CHAPTER 7
The Garden of Virginia
Shenandoah, 1864
“. . . the land is as the garden of Eden before them . . . .”
Joel 2:3
The morning of Sunday, August 28, 1864 dawned bright and clear, graced by an azure sky. John was in the great barn milking the cows, and Rhoda, humming a favorite hymn, was in the kitchen preparing breakfast. The day promised to be an eventful one. The couple, parents of five children now in the great war, were to drive in the buggy by the home of George and Naomi and bring them to the morning worship at the chapel by the side of the little stream that leisurely flowed through the valley where the families lived. George and Naomi were to bring their son, George Albert, born on the 19th of the month, to the chapel for his dedication.
After the morning service was over, John drove the group to the old family home for dinner. To celebrate the presence of the new guest, who slept peacefully in a cradle that had earlier seen much use and who was quite unaware of his surroundings, Rhoda served her famous Sunday meal of fried chicken, supplemented by various tasty side dishes. The two couples lingered over the table and engaged in conversation.
The occasion was, as were so many at this time over the country, a mixture of joy and sorrow. A few days previously George had made known his decision to enlist in the 5th battery of Maine light artillery. The discussion soon turned to this subject.
“For the last several months,” Naomi said, “George has been preoccupied with the war and has felt that he should enlist in one of the branches of the service. Naturally, I’m sorry to see him go, but I understand and support his decision.”
“Yes, Naomi and I have discussed this question thoroughly. She and little George will be alright, with two sets of parents nearby. I’ve arranged for the farm while I’m gone.”
“For quite some time,” Rhoda remarked, “I’ve known that this would come.”
“I can no longer stay out. I cannot be the only son in the family who does not fight in this war. Even Amanda is serving in her own way, often at the front. I have to do my part. It’s now a question of sustaining my own integrity and self respect.”
“All of us understand this, Son, and bid you God-speed and pray that when this war is over you will return to us safely,” John said. “We pray this for all of our children.”
A few days later, September 1, a Thursday, George enlisted in the 5th Maine Battery. Now the five sons of John and Rhoda, as well as their youngest daughter, Amanda, were enlisted in the cause of the Union. Two sons, Horace and George, were in the same branch, the artillery. The war had now, once again, reached out and taken the family in its clutches.
George, the second son of John and Rhoda, was now thirty-five years of age. He was nearly six feet tall, stout but in no sense heavy for his height. He had blond hair and deep blue eyes. He had a remarkably handsome visage, chiseled as if from marble, a square chin and firm mouth. His strength of character and high resolve were admirably matched by his kindly and generous disposition. He was extremely intelligent. It was not, however, merely a calculating intelligence; rather it was filled with depth of feeling‑-an intuitive sensing of the qualities of human virtue. In his character and actions, he was the rock bed upon which, indeed, the nation had been built and upon which its future depended.
The morning came when George said goodbye to his loved ones and boarded the train for New York. He was now on a journey that other members of the family had earlier taken: travel by train to Fall River, Massachusetts, by boat to New York, then finally by train to Baltimore. Horace, Lewis, and William were now with Grant before Petersburg. Asa was in Washington with Lincoln.
As the train pulled into the President Street Station in Baltimore, George was delighted to see Asa standing by the tracks. George leaped to the ground while the train was coming to a stop and embraced his brother. It was a happy reunion.
“Mother wrote me about your baby son,” Asa said. “I’m sure that it was hard to leave so soon after he arrived. In her letter to me, Mother gave me some indication as to when you might arrive in Baltimore. I’ve been down here frequently for the last couple of days, hoping to see you before you move on to your regiment.”
“Of course, it’s difficult to leave Naomi and the baby, but they will be well taken care of. I felt that the time had come when I ought to do my part. Circumstances at the farm are such that I can get away for the duration of the war.”
The brothers had an hour or so before George was scheduled to board the Baltimore and Ohio cars for western Virginia. George brought Asa the up-to-date news of the folks at home. The two discussed the war situation, particularly Grant’s siege of Petersburg. Then it was time for George to leave. Again, the brothers embraced affectionately and wished each other well. Soon the train was rolling northwest toward its destination at Harpers Ferry, where the 5th Maine, part of the artillery brigade of the Sixth Corps, Major-General Horatio G. Wright commanding, was stationed with the Army of the Shenandoah under the over-all command of Major-General Philip H. Sheridan. Shortly after his arrival, George was with his battery, commanded by Captain G. T. Stevens.
