General Sheridan and His Staff

Another in Alexander Gardner’s valedictory series of the major Union commanders in each theater of the war, this photograph groups four of the figures from the 1864 campaign in the Shenandoah Valley under the command of Philip Sheridan (1831–1888). Sheridan is standing to the left; at the table are cavalry officer Wesley Merritt (1834–1910); George Crook (1828–1890), who had an independent force in western Virginia before joining Sheridan’s army; Sheridan’s chief of staff, James W. Forsyth (1835–1906); and perhaps America’s most famous cavalryman, George A. Custer (1839–1876).