Philip Kearny, died September 1, 1862

In late 1851, Philip Kearny (pronounced CAR-nee), the New York millionaire, after resigning from the Union Army, embarked on a trip around the world, including visits to China and Ceylon. His left arm had been amputated at the shoulder during his service in the Mexican-American War. He had separated from his wife, Diana Bullitt Kearny, in 1849 after eight years of marriage. After the birth of their fifth child, Diana left him and took the children to  her childhood home in Louisville, Kentucky.

At the age of thirty-six he found himself without a profession or family ties. He had everything in life except a purpose.  "Had I been as assiduously devoted to wife and children as I was to the Army , I would not today be rootless . . . sans spouse, sans offspring " he wrote to his cousin, John Watts De Peyster, in a depressed frame of mind. 

 John Watts De Peyster

Kearny's spirits were somewhat raised by the offer of a trip around the world aboard the    U. S. S. Vincennes as the guest of her skipper, Captain W. L. Hudson, who had been ordered to "show the flag" in the remote Pacific and the Far East.

Visiting Paris in May 1853, Kearny fell in love with 20-year-old Agnes Maxwell, daughter of the customs collector in New York City.  Kearny had been invited to a reception given at the Tuileries for English and American residents in Paris by Emperor Louis Napoleon III. Kearny attended the affair in his dragoon dress uniform, and a guest described him as "the most magnificent man present."  He was presented to the Emperor by William Rives, the United States Ambassador. Louis Napoleon greeted him warmly and thanked him for his service to France during the Algerian War. 

Agnes Maxwell

That day at the Tuileries, Philip met Agnes, an auburn-haired girl visiting in Paris with her parents.  According to Kearny, Agnes was "an exquisite creature ... so lovely that my eyes misted at her beauty."

Kearny wrote his cousin De Peyster in June 1853:

How incredible that this child should hold such allure for me, a man old enough to be her father . . . This is a love of autumn and spring ... I am nearing my fortieth year . . . she is barely twenty ... I am married, have sired children, and she is affianced to a young man in New York . . . but I am mesmerized by her loveliness, gentleness and charm ... I swear to you . . . nothing matters . . . neither gossiping tongues, the variance in our ages nor the obligations we have to others . . . for she feels about me as I do about her. " 

Agnes was engaged to a man in New York.  Kearny was unable to marry her because his wife would not grant him a divorce.  Their affair became a scandal in both Paris and New York. Kearny showered gifts on Agnes: perfumes, bon bons, jewelry, rare books, objets d'art. Every day he sent flowers. They dined at restaurants, took long drives into the country, picnicked in the Bois de Boulogne, attended the races, and went boating on the Seine. Overriding her parents' objections, Agnes continued to see Philip and broke her engagement to her New York fiance.

In February, 1854, he returned to the United States and visited Diana in Kentucky to persuade her to divorce him, but divorce was unthinkable to Diana. Kearny returned to New York.  He believed that Agnes was still in Paris, but the Maxwells had returned to New York. 

"Perhaps she will think me a cad and forget that I even exist," Kearny told a friend. "I must purge her from my heart . . . else I shall lose my mind with longing for her."  He refused "to subject my little girl of the Tuileries to the besmirchment which must needs follow any intimate relationship we might have. "

Kearny resumed his daily horseback rides. As he rode across a bridge, the old structure collapsed, hurtling horse and rider into the twenty-foot-deep gorge below. Villagers carried the badly injured Kearny to Van Buren's Hotel in Gouverneur and sent for Dr. Robert Watts who was visiting his cousin. For a time Kearny seemed near death, but eventually began to recover. By September, Dr. Watts pronounced him fit enough to travel, and Kearny returned to New York City in a specially rigged ambulance. Dr. Watts was not pleased with his patient's progress. "He seems to be fading ... I fear Phil has lost the desire to live I reluctantly draw this conclusion, for I can find no medical reason to account for his flagging condition . . . Never have I seen him so constantly depressed " the doctor noted in his journal.   Watts deduced that his patient was longing for Agnes, and went to see her. She was greatly distressed and insisted on being taken to Kearny at once. Disregarding Kearny's protests, Agnes paid him daily visits. She dismissed the nurse and took over his care. He soon showed improvement. By the end of October, Dr. Watts considered him cured.

Frederick Law Olmsted

Agnes defied every convention of the times when she moved in with Kearny. She lived with him through the winter of 1854-1855, and in the springtime followed him to Bellegrove where she helped with the refurbishing of the estate. Kearny hired Frederick Law Olmsted, who had designed New York City's Central Park, to lay out the grounds at Bellegrove. By 1855, Kearny and Agnes had settled in Kearny's new mansion overlooking the Passaic River in what is now Kearny, New Jersey. It had been modeled after a fifteenth-century castle in Saumur, France, which Kearny had admired more than twenty years before while attending the French Royal Cavalry School there. 

Bellegrove 

"I have found with Agnes all the tranquility, happiness and contentment that one man could wish for in his lifetime " Kearny said.

"Need I give ear to the cackling of hens or the yapping of mongrels? I love Phil, and presently this is the only way I can be with him. I have done nothing of which I am ashamed," Agnes wrote a New York friend.

Agnes became pregnant in 1855.  As the new Russian Tsar, Alexander II, was to be crowned in St. Petersburg on March 2, 1856, Kearny suggested that they enjoy the ceremonies at the Russian capital and then make an extended tour of the Continent. The couple arrived in France in January, 1856. They went to Rouen and rented an apartment, where they were known to all as Monsieur and Madame Philippe Kearny. After a brief stay in Rouen they proceeded to St. Petersburg for the coronation.  The couple went to Paris for the birth of their first child, Susan "Suzy" Watts Kearny in 1856.  She was named after Kearny's mother, Susan Watts.  

Bellegrove 

Kearny and  Agnes were once again at Bellegrove in the early spring of 1857.  Early in 1858, Diana finally acceded to Kearny's demands for a divorce, apparently after Kearny threatened to take their son, John Watts Kearny, away from her.  As she was angry about her young replacement, she stipulated in the divorce decree that he could never marry again as long as she lived.  As soon as the divorce was granted, Kearny began to look for a way around Diana's stipulation. He found it when his lawyers argued that it was only valid in New York State, and Kearny was free to marry Agnes in Paris. For a time Kearny would avoid his native city for fear of arrest on the charge of bigamy.  The couple spent the rest of that year in Paris.  According to Kearny, "each day, indeed each moment with Agnes , I savored and enjoyed . ."

Kearny in Paris, 1859

In April 1859, the outbreak of the Franco-Austrian War found the army of Napoleon III, Emperor of France, in alliance with the army of Victor Emmanuel II of Piedmont-Sardinia (King of Italy) in an attempt to oust Emperor Franz Joseph's Austrians from northern Italy. Kearny, then living in Paris at 15, avenue Matignon, personally applied to the French emperor for permission to join the Chasseurs d'Afrique in the Italian Campaign. Kearny had served with the Chasseurs as a U.S. military observer in Africa in 1840 and wished to rejoin his old regiment. His request denied, Kearny instead was given the distinguished honor of an assignment on the staff of General Morris. Morris, Kearny's former commander in Africa, had been chosen by the emperor to lead the Cavalry Division of the Imperial Guard.