The Shenandoah Valley lies between two mountain ranges, the Blue Ridge on the east and the North Mountains on the west. Running in a northeasterly course, the Valley is 155 miles long and 30 miles wide, on the average. The Shenandoah River takes it rise south of Lexington, in a multitude of little streams, and flows northeast until it meets the Potomac at Harpers Ferry. A distinguishing feature of the Valley is the Massanutton Mountain. This range, which is as high as the Blue Ridge on its east, begins at Harrisonburg and extends northeast for over forty miles. The north fork of the Shenandoah River flows along the western side of the range, while the south fork flows along the eastern side through the Page or Luray Valley. The forks join at the northern base of Massanutton Mountain at Front Royal, where the level plain of the Valley resumes.
A fine all-weather macadamized road, the Valley Pike, runs through the Valley from Staunton on the south to Martinsburg on the north, passing through Harrisonburg, New Market, Strasburg, Middletown, and Winchester. A road leads from Harrisonburg over the southern end of Massanutton Mountain to Conrad’s Store. A road, the Luray Road, then extends from this place northward through Luray to Front Royal. Another road connects New Market and Luray. A road runs west from Staunton over the North Mountains to McDowell, where it intersects with a road extending north through Franklin, Moorefield, and Romney. The Virginia Central Railroad connects Staunton with Richmond. The Manassas Gap Railroad runs east from Strasburg through Front Royal to Manassas Junction, where it joins the Orange and Alexandria Railroad leading to Washington.
There are several passes through the Blue Ridge to eastern Virginia. The more important ones, from south to north, are Brown’s Gap, Swift Run Gap, Fisher’s Gap, Thornton’s Gap, Chester Gap, Ashby’s Gap, and Snicker’s Gap.
Before the coming of the white man, the Shenandoah Valley was the Great Path for Indian hunters and war parties moving back and forth from north to south. In the period before the American Revolution, white settlers passed through it on their way west. At the time of the Civil War, the beautiful and fertile Valley was the granary of Virginia. From its golden wheat fields, its well-filled barns, its cattle, and its busy mills, it supplied the needs of Lee’s army. The Valley had great military significance for both the South and the North. In 1862 Jackson occupied the Valley and so alarmed Washington that McDowell’s juncture with McClellan was broken up, to this extent weakening the latter’s threat to Richmond. It was also the route of Lee’s two invasions into Maryland and Pennsylvania. Not until the Valley was in the hands of the Federals could the subsistence of Lee’s army be significantly reduced or the problem of the Richmond campaign of 1864-65 be solved.
George readily adapted to army life. He soon learned that the day in camp was regulated by the call of the bugle. Early in the morning, about five o’clock during the summer, the corporal of the guard blew the first bugle call of the day, the Assembly of Buglers, which called up the bugler. From a tent next to his, George heard the usual yawns, groans, and exclamations of disgust.
“Put the bugler in the guard-house,” someyone yelled.
After fifteen minutes had elapsed, the next call, the Assembly, was sounded, and the men, including George, emerged from their tents, in various stages of dress, and washed in some logs that were scooped out to form wash basins. The men of the battery were then lined up for roll-call. The next call was the Stable Call, which summoned the drivers in the company to assemble and care for their horses. At the Breakfast Call, George washed down some gruel, cooked by the company cook, with a tin of hot coffee. The Sick Call, which was sounded at 8 o’clock , gave those who needed medical attention time to report to the surgeon’s tent. The Water Call was the signal for the drivers to take their horses to the river for water. Fatigue Call was next in order. This involved those activities necessary to the physical appearance of the camp and equipment. The call, Boots and Saddles, announced the field maneuvers with the battery. Six cannon, with their six caissons, were pulled swiftly by seventy-two horses across the field, their cannoneers riding on the caissons. At the bugle signal, the battery suddenly halted and quickly went in formation, “In Battery,” and belched forth the thunder and smoke of a blank cartridge. In another moment, the battery limbered up and sped to another part of the drill field. Dinner Call was sounded at noon. During the afternoon, the men were free of any regular line of duty, with the exception of standing-gun drill for newcomers. Since George was new to the service, he spent many afternoons at this task. He had the number one position in his gun crew, his job being that of ramming the shot down the muzzle of the gun against the charge of powder. Water Call and Stable Call were blown in the later afternoon. At about 5:45, Attention was sounded, followed by Assembly, when the men fell in for Retreat. The men’s duties of the day were now finished, with the exception of those who were assigned to guard duty. At 8:30 in the evening, the final roll call, Tattoo, was blown. A drummer then beat a few isolated taps, closing the army day.
