Om the fall of 1864, Abraham Lincoln was desparate for a Union victory on the battle fields of the Civil War. It had been a bad year for the Union generals. Lincoln had appointed Gen. Ulysses S. Grant as his commander in chief in March in an attempt to reverse the course of the war. Old Abe was also up for re-election and he was worried about his support from the voters. only in the Shenandoah Valley had the waar seen Union success under Phil Sheridan. J. Early wanted to evict Sheridan from the Valley and with him Lincoln from Washington.

In the morning of Oct. 19, 1864, Gen. Sheridan was on his way back from Washington D.C. where he had attended a staff meeting the day before. After spending the night at Winchester, VA, he was on the road when he received the news that Confederate soldiers under J. Early had surprised his troops at Cedar Creek at dawn.

Riding a lathered Rienzi into Cedar Creek, Sheridan was greeted with the view of his whole army in full retreat. Dashing forward, waving his hat, Sheridan spurred Rienzi over a rail barricade and wheeled the horse to face the men fleeing behind him.

"Men, by God, we'll whip them !" Sheridan bellowed. "We'll sleep in our old camps tonight." A private who witnessed this remembered, "No more doubt or chance for doubt existed; we were safe, and every man knew it!"

The Union Army rallied, going on to achieve their much needed victory and Lincoln went on to be re-elected.

But what can be told of the horse who saved the day and helped re-elect Lincoln?

Perhaps the words that best describe Rienzi are those of Sheridan himself in his memoirs, completed shortly before his death in 1888.

"Capt. A. P. Campbell (this was in 1862), o the 2nd Michigan Cavalry, presented me with the black horse called Rienzi...This horse was of Morgan stock, then about three years old. He was jet black, excepting three white feet, sixteen hands high, and strongly built, with great powers of endurance. He was so active that he could cover with ease five miles an hour at his natural walking gait...until the close of the war I rode him almost continuously, in every campaign and battle in which I tookpart, without once finding him overcome with fatigue, though on many occasions his strength was severely tested by long marches and short rations. I never observed in him any vicious habit; a nervousness ad restless and switching of the tail when everything about him was in repose, being the only indication that he might be untrustworthy. No one but a novice could be deceived by this, however, for the intelligence evinced in every featyre, and his thoroughbred appearance, were so strikiing that any person accustomed to horses could not misunderstand such a noble animal...Although he was several times wounded, this horse escaped death in action; and living to a ripe old age, died in 1878, attended to the last with all the care and surrounded with every comfort due to the faithful service he had rendered."

The Black Hawk line of the Morgans was noted for their size and Rienzi was no exception. He stood a full 16 hands high. It must have been a curious sight for the troops to watch their commander, Little Phil, as he affectionately was called, who stood only 5'5", mount the tall Rienzi.

The poet, Thomas Buchanana Read, most likely miscalculated the distance from Winchester to Cedar Creek, and it is highly probably that Rienzi actually carried the General over 75 miles that historic day. Besides the actual run from Winchester to the troops on Cedar Creek, Sheridan rode many more miles actually averting the disastrous retreat and reassembling his troops for their ultimate victory. Sheridan rode his Morgan gelding the entire day, never switching horses.

After the horse's death at 20 years of age, Sheridan had his favorite mounted. Firenzi was first placed in Governors Island Museum, in the harbor of New York. In June of 1922, he was transferred to the Smithsonian in Washington D.C. A dye job has restored his famous jet-black color that had been faded by sunlight to a light sorrel.

In 1908, a soon-to-be famous sculptor of Mt. Rushmore, Gutzon Borglum was commissioned to create a statue of the general on his famous war horse. It shows Sheridan in the moment he arrived at Cedar Creek, Skidding Rienzi to a halt. It can still be seen today at Embassy Row where Massachusetts Ave. Meets 23rd Street.

Curiously, the statue was erected directly across from the home of Sheridan's widow, 22 years younger than her famous husband, Mrs. Sheridan never remarried. She personally had selected the site for the memorial and lived nearby the rest of her life. Their three daughters would greet each new day by calling from the home's doorstep to the statue, "Good Morning, Papa!"

All are long gone, General, President, their families, and horse. Their memories are immortalized in the famous poem and the statue overlooking Embassy Row.

"A steed as black as the steeds of night,
Was seen to pass as with eagle flight,
As if he knew the terrible need;
He stretched away with utmost speed;
Hills rose and fell;
but his heart was gay,
With Sheridan fifteen miles away."

"Be it be said, in letters bold and bright,
Here is the steed that saved the day,
By carrying Sheridan into the fight,
From Winchester, twenty miled away!"

T. B. Read 1864

Thanks to the June 2000 issue of the Morgan Horse for this interesting articale on Sheridan and his famous Morgan 'Rienzi'

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