In a battle comprised of 270,000 men, Kearny fought with the Chasseurs for more than nine brutal hours. The French Zouaves would be discovered by Americans and lionized—evidenced by the scores of Zouave regiments that would fight in the Civil War, styled after their French counterparts. In the aftermath of the Battle of Solferino, a total of 40,000 French, Austrian, Italian casualties littered the countryside. From the horrors of this battle the International Red Cross would be born, founded in 1864 by Swiss businessman (Jean) Henri Dunant, eyewitness to the slaughter. This organization would serve as a model for the American Association of the Red Cross, established by Clara Barton in 1881.

Kearny wrote of his battle experience to his cousin John Watts De Peyster:

Paris, July 14, 1859
My two months have been all that a Military Man would have desired—a school of such grandeur as rarely occurs, even here in the Old World—and the Drama has been complete. I have roamed about everywhere, and in the day of Solferino, I was not only present with the line of our cavalry skirmishers, (but) as well in every charge that took place. That day I was mounted from six in the morning till eleven at night—scarcely off my horse even for a few minutes—depend on it, he was a good one. The cavalry of the guard came up some sixteen miles in full trot and rapid gallop to take our places, under fire; for there was a gap we had to stop. The night before the battle I had a miraculous escape, having been inveigled by false guides into the midst of the Austrian masses.

Painting of French Infantry at the Battle of Solferino

Kearny was awarded the French Legion d'Honneur (Legion of Honor), France's highest military accolade,  becoming the first U.S. citizen to be honored with the medal.

On January 25, 1860, Agnes gave birth to a a son who was named Archibald Kennedy Kearney, after Kearny's late great-uncle, a prominent New Yorker.  Every member of the household staff was given a generous sum of money and each caller at their home during the week following the birth received a watch as a celebration token of Archibald's birth.  Kearny wrote De Peyster: "Our son is handsome, sturdy and well formed.  I pray he will enjoy a grand life, and I thank God for having blessed my middle years with such a perfect offspring."

Kearny stayed in Paris until April 1861, when the Civil War began in the United States.  By taste, temperament and breeding, he had an affinity for upper-class Southerners, and often admitted preferring the gracious elegance of Charleston, to the Yankee way of life. He believed in "aristocracy as did the Southern "gentry."  To him the highest human virtues were chivalry and courage. Yet he detested slavery.  The "peculiar institution" was, he felt, "an inhuman practice and a barbarous evil." 

He was recruited by the South to join their cause; although he may have sympathized with many of the South's concerns, and was friendly with many of their military leaders, he told them, "What am I, if no longer American." 

Kearny, along with Agnes and their children, returned home to offer his service to the Union. Since so many military officers had joined with the Southern cause, the Union was desperate for skilled leadership.  But Kearny was virtually ignored: his reputation for difficulty overshadowed his reputation for courage and leadership. Also, the scandal with Agnes Maxwell outraged many in the War Department. When he realized he was not going to be granted a commission in the army, he tried to join as a private, but was rejected because of the amputation of his left arm.  

Aftermath of Bull Run

The disastrous Battle of Bull Run shook the War Department bureaucrats and made many realize that high commissions could no longer be handed out to nonentities for political reasons. In July, 1861, New Jersey commissioned him as a Brigadier General, and placed him in command of the New Jersey Brigade stationed near Alexandria, Virginia. His new brigade was barely trained and undisciplined. He immediately began to change that with constant drills and marches. He would also win their loyalty and affection by personally looking after them and ensuring that they were properly nourished, uniformed and armed. Any deficiencies were resolved by his purchase of the necessary goods out of his own pocket.

He urged General George McClellan, head of the Union forces, to attack Richmond, the Southern capital, but McClellan held the army back. The longer McClellan hesitated, the more frustrated Kearny became, finally culminating in series of published letters criticizing the commander. 

George McClellan

At the beginning of November, Agnes gave birth to another daughter, Virginia DeLancey Kearny, at Bellegrove.  She was named after the state of Virginia, where her father was serving when she was born. 

Kearny in 1862

 In February, 1862, while at the camp in Fairfax, Kearny received a telegram from Agnes:

COME AT ONCE.  ARCHIE DESPERATELY ILL WITH TYPHOID. 

Kearny set out at once for Bellegrove; he adored his sturdy two-old son. Once, while watching her husband with Archie, Agnes had remarked: "The lad is Phil's life, and I must be grateful he still finds a place in it for me " On February 19, Kearny reached his home. His cousin, Dr. Robert Watts, met him:

Phil, who had seen so much death, who had courted it himself, slumped in a chair, motionless, gray-faced and hunched.  The proud, iron-willed soldier had disappeared.  Instead, I saw before me a father, crushed by imminent tragedy. 


The excruciating wait lasted two days.  Archie died on Washington's Birthday, which dawned bleak, cold and rainy.  Kearny was "broken with grief," according to De Peyster, who said, "It appeared as if Phil did not greatly care to live after the death of lovely Archie."

Within a week he was with his troops again, busy with preparations for the expected spring offensive. Kearny hid his heartbreak in hard work. At times he managed to alleviate his pain, but nothing really brought him relief.   He confided to an aide: "I am an empty vessel.  The sky is permanently darkened for me.  I shall mourn my boy forever. Yet I cannot forget that Agnes is suffering even more at home without any distraction for her sorrow.  At least through duty I am afforded partial oblivion."

Finally in March, 1862, McClellan began the Peninsula Campaign in an effort to advance towards Richmond. In May, Kearny was appointed commander of the 3rd Division as the Union Army continued to advance slowly up the Virginia Peninsula.  On March 7, the drummers sounded the long roll in the encampment of the New Jersey Brigade. Kearney rode at the head of the long column. Behind him came his staff; among them was a recent West Point graduate, yellow-haired Lieutenant George Armstrong Custer.  

Boasting that he could "make my men follow me to hell," he rushed his troops to the aid of General Joe Hooker at Williamsburg. At one point his troops were bogged down by enemy gunfire in a heavily wooded area. When he told them to return fire, they replied that they could not see the enemy. He charged forward on his horse, his reins in his mouth, drawing the southern troops out of hiding to shoot at him. Racing back to his own line he shouted, "Now you know where they are boys! Go get them!" Twice he escaped ambushes and he had at least one horse shot from under him during the campaign.  He held the reins in his teeth as he had learned to ride with the Chasseurs in France.

The Battle of Williamsburg

When his men came up to the firing line, Kearny noticed some of them nervously ducking as shots whistled by. He galloped to them and shouted, "Don't flinch, boys! They're shooting at me, not at you!"

Gustav A. Schurmann, served under Kearny as an orderly and boy bugler during the Peninsular Campaign in the summer of 1862. In his adulthood, Schurmann wrote a bit about his war-time experiences:

In the early part of 1861, I was drumming recruits in Chatham Square, New York City, for the Forty-second Regiment Volunteers (Tammany), for a couple of months, when my father enlisted in the Fortieth N.Y. Volunteers (Mozart) at Yonkers. With the Forty-second not treating me well, I left them, not being mustered in, and tried to join the Fortieth. But its commander, Colonel Riley, would not take me on the account of my being too small and also too young, being only eleven years old. As soon as Colonel Riley said "no" I began to cry, and turned away from the tent, but my father went and spoke to him. Then he called me back and made me take a drum and a beat. All the men commenced to laugh because the drum was nearly as big as myself, but nevertheless the colonel said I would do.