At first, George found that directions in the Valley were somewhat confusing. At home, up was north and down was south. However, in the Shenandoah Valley, the directions were just reversed, since the river flowed north to the Potomac. Travel Up the Valley was travel southward, while travel down, was northward. But George soon accommodated himself to the change in language. Also, while his battery was stationed at the foot of the Valley, he became familiar with many names about which Asa had written when he was first in the service. For, in 1862, Asa was with his regiment, the 12th Massachusetts, in the Valley.
General McClellan’s Peninsula campaign occurred during the spring and summer of 1862. General McDowell’s corps of 38,000 men was on the Rappahannock north of Fredericksburg, protecting Washington from invasion. The plans were to bring the corps to the Peninsula to assist McClellan in his effort to capture Richmond. But Stonewall Jackson’s presence in the Shenandoah Valley constituted a threat to Washington, should McDowell be removed from his position on the Rappahannock. Accordingly, he remained in his position on the Rappahannock.
Jackson had about 6000 men in the Valley confronting Major-General Nathaniel Banks’ force of 21,000 men. On March 23, Jackson attacked Banks at Kernstown and was badly defeated. Jackson’s forces then retired up the valley. On May 8, the Confederate troops defeated the Union forces of General John C. Fremont, the “Pathfinder,” at McDowell, west of the North Mountains. On May 23, Jackson overran the Federal garrison at Front Royal, and two days later, Sunday, May 25, defeated Banks at Winchester. By the 27th Banks’s forces were driven over the Potomac at Harpers Ferry.
General McDowell’s advance, under Brigadier-General James Shields, crossed the Blue Ridge at Manassas Gap and succeeded in retaking Front Royal on May 30. Jackson now realized that he could no longer hold the Valley, and once again moved up the Valley. Although two Union forces, McDowell’s and Shield’s from the east and Fremont’s from the west, tried to cut off Jackson’s retreat and destroy him, Jackson managed to make his escape to Port Republic, where on June 8 he defeated McDowell. The wily Stonewall had accomplished his objective, to keep McDowell’s forces from joining McClellan on the Peninsula.
During this period, Asa and the 12th Massachusetts were in the Second Division of McDowell’s Third Corps of the Army of Virginia, under the command of Major-General John Pope. Asa came under enemy fire for the first time on the 18th of April, when the regiment opened fire on the enemy lines on the Rappahannock. On the afternoon of May 25, the regiment started toward the Shenandoah Valley, part of McDowell’s move west to assist Banks who had been driven across the Potomac. The men packed up at 2:00 P.M., and an hour later were marching toward Aquia Creek. The regiment bivouacked that night on a Rebel camp ground one and one-half miles from the landing on the Creek.
The next morning, the regiment boarded a boat and, after some minor mishaps, the vessel reached Alexandria on the morning of May 27. Asa and his comrades spent the afternoon visiting points of interest, including the Marshall House, where Ellsworth, the first Union casualty, was killed. At 9:00 P.M. the regiment boarded the train for Manassas Junction, where it disembarked and camped for the night. On the 29th reveille was sounded at 3:00 A.M., and after a short march the regiment again took the train. After a ride of five miles, the men left the train and marched westward, crossed Bull Run Mountain at Thoroughfare Gap, and camped that night on the western slope of the Gap. After a march of two days, the men wove their way through Manassas Gap and, on the night of the 31st, camped in a pine grove one mile from Front Royal. The next day, Sunday, June 1, the men stayed at Front Royal, awaiting orders. They watched 25,000 men of McDowell’s corps as the corps passed on its way to cut off Jackson. During this time, the regiment saw no action, but on several occasions the men received orders to leave their knapsacks and take only their blankets and three-days’ rations. It also performed guard duty when Confederate prisoners were brought back from the fighting. On June 9, the day following General McDowell’s defeat at Port Republic, the regiment left for Washington.
There had been considerable military activity in the Shenandoah Valley during the summer of 1864 prior to the time of George’s induction in the 5th Maine Battery. Major-General Franz Sigel was in command of Union forces in the Valley. His mission was primarily a defensive one, to keep the northern entrance of the Valley closed to Confederate invasion of Maryland and Pennsylvania and Washington. General Grant believed that Sigel could better carry out his mission if he were to go on the offensive. He therefore ordered a two-pronged advance up the Valley. Brigadier-General George Crook, who was west of the Alleghenies, was to move south and destroy the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad, a road of vital importance to the Confederates. Sigel was to move directly up the Valley and menace another important southern railroad, the Virginia Central Railroad at Staunton. The two wings were to combine there and cooperate with General Meade in his drive on Richmond.
