"A brown, chunky little chap, with a long body, short legs, not enough neck to hang him, and such long arms that if his ankles itch he can scratch them without stooping." (Abraham Lincoln describing Phil Sheridan)

In the most popular narratives of the Civil War, Union Generals Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman are celebrated as the Union’s most successful generals and men who revolutionized total warfare with the use of scorched earth tactics. Sherman’s March to the Sea continues to be one of the most famous campaigns of the war, and he is still widely reviled in the South because of it.

Lost in this common narrative is the fact that Sherman’s March was preceded by a scorched-earth campaign that made Virginia howl, led by "Little Phil" Sheridan. The 5'5" Sheridan was one of the smallest and toughest fighters in the Union Army, whose capabilities as both a general of infantry and cavalry made him one of the most valuable and versatile officers in the North. A close associate of Grant’s in the West, Sheridan was so critical that Grant brought him east in 1864 and gave him command of the Union cavalry to face off against the vaunted JEB Stuart.

Despite his successes in the West and during the Overland Campaign, Sheridan’s most famous campaign was in the Shenandoah Valley, which had seen much fighting and Stonewall Jackson’s famous 1862 Valley Campaign. In 1864, however, Sheridan and his Army of the Shenandoah defeated Jubal Early and systematically destroyed the economic infrastructure and viability of the Valley, which had been considered the "breadbasket" of Virginia during the war’s earlier years. Residents of the Valley simply referred to Sheridan’s campaign as "The Burning".