I was with the regiment from the Battle of Williamsburg, our first fight, until we went to Harrison's Landing. Corporal Brown, a clerk at General Kearny's headquarters and also a member of our regiment, came to me one day stating that General Kearny ordered him to get him a drummer from our regiment to serve as an orderly for one day, as General McClellan was to review the army the next day. I reported myself the next morning early. The general received me kindly and gave me his gray horse (Baby), one that he brought from Mexico. During the review, the general had occasion to jump a very large ditch. I jumped it with him, but a great many of the officers had to cross further up. I think my jumping this ditch brought me favorably to his notice. Accordingly, when I reported myself in the evening after the review, so as to return to my regiment, he said, "No, but go and bring your baggage over to headquarters and consider yourself my orderly in the future."

From that day until his death I was always with the general. It was his habit to ride outside of the picket-guard every day at Harrison's Landing, only taking me with him. Many a time I would have to ride on top of the horse, lengthwise, so as not to knock my legs against the trees. He would go so fast through them, one time my hat was knocked off. As the general never stopped, by the time I was in the saddle again there was no general to be seen. But I gave "Baby" his own way and in less than five minutes he brought me up to him. I have known that same horse to kick at him as he went in the gate. The general would then "damn" me for not holding the horse tight, but for all that the general always treated me the same as my own father would have done.

After the Battle of Williamsburg, McClellan advanced his army down the Peninsula with such caution that Kearny called him "the Virginia Creeper."  He wrote in a letter to Agnes:  "We advance, not as fierce invaders, but like timid trespassers. I know not what the Young Napoleon has in mind.  Assuredly he can not hope to capture Richmond by our present actions.  The hour calls for audacity.  Instead we are offered timorousness."

As the Battle of Seven Pines was ending, a Yankee sharpshooter hit Confederate General Joe Johnston in the shoulder. Then a shell splinter pierced his chest and he was carried to the rear, badly wounded. Robert E. Lee succeeded to the command of the Army of Northern Virginia. 

Illustration of Kearny at "Seven Pines"

Seven Pines ended indecisively. Neither side gained any ground; the armies held the identical positions they had occupied before the shooting. But with one great difference: some 12,000 men Yankee and Confederate were numbered as killed, wounded or missing.

Following fighting at Seven Pines, a lull fell across the battle front. The men dug in along the Chickahominy and in the swamps there many sickened with fever. Kearny devised a method that would help him readily identify his men and also alleviate some of the monotony of camp life. He had each man sew on his cap a diamond-shaped piece of red flannel. This concept for corps badges soon became widely used in the army and is still in use today. 

By the end of June, in the Seven Days' Battles, Kearny's division was engaged at Oak Grove, Glendale, and Malvern Hill. Typically believing his forces to be outnumbered, McClellan ordered a retreat to Harrison's Landing on the James River, in what would be termed the "Great Skedaddle."

General Hiram Berry, Commander of the Third Brigade, later wrote: "Phil unloosed a broadside. He pitched into McClellan with language so strong that all who heard it expected he would be placed under arrest until a general court-martial could be held. I was certain Kearny would be relieved of his command on the spot."  McClellan waited for Kearny to calm down and then said nothing in reply. 

Currier & Ives Print of the Battle of Malvern Hill

After the Battle of Malvern Hill on July 1st, which was a Union victory, McClellan ordered a withdrawal, and Kearny wrote:

I, Philip Kearny, an old soldier, enter my solemn protest against this order for retreat. We ought instead of retreating should follow up the enemy and take Richmond. And in full view of all responsible for such declaration, I say to you all, such an order can only be prompted by cowardice or treason.

Illustration of Kearny at Malvern Hill

Kearny was promoted to major general on July 4, 1862. Southern soldiers in a mix of amazement and admiration began referring to him as "The One-Armed Devil." Whispers began in Washington about replacing McClellan with a more aggressive commander. Kearny was rumored to be the leading candidate.

In late August the army began to push towards Manassas, Virginia, for the disastrous Second Battle of Bull Run under the command of General John Pope. On August 29, Kearny led his division on a desperate charge at the Confederate left at Groveton. He almost won, but was forced back by superior forces. The following day, Stonewall Jackson battered the Union lines on all fronts; as night fell only a few troops fought on. Kearny's men were one of those few. 

On September 1st, a severe thunderstorm developed, resulting in limited visibility and an increased dependence on the bayonet, as the rain soaked the ammunition of the infantry and made it useless.  All during the morning, Confederate cavalry skirmished with Union infantry and cavalry. At about 3 p.m., General Isaac Stevens' division arrived at Ox Hill. Despite being outnumbered, Stevens chose to attack across a grassy field against General Alexander Lawton's division in the Confederate center. The Union attack was initially successful, routing the brigade of Colonel Henry Strong and driving in the flank of Captain William Brown, with Brown killed during the fighting. The Union division was driven back following a counterattack by Confederate Jubal Early's brigade. Stevens was killed during this attack about 5 p.m. by a shot through his temple.

Isaac Stevens

Kearny arrived about this time with his division and deployed General David Birney's brigade, ordering it to attack across the field.  Birney managed to maneuver close to the Confederate line, but his attack stalled in hand-to-hand combat with Confederate General A.P. Hill's division.   By nightfall, the rain poured down in blinding sheets. Kearny, who often did his own scouting during battle, disregarded the warnings of a subordinate.  Reportedly said, "The Rebel bullet that can kill me has not yet been molded." Kearny mistakenly rode into the Confederate lines during the battle; an order was given to halt and surrender, but Kearny galloped away as the soldiers fired at him. Witnesses remembered him shouting, "They can't hit a barn!" A bullet entered the base of his spine and killed him instantly.  He fell from his horse into a muddy pool of rainwater.

Illustration of Kearny at the Battle of Chantilly
with his reins in his teeth and lightning in the sky

William B. Styple, Kearny's aide de camp, wrote about his experience in a piece entitled "The Death of General Philip Kearny":

William B. Styple

 I was Aide de Camp to General Kearny, and accompanied him during the Battle of Chantilly, when he rode on in advance of his Division to see the position occupied by the troops of General Stevens whom we were to relieve or re-inforce. We rode along the line, and General Kearny sent off one staff officer after another with orders, until I was the only one left with him. We finally arrived at the right of Stevens' line, where a battery was shelling the opposite woods. The General ordered me to ride at a gallop, back to General Pope, commanding one of our Brigades, and order him to "double-quick" his brigade to that point and go into line. I did so, and returned as quickly as possible to the Battery. The rain was falling fast and darkness was coming on. I inquired of the Battery men which way General Kearny went, and they replied, pointing down to the right and front, "that way." "My God," was my exclamation, "we have no troops there, he has ridden right into the enemy lines." And so it proved. Wishing to know the nature of the ground and whether the woods were occupied or not, he rode with his usual bravery, to his death, as we learned from the Confederates, who next day brought in his body under a flag of truce. The General rode up to a whole company of the enemy, paid no attention to their demand that he surrender, wheeled his horse and started back. The whole company fired a volley, but only one bullet struck him; that entered his hip as he lay low along the horse, and came out at the shoulder. And so fell the most picturesque and gallant soldier that it was my fortune to meet during the war.