On May 2, Crook began his move southeast along the New River. A week later, May 9, he defeated a rebel force at Cloud’s Mountain, and the next day, May 10, burned the New River Bridge. The cavalry, under Brigadier-General W. W. Averell, met a defeat the same day at Crockett’s Cove, near Wytheville. Thereafter, the two forces retired northwest to Meadow Bluff near the Greenbrier River.
Sigel started up the Valley on April 30. On Sunday, the 15th of May, he was defeated by the forces of Confederate Major-General John C. Breckinridge, former United States Vice-President, at New Market. By now convinced that Sigel would “do nothing but run,” Halleck and Grant relieved him of over-all command in the Valley. Major-General David Hunter was placed in command.
In late May, Hunter ordered Crook and Averell to move east from their camp on the Greenbrier River, in West Virginia, and join him in a move up the Valley. On June 5, Hunter defeated Confederate forces at the village of Piedmont, a few miles north of Staunton. He entered the village the next day, and two days later, the 8th, Crook and Averell arrived to assist in destroying a section of the Virginia Central Railroad and supplies that had been gathered for Lee’s army.
On June 7, General Grant ordered Sheridan to the Shenandoah Valley to unite with Hunter’s forces at Charlottesville and aid him in further destruction of the railroad. This phase of the Valley campaign involved the 1st Maine cavalry, which was under Sheridan’s over-all command.
On the morning of the 7th, Lewis rode with his regiment north out of the camp on the Pamunkey River a few miles northeast of Richmond. Over the following days, the men followed the Virginia Central Railroad northwest in the direction of Gordonsville. During this march, the men were ordered not to take their horses out of column. This meant that private foraging to get food had to be done on foot.
A time came when Lewis said to Ray, “We’re all getting hungry; what are we going to do about it?”
“You lead my horse, and I’ll walk around and see what I can find.”
So Ray scoured along the line of march for a couple of hours, after which he came back with some fresh vegetables.
“How did you make it, Ray,” William asked, upon his friend’s return.
“Pretty well, although I almost ran into a detachment of the Rebs and heard a couple of bullets whistle around my ears. So I lit out fast for our line.”
On the evening of the 10th, the regiment was on picket duty on a road leading from New Market to Bumpass Station on the railroad. Lewis and Ray, being with the reserve, had dismounted and had unsaddled their horses and were rubbing them down. The company cook was busy preparing supper. Suddenly there came the sharp crack of several rifles from the direction of the picket lines. Colonel Smith, commander of the regiment, was resting under a tree a few feet from the regiment. He jumped to his feet and sang out, “Attention.”
Lewis and Ray jumped for their horses and threw the saddles on them. They were starting to mount, when an orderly came up and said something to Colonel Smith. The Colonel turned around to his men and, with a voice and manner consistent with all military decorum, gave a new order: “Go on with your Applesauce!” This was one order that the boys obeyed willingly. Rampant hilarity replaced the earlier excitement. What had happened was that the commander of the picket line had come across some fine, fat cattle, and decided to have his men kill one or two for supper. He had sent the orderly to notify Colonel Smith, so that no alarm would be created. But he had some difficulty in finding the regiment, and the cattle were killed just before he arrived.
Early on the morning of June 11, the command moved out of camp. The advance unit soon met the enemy near Trevilian Station, about eight miles east of Gordonsville. There a severe battle ensued from daylight until dark. For Lewis and Ray, it was one of the hardest days that they had experienced. All day long the regiment moved up and down the lines, dismounting and preparing to fight on foot. But at no time did it go into action. Most of the time it was in support of an artillery battery that seemed unable to find any place from which to shoot.
General Gregg ordered the officer commanding the battery to open on an enemy battery. The officer said that he could not, because of the thick woods.
“Well, I can,” the general said, and walked over to the gun, pulled the lanyard and silenced the enemy’s battery momentarily.
Another time a shell came bounding on the ground toward the regiment, passing between Lewis’ company and another company. Lewis and Ray immediately scurried out of harm’s way. A fellow from the other company, some distance away, yelled, “Can’t you dodge anything coming so slow as that?” Lewis quickly, somewhat scornfully, replied, “Yes, but the darn thing may be rotten.”
At five o’clock that evening Lewis’ regiment dismounted and, accompanied by its battery, moved down the road and finally succeeded in dislodging the enemy. For awhile all was quiet, but soon the rebel artillery began firing briskly. Shells began striking profusely in front of the regiment, until it moved out of range.
