In Kentucky, nearly two years before, my lot had been cast with about half of the twenty-five regiments of infantry that I was just leaving, the rest joining me after Chickamauga.  It was practically a new arm of the service to me, for although I was an infantry officer, yet the only large command which up to that time I had controlled was composed of cavalry, and most of my experience had been gained in this arm of the service.  I had to study hard to be able to master all the needs of such a force, to feed and clothe it and guard all its interests.  When undertaking these responsibilities I felt that if I met them faithfully, recompense would surely come through the hearty response that soldiers always make to conscientious exertion on the part of their superiors, and not only that more could be gained in that way than from the use of any species of influence, but that the reward would be quicker.  Therefore I always tried to look after their comfort personally; selected their camps, and provided abundantly for their subsistence, and the road they opened for me shows that my work was not in vain.  I regretted deeply to have to leave such soldiers, and felt that they were sorry I was going, and even now I could not, if I would, retain other than the warmest sentiments of esteem and the tenderest affection for the officers and men of “Sheridan’s Division,” Army of the Cumberland.

On reaching Chattanooga I learned from General Thomas the purpose for which I had been ordered to Washington.  I was to be assigned to the command of the Cavalry Corps of the Army of the Potomac.  The information staggered me at first, for I knew well the great responsibilities of such a position; moreover, I was but slightly acquainted with military operations in Virginia, and then, too, the higher officers of the Army of the Potomac were little known to me, so at the moment I felt loth to undergo the trials of the new position.  Indeed, I knew not a soul in Washington except General Grant and General Halleck, and them but slightly, and no one in General Meade’s army, from the commanding general down, except a few officers in the lower grades, hardly any of whom I had seen since graduating at the Military Academy.

Thus it is not much to be wondered at that General Thomas’s communication momentarily upset me.  But there was no help for it, so after reflecting on the matter a little I concluded to make the best of the situation.  As in Virginia I should be operating in a field with which I was wholly unfamiliar, and among so many who were strangers, it seemed to me that it would be advisable to have, as a chief staff-officer, one who had had service in the East, if an available man could be found.  In weighing all these considerations in my mind, I fixed upon Captain James W. Forsyth, of the Eighteenth Infantry, then in the regular brigade at Chattanooga—­a dear friend of mine, who had served in the Army of the Potomac, in the Peninsula and Antietam campaigns.  He at once expressed a desire to accept a position on my staff, and having obtained by the next day the necessary authority, he and I started for Washington, accompanied by Lieutenant T. W. C. Moore, one of my aides, leaving behind Lieutenant M. V. Sheridan, my other aide, to forward our horses as soon as they should be sent down to Chattanooga from Loudon, after which he was to join me.