A.P. Hill ran up to the Kearny's body with a lantern and exclaimed, "You've killed Phil Kearny, he deserved a better fate than to die in the mud."   Kearny's loss would be felt deeply by many on both sides of the war, for a number of the officers in the Confederacy had been comrades of his during the Mexican War and regarded him with the highest respect. The next day, General  Robert E. Lee sent Kearny's body back to Union forces with a condolence note. The body was then sent to Washington for embalming, and then to his home, Bellegrove, where it lay in state. 

A.P. Hill

On September 8, Kearny was paraded and honored for a final time, first in Newark and then in Jersey City. The General's portrait was in many windows.  a favorite likeness showing him astride his great gray charger Moscow, his cape flying in the wind, a sword brandished in his right hand while the empty left sleeve of his tunic hung limply.

Many years later his widow. Agnes Kearney, recalled: "The lovely weather on the day of Phil's funeral saddened me. I remember wishing it had been otherwise . . . rainy and dismal ... I regretted that our Suzanne and Virginia were so young that in a few years they would no longer have any recollection of their father ... He was a man worth remembering . . ."  Suzy was six years old and Virginia less than a year when their father died.

Kearny's coffin was then brought by ferry to New York City, and after services in Trinity Church, buried in the with other members of the Watts family in the churchyard.  

General Winfield Scott called Kearny "the bravest and most perfect soldier" he had ever known.

Kearny's will, dated January  8, 1861 in Paris, provided that Agnes Maxwell Kearny would have $3,000 per year.  The settlement of the income of $8,000 made for Kearny's first wife, Diana Bullitt, was directed, in case of her death, to go, one-half to their son John Watts Kearny, and one-half to Kearny's son with Agnes, Archibald Kennedy Kearny.  In the event that one of the sons died without issue, all the income would to go to the other.

John Watts Kearny

His daughter Susan received $10,000.  A codicil to the will was dated March 17, 1862 in  Washington, D.C., and Virginia, who was born in November 1861 after the will was written, was given $500 per year until she arrived of age.  The guardians of each of the children were to be paid $600 per annum until the ward of arrived at age.  Edward Kearny of New York, a cousin, was appointed Executor and Trustee of the will.

On November 29, 1862, the officers of the First Division, Third Corps established a medal of honor which bore Kearny's motto: "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori."  It is a line from the Roman poet Horace's Odes, which can be roughly translated into English as: "It is sweet and right to die for your country."

Kearny Medal of Valor

This medal, which was to be known as the "Kearny Medal of Valor," was presented to all officers (and those soldiers promoted to officers prior to January 1, 1863) who had "honorably served in battle under General Kearny in his division." On March 13, 1863, General Birney, who served in Kearny's brigade, issued an order to establish a "cross of valor" which was to be known as the "Kearny Cross." This would be awarded to non-commissioned officers and privates who had distinguished themselves in battle. 

Kearny Cross

Kearny's cousin, John Watts de Peyster, wrote a biography of the general, Personal and Military History of General Philip Kearny, which was published in 1869.  

1888 - On the Steps of Bellegrove
John Watts Kearny, upper right
with family members

While there was no truth to the rumor that Philip Kearny's son by Diana, John Watts Kearny, had tried to join the Confederate Army so he could shoot at his father, there was no love lost between them. Their son sided with his mother during the divorce and rarely, if ever, spoke to his father after it. After his father's death, it was said that John Kearny received the largest inheritance in the history of the United States to that date. Eventually he settled at Bellegrove. The estate stayed in the family's hands until it was torn down in 1926 to make room for a real estate development.

Advertisement for Sale of  Lots on the Kearny Estate

In 1868 Agnes married Admiral John E. Upshur, a widower with several children.

Both Suzy Kearny and her younger sister, Virginia, married navy officers from prominent families,  Suzy's husband was the son of Commodore Selfridge.   A wife, mother, and Gilded Age socialite, she remained driven by the need to know and honor the heroic father she scarcely remembered, Kearny having been away fighting, first in Italy and then in Virginia, for three of the six years before he died. Immersing herself in the details of his life and career, she gave lectures, attended veterans' events, and funded memorials across the country in his name.

Virginia DeLancey Kearny married Lt. Ridgely Hunt, USN.  Her bridegroom was the son of William Henry Hunt, Secretary of the Navy under Presidents Garfield and Arthur, and their wedding took place in Washington, DC, on the eve of her 25th birthday. A socialite and mother of two, she died suddenly on Long Island at the age of 35. She was buried in the family vault of her great-grandfather, John Watts, alongside her father and her brother Archie. 

The Kearny Museum

Kearny, New Jersey, named after General Kearny, began as a township formed by an Act of the New Jersey Legislature on April 8, 1867, from portions of Harrison Township. Kearny was incorporated as a town on January 19, 1899, based on the results of a referendum held two days earlier.  The Kearny Museum contains a display of furniture from his Bellegrove home, donated by his granddaughter and second wife, as well as other Kearny memorabilia.

Bullet that killed Kearny
on display at the Kearny Museum

A statue of Philip Kearny, which originally stood at the State House in Trenton, was dedicated at Military Park in Newark in 1880. The ceremony was attended by Ulysses S. Grant, William T. Sherman and Governor George McClellan. 

Kearney Statue in Military Park, Newark, New Jersey

In 1890, Kearney and Agnes's eldest daughter, Susan, requested a personal tribute about her father by the Comte de Paris (Louis Philippe Albert d'Orleans). The Comte de Paris, a former aide of General McClellan and son of the Duc d'Orleans (whom Kearny had served as a member of the Chasseurs), wrote:

One who saw Philip Kearny recognized in him the typical soldier. As early as 1849 the young and brilliant cavalry officer had lost his left arm before one of the gates of Mexico at the battle of Churubusco. His infirmity did not prevent him from always mounting the most vigorous-looking horses, which he controlled on the march with rare elegance, holding in his only hand his reins and his naked sword. A head, the picture of energy, framed by the cape which almost invariably hung about his shoulders, a strongly marked nose, and a piercing eye, gave him the look of an eagle. His abrupt speech and his imperious manner denoted a proud disposition, and a character incapable of flattery or of dissimulation. But though at first his manner was not always fitted to attract, one soon learned to appreciate the noble qualities of his heart, the firmness of his will, the accuracy of his judgment, the truthfulness and grandeur of his soul. This man, apparently so nervous, was calmness itself in the presence of the enemy. His unerring eye, his prompt decision, his clear and concise orders, at once revealed in him the true warrior. He inspired an unbounded confidence in all those who had once been under fire with him.

"Taking Kearny's Body from Trinity Church", 1912

In 1912, despite protests from members of his family, his body was moved to Arlington National Cemetery, when an elaborate memorial with an equestrian statue was built.  

Kearny Statue at Arlington National Cemetery

The re-interment drive was spearheaded by Medal of Honor recipient Charles F. Hopkins, who had served under Kearny in the First New Jersey Brigade. 

Charles F. Hopkins, 1865

Charles F. Hopkins, 
later in his life

The statue was dedicated by President Woodrow Wilson in November 1914. 