The next morning, June 12, the regiment moved to Louisa Court House. Since no enemy were found in this vicinity, the troopers did not stay long. Some of the boys had found some preserves, and everybody, officers included, was dipping hardtack in the jars and enjoying a tasty delicacy. The order was given to move forward. The mounted cavalrymen, fierce warriors as they were, rode ahead eating from a hardtack covered with preserves.
Lewis and some others found some bee-hives, and, with their superior strength, captured the honey. But the bees were not constrained to give in without a fight. They zoomed in on Lewis’s head with such force that it was necessary for him to unsheathe his sabre and, cutting and slashing over his head, drive the enemy away.
The fighting around Trevilian and Louisa had been heavy. The enemy were concentrating in formidable earth-works just above Trevilian, blocking Sheridan’s route to Gordonsville. Having severely damaged the southern railroad, Sheridan believed that he had accomplished his mission, and began his return journey to the Richmond vicinity.
On June 11, the day of the 1st Maine’s cavalry battle at Trevilian, General Hunter occupied Lexington and burned the Virginia Military Institute. Late in the day of June 17, he arrived at Lynchburg, where he found Breckinridge, with half as many men, prepared to meet him. Hunter intended to attack the next day. By that time, however, General Early with three divisions had arrived by rail from Charlottesville to reinforce Breckinridge. Outnumbered by the enemy and faced with shortage of ammunition and subsistence, Hunter withdrew over the mountains to West Virginia. The way was now open for the combined forces of Early and Breckinridge to march down the valley and threaten the North. Once again the classic invasion route was open to Confederate forces.
On July 2, Early reached Winchester. There he divided his army, one corps moving on Martinsburg, the other, on Harpers Ferry. The two corps met two days later, and on the 6th crossed the Potomac into Maryland. July 8 found the army threading its way through the South Mountain passes. On the morning of the following day Early’s force of 14,000 men was drawn up on the west bank of the Monocacy River near Frederick.
General Grant, alerted to Early’s invasion, sent the Sixth Corps, under Major-General Horatio Wright, and the Nineteenth Corps, under Brigadier-General William Emory, to Washington for its defense. Major-General Lew Wallace, who commanded the Middle Department, left his headquarters in Baltimore and went by train to Monocacy Junction. There, over the two days of July 6-7, he assembled a force of 2300 men. On July 9, reinforced with one division of Wright’s corps, he met the advancing enemy, only to be defeated by the superior force. Wallace’s action did, however, slow Early’s march on Washington, which was to prove a decisive advantage to Union fortunes.
At noon on July 11, the combined forces of Early and Breckinridge were drawn up in front of Fort Stevens, a major Washington fortification, within eyesight of the newly-finished capitol dome. The Confederates were within six miles from the center of Washington, much closer than the Union army had ever come to Richmond.
At the same time, Asa stood with President Lincoln on the Sixth Street docks. Wright’s lead division, in which many Massachusetts men served, came ashore and immediately marched confidently through the city to do battle with the besiegers. For Asa, it was a proud moment, one in which he recognized and saluted men whom he knew. He turned to his worried chief and pronounced words of encouragement, “It will be alright now. These men will soon take care of Early.”
“Yes, I think the danger is over,” was the reply.
The Sixth Corps reinforced Fort Stevens that afternoon. General Early had planned to launch his attack on the fort the next day. But with the first light of morning, and after careful reconnaissance, the Confederate general realized that he could not win a battle with the assembled Union forces. Wallace’s early delaying fight on the Monocacy had paid off, buying time for the reinforcement of Washington.
President Lincoln rose early on the morning of July 12. With the Secretary of State, William H. Seward, he spent the morning visiting several fortifications, primarily to reassure the citizens of the city. At mid-afternoon the President, accompanied by Asa, was at Fort Stevens. General Wright asked Lincoln if he wished to come with him to the parapet while he studied the terrain. The men soon stood on the platform, watching the activity below. In a short while, enemy snipers began sending bullets in their direction.
General Wright, realizing that his suggestion to the President was rather ill-advised, tried to coax him back down the stairs. But he wouldn’t listen. He continued to stand in the open, a conspicuous figure six feet four inches tall, nearly seven feet tall, considering the fact that he wore his stove-pipe hat.
“You ought to go back down, Mr. President. It’s too dangerous up here,” Asa remarked, doing his best to persuade the President. But nothing got through. Just then Asa heard from below a loud voice, one that he knew belonged to his friend, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., “Get down, you damn fool, before you get shot!”
