in |
| America as the other four. We |
sh ould keep steadily before our minds
the fact that Americanism is a ques-
| ton of principle, of purpose, of IDEAL |
| ism, of character; that it is not mat |
| ter of birthplace, or creed, or line of |
| descent. Here in this country the rep
resentatives of many old-world races |
are being fused together into a new
| type, a type the main features of |
which are already determined and |
were determined at the time of the |
Revolutionary war; for the crucibIe |
in which all the new types are melted |
into one was shaped from 1875 to |
1889 and our nationality was definite |
ly fixed in all its essentials by the |
/ men of Washington's day. The strains |
will not continue as in the old world. |
They WILL be combined in. one and of |