Dedication of Kearny Statue, Arlington National Cemetery,
November 11th, 1914

The following year, 1915, Hopkins had monuments to Stevens and Kearny placed on the Ox Hill battlefield.  

 On October 2, 1915, descendants gathered for the dedication of a monument to
General Philip Kearny, killed in action, September 1, 1862.
John Watts Kearny, the general's son, stands behind the monument.
Great-granddaughter Lucy Kearny Hill, stands at right in the front row.

Ox Hill Battlefield Park, established in the late 1980s,  sits in the middle of housing units and a shopping center. Thanks to the work done by Chantilly Battlefield Association and the trustees of the monument plot at Ox Hill Battlefield Park, these monuments are what little there is left of the battlefield.

Ox Hill Battlefield Monuments to Kearny and Stevens

Agnes Maxwell Kearny Upshur died in on July 2, 1917, a month after the death of her husband of nearly 50 years, John Upshur.  She was buried in Arlington National Cemetery beside John and his first wife.

Agnes Maxwell Kearny Upshur

In 1925 the statue of Kearny in Newark  was moved to another part of the park to make room for the "Wars of America" monument. In 1961, the it was reset on the pedestal facing west, its back to the Passaic River and the town of Kearny that was his home and was named in his honor.  In the 1990's the statue was taken down for restoration and in a compromise, an exact copy was made for the Township of Kearny, which was unveiled in 1994 in front of the Kearny Post Office. Some of the bricks recovered from Bellegrove were used in the base of the statue.

Statue of Kearny
 in the National Statuary Hall in Capitol Building

A statue of Kearny represents New Jersey in the National Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol building.

Bayard Rustin, died August 24, 1987

Bayard Rustin was a civil rights activist, and the main organizer of the 1963 March on Washington.

A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin

"What Rustin took away from A. Philip Randolph, especially, is the recognition that economic issues and racial justice issues are completely intertwined," says his biographer, John D'Emilio. Despite his extensive involvement in the civil rights movement, Rustin was content to remain behind the scenes, D'Emilio says.  "I think of it as part of the Quaker heritage that he internalized. You don't push yourself forward," D'Emilio says. "It doesn't matter if you don't get the credit for it. What is important is this notion of speaking truth to power."

Rustin had a long involvement with refugee affairs. As a Vice Chairman of the International Rescue Committee, he traveled the world working to secure food, medical care, education, and proper resettlement for refugees. His visits to Southeast Asia helped to bring the plight of the Vietnamese “boat people” to the attention of the American public. In 1980 he took part in the international March for Survival on the Thai-Cambodian border. In 1982, he also helped found the National Emergency Coalition for Haitian Refugees.As Chairman of the Executive Committee of Freedom House, an agency which monitored international freedom and human rights, Rustin observed elections in Zimbabwe, El Salvador, and Grenada. His last mission abroad, coordinated by Freedom House, was a delegation to Haiti to help create democratic reform in that country.

In 1983, Rustin and two colleagues made a fact-finding visit to South Africa. Their report, South Africa: Is Peaceful Change Possible? led to the formation of Project South Africa, a program that sought to broaden Americans’ support of groups within South Africa working for democracy through peaceful means.

Late in life, Bayard Rustin gave numerous interviews discussing how anti-gay prejudice had affected his life’s work. He was invited to address gay and lesbian groups and testified on behalf of New York City’s gay rights bill. In 1986, he gave a speech "The New Niggers Are Gays," in which he asserted,

Today, blacks are no longer the litmus paper or the barometer of social change. Blacks are in every segment of society and there are laws that help to protect them from racial discrimination. The new "niggers" are gays. . . . It is in this sense that gay people are the new barometer for social change. . . . The question of social change should be framed with the most vulnerable group in mind: gay people.

In 1987, after his visit to Haiti to study prospects for democratic elections in that country, Rustin began to feel unwell. His symptoms were initially misdiagnosed as intestinal parasites.  On August 21, 1987, Rustin was admitted to Lenox Hill Hospital and diagnosed with a perforated appendix.

Rustin died in New York City on August 24, 1987.  His obituary in the New York Times reported:

Bayard Rustin, the pacifist and civil rights activist who was a chief organizer of the 1963 March on Washington and the 1964 New York school boycott, died early yesterday at Lenox Hill Hospital. He was 75 years old and was a longtime resident of the Chelsea section of Manhattan.

A spokesman for the hospital, Jean Brett, said Mr. Rustin was admitted to its emergency room Friday morning ''complaining of abdominal pain'' and later that morning he ''underwent surgery for a perforated appendix and peritonitis.'' At 11:20 P.M. Sunday, the statement added, ''Mr. Rustin went into cardiac arrest and died at 12:02 A.M.'' yesterday.  Mr. Rustin's administrative assistant and adopted son, Walter Naegle, said, ''He seemed to be bouncing back and doing O.K., but he had a history of heart problems, and it appears that the strain of the operation caused the cardiac arrest.''

At his death, Mr. Rustin was co-chairman, with Leon Lynch, of the A. Philip Randolph Institute, an educational, civil rights and labor organization based in New York, and president of its education fund.

Commenting on Mr. Rustin's death, Roy Innis, national chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality, said: ''Bayard Rustin was a planner, a coordinator, a thinker. He influenced all of the young leaders in the civil rights movement, even those of us who did not agree with him ideologically.''

Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Democrat of New York, said: ''We first met on the march for jobs and freedom. It was an event that changed the nation. From that moment forward, the great civil rights bills of 1964 and 1965 were not only possible but near accomplished. He taught us love and gave us peace.''

Mr. Rustin's career ranged from such activities as having organized the first Freedom Ride, which was then called a Journey of Reconciliation, in 1947, to a role in the Free India movement before the subcontinent gained its independence from Britain, to involvement in antinuclear demonstrations in England and North Africa and to serving as an aide to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Mr. Rustin once described his militant activity this way: ''I believe in social dislocation and creative trouble.''

''Mr. March'' was what A. Philip Randolph, the labor leader, called Mr. Rustin in tribute to his tireless efforts in planning and arranging the 1963 demonstration, called the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, in which 200,000 people took part.

That success was repeated when Mr. Rustin directed the one-day school boycott, on Feb. 3, 1964, which was called by groups that were dissatisfied with the New York City Board of Education's integration efforts. All told, 464,000 pupils stayed away from school, 360,000 more than the daily average.

Mr. Rustin was a complex, intense man with a flair for advocacy and a passion for detail. He built an international reputation as an organizer because of his skill at planning every aspect of protest demonstrations and his imaginativeness as a tactician.  He also won admirers as a political philosopher and analyst. But he never had a big power base among blacks, and late in life he was criticized by some who felt he was more an advocate of Jewish, labor and white liberal causes than of black causes.

Mr. Rustin's effectiveness as an advocate and organizer was enhanced by his striking appearance: He was a 200-pound six-footer with high cheekbones, intense eyes and, late in life, a shock of white hair.

. . . Looking back at his career, Mr. Rustin, a Quaker, once wrote: ''The principal factors which influenced my life are 1) nonviolent tactics; 2) constitutional means; 3) democratic procedures; 4) respect for human personality; 5) a belief that all people are one.''