“Oh, my,” Asa thought to himself, “what a way to address the President of the United States.” Of course, Asa realized that his friend did not know the identity of the person to whom he was shouting.
“You’re calling the President a ‘damn fool,’ Oliver,” Asa yelled down the stairs. “You’d better watch it; you could get in trouble, you know.”
By this time the President had heeded the irreverent admonition and climbed back down the stairs. He glanced at Holmes and just laughed, finding the whole thing amusing.
At six o’clock that evening, General Wright’s troops moved out to clear the front of Early’s men. The fighting lasted until about ten o’clock, when it finally ceased. The Federal firing had come just as Early was preparing to withdraw. After this interruption in his plans, he continued his preparations and stole away during the night.
By a special order from Grant, Wright was given command of all the troops moving out to pursue the Confederates. By noon of the 13th, Wright had two divisions of the Sixth Corps moving out of the trenches in pursuit of Early. A division of the Nineteenth Corps was ordered to follow. Hunter, who had been in West Virginia, returned to the Valley and joined Wright. Early managed to slip between the two Union forces, and on the 16th crossed the Shenandoah River. After a battle near Berryville with Crook’s forces on July 18, Early retreated toward Strasburg. On the 24th, he defeated Crook in a battle near Kernstown, driving him north over the Potomac. Early then, for the second time, invaded the North. He sent his cavalry, under Brigadier-General John McCausland, into Pennsylvania, which, on the 30th of the month, set fire to Chambersburg.
In order to secure the grain-rich Valley and the vital Virginia Central Railroad, both essential for the survival of the Confederate army immobilized at Richmond, General Lee dispatched Anderson, with a division of infantry and supporting cavalry, to the Valley. On his side, Grant was determined to complete the destruction of the Valley and end once for all the Confederate threat to the North and free the Union forces in the Valley for his drive on Richmond.
The Union forces in the Shenandoah had been organized into several geographical commands. Grant purposed to concentrate them under a single head. On the last day of July, he met with Lincoln at Fortress Monroe to discuss the Valley situation. With the President’s concurrence, Grant appointed Sheridan to command all troops in the Valley. Sheridan’s instructions were “. . . to put himself south of the enemy, and follow him to the death.” On August 7, the War Department issued the order forming The Army of the Shenandoah. Sheridan assumed command that same day at Harpers Ferry, where his army of 48,000 men was concentrated.
On the morning of August 10, Sheridan moved out of his lines at Halltown, a short distance south of Harpers Ferry, in pursuit of Early. On the 14th, Early’s forces at Fisher’s Hill, near Strasburg, were in a strong position awaiting an expected attack from Sheridan’s army, now in the northern outskirts of Strasburg. Upon advice from Grant not to attack the superior Confederate force, Sheridan began his withdrawal to his Harpers Ferry lines. Early followed the Federal retreat, reaching his earlier position at Martinsburg, a short distance northwest of Harpers Ferry. The two armies now confronted each other on the Potomac.
On September 3, General Anderson started with his command toward Berryville to recross the Blue Ridge and join Lee on his Richmond-Petersburg defense. At Berryville Anderson was turned back by the Union Eighth Corps and withdrew to Winchester. On the 14th, he took a more southerly route and succeeded in reaching Lee’s army. General Early was now deprived of all reinforcements and considerably weakened.
On the same day that Anderson started for the Blue Ridge, General Grant left his headquarters at City Point to confer with General Sheridan. Both generals now knew, given Anderson’s departure from the Valley, that the time had come for Sheridan to assume the offensive. Grant reached Sheridan’s headquarters near Harpers Ferry on September 16.
One member of George’s gun crew was John Loring, who held the number four position. On the morning of the 16th, the two were near Sheridan’s headquarters, talking about the rumors, which had spread throughout the army, that the men would soon move out.
“That’s Grant,” John told George, pointing to a medium-sized, somewhat stooped, red-bearded man, wearing the plain uniform of a private with officer’s insignia stitched to the shoulders, and smoking a cigar. “I hate to see that old cuss around. When that old cuss is around, there’s sure to be a big fight on hand.”
Grant had devised a plan to push Early out of the Valley and then destroy it and the Virginia Central Railroad. However, Sheridan came up with his own plan, not merely to drive Early from the Valley, but to destroy him in battle at Winchester and cut off his escape. Grant, without bothering to communicate his own plan, which remained all the while in his pocket, at once approved the plan of his ebullient young subordinate and said, in what became his shortest order of the war, “goin!”
Early in September, General Sheridan moved from Halltown, near Harpers Ferry, and established his line along the Berryville-Clifton road, a few miles east of Winchester. On September 18, General Early divided his forces, sending two divisions north to Martinsburg, while he remained with his remaining two divisions at Winchester. When Sheridan learned of this, he decided to move his forces west along the Berryville turnpike and attack Early at Winchester.
Late in the afternoon of September 18, a Sunday, orders reached the 5th Maine to be prepared to march the next morning at 3:00 A.M. “Your guess was right,” George remarked to John. “Grant’s visit day before yesterday seems to have brought quick results.”
“You will soon see your first action in this war, George. Now I think that the days of Rebel supremacy in the Valley are about over. Little Phil knows his business and will write a different story.”
George, as did others, spent the remainder of the afternoon packing a small collection of clothes and articles to be placed in a blanket that would be slung over his shoulder on the march. He then marched with his battery to the cook house and drew three days’ rations of hardtack, pork, sugar, and coffee. The men then filled sacks of oats from the grain pile and strapped them on the ammunition chests for the horses. They greased the axles of the caissons and gun carriages, and selected several spare horses to replace those that might be wounded or killed.
That evening, after all preparations had been made for the morrow, the men of the battery gathered around their campfire. The fire died down, and George and his comrades drew closer about it to ward off the gathering chill of the late September evening. There was quiet talk of what the next day might bring. There was some hilarity among the men, but on the whole it was a quiet, reflective time. George thought of his home, which he had just left, of Eunice and the baby, Albert. His mind revived scenes of former days when the family circle was unbroken. He thought of his brothers, of Amanda, all now serving in the cause of the Union. Soon the sun slipped behind the western, forest-clad mountains. The land grew dim, and the sky surrendered its sun-lit glory to the faint glow of moon and stars. To those battle-hardened soldiers, who yet dreamed the tender dreams of the human heart, the evening spoke its mysterious message of farewell, promising rest in the tryst of the night when the infinite beckons the day-wanderer home. The night wind rose and breathed through forest and dale, sighing as if it sought for something in the far-away beyond, and awakening deep within the soul an echo of premonition of days yet to be born of the womb of night. There then came on the clear night air the sound of song. Once again, the great song of the 12th Massachusetts, the marvelous battle song of the army, rang out, picked up by men gathered around neighboring camp-fires, until the chorus, “Glory, Glory, Hallelujah,” filled the heavens and stilled the melancholy of the night wind. But tired nature soon reasserted herself, and the men, their spirits lifted by the lure of beauty, retired to their tents. That night they slept the sleep of the untroubled conscience, prepared to meet with courage and fortitude the task of tomorrow.
At 3:00 A.M. the next morning, September 19, Sheridan’s army began its march westward. Between Berryville and Winchester, and about four miles east of that city, a small creek, Opequon Creek, flows north, paralleling both the Shenandoah on its east and the Valley Turnpike on its west, until it empties in the Potomac below Falling Waters. Two smaller streams, flowing in an easterly direction, join the Opequon. Abraham’s Creek rises south of Winchester and flows northeast, while Redbud Run takes its rise northwest of the city and flows southeast to join Opequon Creek. The terrain, where the impending battle would be fought, was thus a triangle lying on its side, its base formed by the Valley Pike, and its apex formed by a much smaller area between the mouths of the two small effluences. The city of Winchester was situated a little south of the center of the base of the triangle.
The road leading from Berryville to Winchester, after crossing the Opequon, passes through a narrow, wooded canyon, or gorge, approximately two miles in length. The Federal cavalry galloped through this gorge and at dawn, a crimson sun lighting a cloudless blue sky, carried the Confederate earthworks at its mouth.
George, standing by the side of his gun, witnessed the pageantry of his corps commander, General Wright, riding out on the road, the corps colors carried behind him, his staff following closely behind the colors. The infantry of the Sixth Corps, followed by the Nineteenth, marched on either side of the road. A few minutes later, the artillery began moving along the macadamized road. It was a grand sight: each field piece, attached to its limber, pulled by six great horses. George gazed in awe as thousands of marching men streamed by on each side of the pike, forming moving escarpments through which were drawn his battery of six guns and caissons pulled by seventy two horses.
Early’s men were positioned in a belt of woods covering the ground between Redbud Run and Abraham’s Creek, about a mile east of Winchester. The Sixth Corps moved forward into line on both sides of the Pike. The infantry were immediately taken under heavy artillery fire.