Mr. Rustin had repeated run-ins with the law over the years. As an ardent pacifist, he spent 28 months in prison for refusing military service in World War II. He spent weeks on a North Carolina road gang after being convicted of violating bus seating laws in a civil rights demonstration in 1947. And, as the years passed, he was imprisoned or arrested more than 20 times, in cases including numerous charges in connection with his civil rights and pacifist activity.   Early in life he was a radical: he belonged to the Young Communist League for several years, then embraced Socialism and for decades was associated with Mr. Randolph, who was a founder of the modern-day civil rights movement.

. . . In his later years, Mr. Rustin's support of the unions and Israel, and his role as a prime interpreter of the black movement to the unions, to liberals and to various religious groups, won him both widespread praise and strong criticism; some blacks considered him to be an Uncle Tom, subservient to whites. In 1978 the American Jewish Congress gave Mr. Rustin one of its annual Stephen Wise awards for ''illustrious leadership in the cause of racial justice, world peace and human understanding.''  But Mr. Rustin was also criticized by blacks who were more militant than he on a variety of issues.  ''Bayard has no credibility in the black community,'' James Farmer, the veteran official of the Congress of Racial Equality, once contended. ''Bayard's commitment is to labor, not to the black man. His belief that the black man's problem is economic, not racist, runs counter to black community thinking.''

Mr. Rustin's insistence on nonviolence was also controversial. He believed in it so strongly that during rioting in Harlem in 1964 he went into the streets and tried to persuade the participants to stop. But bottles were thrown at him, and his efforts were criticized by some blacks.

Mr. Rustin's advocacy of black-Jewish harmony and of support for Israel, a major theme of his later years, also became controversial among blacks.  In the late 1960's, commenting on what was widely regarded as a rise in anti-Semitism among blacks, he urged restraint as well as good will. ''I request the understanding, the cooperation and the aid of Jews,'' he said in addressing a conference of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith. ''I do so knowing that there is Negro anti-Semitism and knowing how Jews must feel when they hear some Negro extremists talk.'' He urged his audience to ''remember that the issue never can be simply a problem of Jew and gentile or black and white. The problem is man's inhumanity to man.''

. . . In his later years, Mr. Rustin continued to be active and outspoken on a wide variety of fronts. He was chairman of Social Democrats U.S.A., a descendant of the Socialist Party of Eugene V. Debs and Norman Thomas; chairman of the executive committee of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights; and the first black trustee of the University of Notre Dame. 

In an interview published in The Village Voice on June 30, Mr. Rustin was quoted as saying he was homosexual. Asked in the interview how this and his 1953 arrest and subsequent sentence of 60 days in Pasadena, Calif., on a morals charge had affected his civil rights work, he said that ''there was considerable prejudice amongst a number of people I worked with,'' although they would not admit it.  He added, ''The fact of the matter is, it was already known, it was nothing to hide. You can't hurt the movement unless you have something to reveal.'' He contended that the arrest was the result of entrapment which, he suggested, was for political reasons. 

Mr. Rustin was unmarried. He is survived by an uncle, Earl Rustin, of West Chester, Pa.; an aunt, Anna Luff of Queens; three half-sisters, and his adopted son, Mr. Naegle, of Manhattan, who was his administrative assistant at the Institute for the last three years.

Walter Naegle and Bayard Rustin

Rustin was survived by Walter Naegle, his partner of ten years.  Rustin was cremated and his ashes are buried in an unmarked spot on an estate in New York.

Despite the fact that he played an important role in the civil rights movement, Rustin "faded from the shortlist of well-known civil rights lions," in large part because of public discomfort with his sexual orientation.  However, the 2003 documentary film Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin, a Sundance Festival Grand Jury Prize nominee, and the March 2012 centennial of Rustin's birth have contributed to some renewed recognition.

The late Jervis Anderson published a biography in 1997, Bayard Rustin: Troubles I've Seen, as did Daniel Levine in 1999, Bayard Rustin and the Civil Rights Movement. The most extensive biography to date is John D'Emilio's Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin. A historian of sexuality, particularly the gay liberation movement, D'Emilio focuses more intently than any previous biographer on Rustin's sexual entanglements and crises, and the effects of homophobia on his career. 

 On August 8, 2013, President Barack Obama posthumously awarded Rustin the Presidential Medal of Freedom.  The citation in the press release stated:

Bayard Rustin was an unyielding activist for civil rights, dignity, and equality for all.  An advisor to the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., he promoted nonviolent resistance, participated in one of the first Freedom Rides, organized the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, and fought tirelessly for marginalized communities at home and abroad. As an openly gay African American, Mr. Rustin stood at the intersection of several of the fights for equal rights. 

Throughout his life, Rustin's Quakerism was a unifying force in his life and a strong plank in his personal philosophy, incorporating beliefs that were of central importance to him: that there is that of God in every person, that all are entitled to a decent life, and that a life of service to others is the way to happiness and true fulfillment.

LZ Granderson wrote in August 2013:

As big and as looming and as destructive as racism has been and continues to be in society, we must remember it is only a branch.

The root of the problem, the reason why we continue to struggle with equality, is our pathological intolerance, an intolerance no collective group of people has proven to be immune to.

"I say to you today, my friends, even though we face the difficulties of today, and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up, live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.'"

Dr. King's dream has not been fulfilled because we began betraying the integrity of his dream the moment we started scrubbing Rustin's life out of Black History Month lessons and civil rights movies.

We betray that dream each time a black person claims offense to the notion that gay rights are civil rights, as if the black community is the only community capable of being oppressed.

We betray King's dream each time a white elected official is allowed to say things about the gay community in ways that would never be tolerated if directed at the black community.

I don't say these things because I view the history and plight of these two minority groups as being exactly the same -- they are not.

I say these things because racism and homophobia -- like anti-Semitism, sexism and xenophobia -- all have the same mother. And as long as concessions are made for one, we will never be free from the clutches of the others.
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the nation's highest civilian award. It was established by President Kennedy 50 years ago. Considering the anniversary of the march, it is fitting that Rustin is among the 16 being honored with it in November.

But like King, he was more than August 28, 1963.

He was a giant.

And so while the medal is special, the best way to honor him is to talk about him, all of him, both now and in the many years to come. Bayard Rustin spent his life fighting for peace and equality and he did so unashamed of who he was. It's about time history, and the people he helped most, stop being ashamed of him.

“Every indifference to prejudice is suicide because, if I don’t fight all bigotry, bigotry itself will be strengthened and, sooner or later, it will return on me.”

~ Bayard Rustin 

Philip Sheridan, died August 5, 1888

Comanche Chief Tosawi reputedly told Sheridan in 1869, "Me, Tosawi; me good Injun," to which Sheridan supposedly replied, "The only good Indians I ever saw were dead." Sheridan denied he had ever made the statement. Biographer Roy Morris Jr. states that, nevertheless, popular history credits Sheridan with saying "The only good Indian is a dead Indian."

Tosawi

At two conferences in 1867 and 1868, the federal government demanded that the Plains Indians give up their lands and move to reservations. In return for supplies and annuities, the southern Plains Indians were told to move to poor, unproductive lands in Oklahoma and the northern tribes to the Black Hills of the Dakotas. The alternative to acceptance was warfare. The commissioner of Indian Affairs, Ely S. Parker, himself a Seneca Indian, declared that any Indian who refused to "locate in permanent abodes provided for them, would be subject wholly to the control and supervision of military authorities." Many whites regarded the Plains Indians as an intolerable obstacle to westward expansion. 

In the Winter Campaign of 1868–69, Sheridan attacked the Cheyenne, Kiowa and Comanche tribes in their winter quarters, taking their supplies and livestock, and killing those who resisted. Professional hunters, trespassing on Indian land, killed over 4 million bison by 1874, and Sheridan applauded: "Let them kill, skin and sell until the buffalo is exterminated". When the Texas legislature considered outlawing bison poaching on tribal lands, Sheridan personally testified against it, suggesting that the legislature should give each of the hunters a medal, engraved with a dead buffalo on one side and a discouraged-looking Indian on the other. In 1860, about 13 million roamed the Plains. By 1890, only about 1,000 bison remained alive.  Eventually the Indians returned to their designated reservations.

Sheridan was unconcerned about the high casualties among non-combatants, once remarking that "If a village is attacked and women and children killed, the responsibility is not with the soldiers; but, with the people whose crimes necessitated the attack." 

In 1870, President Grant, at Sheridan's request, sent him to observe and report on the Franco-Prussian War.  As a guest of the King of Prussia, he was present when Napoleon III surrendered to the Germans, which was gratifying to Sheridan following his experiences with the French in Mexico. He later toured  Europe. 

In 1871, Sheridan was present in Chicago during the Great Chicago Fire, and coordinated military relief efforts. The mayor, to calm the panic, placed the city under martial law, and issued a proclamation putting Sheridan in charge.

The protection of the Yellowstone area was Sheridan's personal crusade. He authorized Lieutenant Gustavus Doane to escort the Washburn Expedition in 1870, and for Captain John Barlow to escort the Hayden Expedition in 1871.  Barlow named a peak in Yellowstone overlooking Heart Lake as "Mount Sheridan" for the general in 1871. As early as 1875, Sheridan promoted military control of the area to prevent the destruction of natural formations and wildlife.

On June 3, 1875, Philip Sheridan married Irene Rucker, the youngest daughter of Army Quartermaster General Daniel Rucker.  She was 22, and he was 44.  In 1874 she had been a bridesmaid at a wedding in Chicago, where Sheridan, who was also in attendance, had his headquarters. Though seemingly a confirmed bachelor, he was smitten. A whirlwind courtship ensued, and the couple were married a year later in a ceremony performed by Bishop Foley of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago. 

Irene Rucker Sheridan

After the wedding, Sheridan and his wife moved to Washington, D.C. They lived in a house given to them by Chicago citizens in appreciation for Sheridan's protection of the city after the Great Chicago Fire in 1871.  During their happy marriage, she was admired for both her beauty and her charm as a society hostess.

Sheridan returned to Oregon in 1875 with his wife and his brother, Michael Sheridan.   In Salem, he stayed at the Chemeketa Hotel and met with Oregon Governor Lafayette Grover, an old friend. He then visited the Grand Ronde Reservation and the former site of Fort Yamhill, which had been decommissioned in 1866.

Sheridan and his wife had four children: Mary, born in 1876; twin daughters, Irene and Louise, in 1877; and Philip, Jr., in 1880. 

Late in 1876, Sheridan was sent to New Orleans to command troops keeping the peace in the aftermath of the disputed presidential election.

Thomas Nast Cartoon
Harper's Weekly, December 21, 1878An unhappy-looking Native American, with a sign hanging around his neck saying “THIS IS THE NOBLE RED MAN.” stands on a bureau. On either side of him are doors: the left door is labeled “INTERIOR DEPARTMENT” and in front of it stands U.S. Secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz, hands in pocket, with a serious expression on his face. On the right is a door labeled ”WAR DEPARTMENT“ with an equally serious looking General Philip Sheridan standing in front of it.  In back of the door, General William Tecumseh Sherman peers out. Schurz and Sheridan eye each other resolutely

Sheridan's department conducted the Red River War, the Ute War, and the Great Sioux War of 1876-1877, which resulted in the death of  Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer. 

George Armstrong Custer

The Indian raids subsided during the 1870s and were almost over by the early 1880s, as Sheridan became the commanding general of the U.S. Army. The Apache War did not end until 1886, when their leader, Geronimo was captured.

Sheridan served as the ninth president of the National Rifle Association, which was founded in 1871.  

Sheridan with Party at Yellowstone, 1881

In 1882, the Department of the Interior granted rights to the Yellowstone Park Improvement Company to develop 4,000 acres in the park. Their plan was to build a railroad into the park and sell the land to developers. Sheridan personally organized opposition to the plan and lobbied Congress for protection of the park; including expansion, military control, reducing the development to 10 acres, and prohibiting leases near park attractions. In addition, he arranged an expedition to the park for President Chester Arthur and other influential men.  His lobbying soon paid off. A rider was added to the Sundry Civil Bill of 1883, giving Sheridan and his supporters almost everything for which they had asked. In 1886, after a string of ineffectual and sometimes criminal superintendents, Sheridan ordered the 1st U.S. Cavalry into the park. The military operated the park until the National Park Service took it over in 1916.

On November 1, 1883, Sheridan succeeded William Sherman as Commanding General, U.S. Army.

Mark Twain urged Sheridan to write his memoirs, believing they would equal General Grant’s in historical importance and interest. Sheridan completed Personal Memoirs of P. H. Sheridan just a few months before his death. 

Sheridan suffered a major heart attack May 22, 1888 just after returning from an inspection for the site of Fort Sheridan, in Chicago. At 57 years old, hard living and hard campaigning and a lifelong love of good food and drink had taken their toll. Thin in his youth, he had reached over 200 pounds. 

On May 30, a reporter for The Hartford Daily Courant  visited Twain at his home in Hartford, Connecticut, and asked him about his relationship with Sheridan. Twain said he had known the general for twenty years or more, having first met him in Washington at a reception at General Grant's before the latter was elected president.  

"Mr. Webster and I called on General Sheridan at his office in the war department a couple of years ago, and made a contract with him for his autobiography, upon terms satisfactory to both parties. This was not long after we had published the second volume of General Grant's "Personal Memoirs." General Sheridan was as reluctant to try the untried field of authorship as had been General Grant before him; but the desire to secure a comfortable provision for their families prevailed with both. General Sheridan's procedure, after he has once made up his mind, was characteristic of him. He went at his task with all his might, and never called a halt until it was finished. One can see by his manuscript, that he, like General Grant, found authorship easy after he once got started; authorship is always easy when one has something to say. The first volume has been for some time in the hands of the printers; the manuscript of the second was delivered to us, revised, corrected and completed, a week before the general was taken sick, and is in the safety deposit vaults in New York. The maps and engravings are all finished."

After his first heart attack, the U.S. Congress quickly passed legislation to promote him to general on June 1st, 1888.  He received the news from a congressional delegation with joy, despite his pain. 

His family moved him from the heat of Washington and he died of heart failure in his summer cottage in the Nonquitt section of Dartmouth, Massachusetts on August 5, 1888.

Sheridan Grave

His body was returned to Washington, D.C. and he was buried on a hillside near Arlington House in Arlington National Cemetery, facing the capital city.  

Sheridan Monument, facing Washington, D.C.

The sculpture on the marker was executed by English sculptor Samuel James Kitson.  His burial there helped elevate Arlington to national prominence. 

Sheridan Marker, Arlington Cemetery

Personal Memoirs of P. H. Sheridan was published by Twain's publishing house, Charles L. Webster & Co. in two volumes bound in forest green cloth.  The covers were decorated with a gilt depiction of the general leading a charge.

Personal Memoirs of P. H. Sheridan

Although still youthful and attractive when she was widowed by her husband's fatal heart attack, Mrs. Sheridan never remarried, declaring that she "would rather be the widow of Phil Sheridan than the wife of any man living." Their young children ranged in age from their oldest daughter, Mary, who was 12 years old when he died, to their youngest child, Philip, Jr. who was eight years old.  Irene Sheridan resided with her children at 2551 Massachusetts Avenue in Washington, D.C., near Sheridan Circle, where in 1908 she unveiled Gutzon Borglum's famed equestrian statue of her husband astride his warhorse "Rienzi".  

Sheridan Statue, Washington, D.C.

It was said that the Sheridan daughters started each day by leaning out of their bedroom windows and calling out "Good morning, Papa!" in the direction of the statue.

Philip Sheridan, Jr.

Philip Sheridan, Jr., followed in his father's footsteps and graduated near the bottom of the West Point class of 1902. He served as a cavalry officer, a military aide to President Theodore Roosevelt, and in Washington with the general staff. He was promoted to major in 1917 and was also felled by a heart attack, at age 37, in February 1918.

Sheridan's wife died 50 years after her husband, in 1938 at the age of 82.  Her survivors included the three Sheridan daughters, who all remained single and continued to reside in the family home on Massachusetts Avenue until their own deaths many years later.  She also had two grandchildren, Carolina and Philip H. Sheridan III, children of her son Philip, Jr. 

Philip H. Sheridan III, grandson and namesake of General Sheridan, was a World War II combat flyer who took his own life in on March 11, 1948. by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.  Although stunned by his death, family members revealed that the former pilot, who had flown 76 combat missions over Europe, had been suffering from what is now known as post-combat traumatic stress syndrome.  He was 31 years old when he died.

Sheridan Statue in Somerset, Ohio

The only Civil War equestrian statue in Ohio honors Sheridan. It is in the center traffic circle on US Route 22 in Somerset, Ohio, not far from the house where Sheridan grew up. Sheridan High School is located five miles north of Somerset; the athletic team is nicknamed "The Generals".

In World War II, the United States liberty ship, SS Philip H. Sheridan, was named in his honor.  In the 1960s, the M551 Sheridan tank was named after Sheridan.

M551 Sheridan tank

While stationed in the West before the Civil War, Sheridan took a Native woman (known to the whites as "Frances") as his mistress and lived with her for several years. Their relationship ended when the Civil War broke out, and Sheridan returned to the East.  

The census documents of Fort Simco, Yakima, Washington record a daughter, Emma Sheridan, born in Fort Vancouver, Washington, in 1857, to Philip H. Sheridan.  The mother is listed as "Walopquat" of the Yakima nation.  A photo of Emma Sheridan (1857-1886), has been provided by Emma’s grandson, Daniel Hoptowit Olney (1915 – 1995) author of Who Are You And Who Am I?

Emma Sheridan

The Confederated Tribes of Siletz acknowledge that Sheridan may have courted one of their members, Frances Harney of the Takelma, Rogue River Indians.  Frances had a brother, George Harney, (1835-1900), who traveled to Washington, D.C., evidenced by a 1875 Smithsonian photograph.

Elizabeth Collins Gilliam is quoted in a 1927 interview in Oregon Yesterdays by Fred Lockley as saying that 

“One of the prettiest Indian girls I ever saw was Frances the Indian girl Lt. Phillip Sheridan lived with. She was a Rogue River Indian girl. She was as graceful as a deer and as slender as a fawn. She loved Sheridan devotedly. Her brother was a fine looking Indian too. He was named Harney after an army officer. He was a teamster (drove wagon) for the (reservation) troops.”

In 1844, when she was five years old, Elizabeth Gilliam traveled overland on a wagon train from Missouri, led by her father, Cornelius Gilliam. The family settled in a cabin in Dallas, Oregon. Cornelius died on a excursion in 1848 to avenge the November 1847 massacre of Marcus and Narcissa Whitman at their Walla Walla mission. Mr. Gilliam’s rifle went off, and he accidentally killed himself. But Elizabeth lived to the age of 88.

In an interview in 1927, Elizabeth recounts that she knew Sheridan, because he used to stop over on coastal trips from Fort Hoskins to Fort Yamhill, and spend nights at the Gilliam cabin. She lived a days ride from Grand Ronde and seven miles further from Fort Hoskins. Elizabeth also said she knew Sheridan’s Indian wife, Frances, who was the daughter of Chief Harney of the Rogue River tribe, and who had been at her home quite a few times. She said she was bright, good looking, and quite likable.  She added that Sheridan was good and kind to her, and taught her to read, but they had no children. When he left her, it almost broke her heart.

Frances also told her that Sheridan had invited her and her brother and some other Indians to Washington, D.C., at the expense of the government, and that after the trip, she told Elizabeth all about it.  Afterward, Frances never saw him again.

Frances was the source for Edward Sapir’s classic Takelma Texts published by the Smithsonian in 1926, as well as providing information for the famous linguist and anthropologist John Harrington. Frances was the last fluent speaker of her people’s language. She passed away in 1934.

Frances Harney Johnson in 1934

Between 1934 and 1995, Sheridan, Oregon celebrated "Phil Sheridan Days", named after the general.  After a three-year break in the celebration, the event resumed in 1999 with a new name, "Sheridan Days", which celebrated the town more than the general. References to General Sheridan were dropped at the joint request of the Grand Ronde Tribe and Spirit Mountain Casino.

However, between June 20-23, 2013, "Phil Sheridan Days" returned.  Committee President Bob White said he and Vice President Ted Mayfield made it official when they registered "Phil Sheridan Days" with the Secretary of State’s Corporate Division in April.  White called Sheridan a “great American general” and wore a replica Sheridan uniform during the Days’ grand parade.

In a letter to the editor following the event, White wrote, “The new name and return to our beginnings caused a lot of excitement in some quarters. Our intention was never to offend our good neighbors who are such a dynamic influence in this neck of the woods. Our sincere apologies if we damaged some egos.”  Sheridan Mayor Val Adamson was quoted as saying he supported the return to "Phil Sheridan Days".

Tribal Council Chair Reyn Leno said it was a “sad commentary on the local community.” He said it showed a lack of respect for Sheridan’s neighboring Tribal community and insensitivity to Gen. Sheridan’s well-documented mistreatment of Native Americans.

“We find it disturbing that the organizing committee would want to change the name back to Phil Sheridan Days,” Leno said. “The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde are convinced there is much to celebrate about today’s Sheridan community and the strong people, both Tribal and non-Tribal, who built it and continue to make it thrive today.

“We are happy to support many projects in the community, from Little League to wrestling teams, but Phil Sheridan Days is something we cannot in good conscience endorse. If anyone wants to learn what history has to say about General Phil Sheridan, a simple Internet search will provide countless texts that document his actions against Native Americans.”