The Fifth Maine Battery, with two other batteries, received orders to move to the corps front. Without any hesitation, the driver of George’s caisson brought his team to a full gallop and swiftly moved across the Pike to the right of the Sixth Corps. When the position was reached, the men jumped from the caisson and, removing the limber chest, faced the field piece in position to fire upon the enemy. The horses and caisson were moved some distance away, to escape enemy fire.
For the next few minutes, George worked swiftly. He rammed home round after round of solid shot, which was then sent hurtling toward the enemy artillery. It was hot work, for now it was nearly mid-day. But he worked on, his face covered with sweat, smoke, and dust, which also clung to his clothes.
Just before noon, the Union line moved forward across the open field to the belt of timber in which the Confederate army was located. The battle then became deadly. The Sixth Corps infantry advanced along the Pike and succeeded in driving the Confederate infantry back. On the right of the Union line, a division of the Nineteenth Corps assailed the enemy’s left. But at this juncture in the battle, the Union lines became broken, and the Confederates drove through the gap between the two Union corps. The Fifth Maine battery had advanced with the infantry, and from its new position now opened on the enemy an infilading fire with canister. Again, George worked swiftly, and watched as the deadly fire checked the enemy advance. The work of his battery turned the tide, and the Union line was reestablished.
The battle raged throughout the afternoon. At 4 o’clock in the afternoon, the Fifth Maine was moved up the Pike to a position where it drove off an enemy battery. Later in the day, it moved farther up the Pike with the infantry to a brick house and opened fire on the enemy’s lines in front of Winchester.
By 5:00 P.M, the Confederate lines had been pushed to the eastern outskirts of Winchester. Now the Union cavalry, with the troops of Brigadier-General George Crook’s Army of West Virginia, swept like a hurricane upon the Confederate left on the north of the city. This movement, accompanied by the increasing pressure from the advancing corps from the east, could no longer be resisted, and the entire Rebel army fell back in a rout, streaming through the city on its inglorious retreat up the Pike toward Strasburg. The Battle of the Opequon, so-called to distinguish it from earlier engagements at Winchester, was a Union victory. And George, at day’s end, knew that he had played a significant part in that victory. It was, indeed, a significant victory. It restored the lower Valley to Union control, and relieved the North of its fear of invasion.
At daylight the next day, September 20, the Union army moved south out of Winchester in pursuit of the enemy. Again, as the day before, the artillery took the Pike, while the infantry moved along its sides. General Early had established his defensive line at Fisher’s Hill, a short distance south of Strasburg. Here the Valley narrows to a width of four miles, the northern flank of Massanutten Mountain on the east and Little North Mountain on the west. The Confederate line was extended the width of the valley, dug in behind a small creek, Tumbling Run, which flows into the South Fork of the Shenandoah at Massanutten Mountain. During the afternoon, the Union forces went into position on the heights fronting Strasburg.
The following day, the 21st, Sheridan moved his lines through the town and drove the enemy’s skirmishers back to the defenses of Fisher’s Hill. Early continued to strengthen his own defensive position. There was high ground on the north of Tumbling Run, confronting Early’s main position, which, after an initial failure, was successfully taken by Wright’s men. The Pioneers were soon busy felling timber and preparing places on which to position the artillery.
General Sheridan proposed to repeat his tactics of the previous battle and again turn the enemy’s left flank. Crook’s corps spent the night of the 21st covered by a patch of woods along the Pike north of Strasburg. Early on the morning of the 22nd, the corps moved through the woods and reached, unobserved by the enemy, the eastern slopes of Little North Mountain. Throughout that long morning and afternoon, the men struggled over its precipitous slopes, intersected by numerous ravines, until, at 3 o’clock in the afternoon they were in position to strike the enemy’s flank.
Meanwhile, again commencing at daybreak, the Nineteenth Corps was shifted to the left so as to occupy the First Corp’s first position of the previous day, while that corps moved forward and, around noon, attacked Early’s main position. The attack was met with heavy infantry fire from the graybacks in their entrenchments behind the hills and by artillery fire from the Confederate gunners on Fisher’s Hill. Three rifle batteries of the Sixth Corps came to the infantry’s assistance and helped drive in the enemy’s skirmish line. The cavalry then came up on the right of Ricketts’ division of the corps, which was on the extreme Union right.
During the time of this action of the Sixth Corps, the Fifth Maine Battery was not engaged. There was no position nearby that permitted the effective use of the light 12-pounder Napoleons, the type of weapon assigned to the Corps. However, George was able to watch the complex movements of the vast array of armed men as the climax of the battle was reached.
The climax came just as the sun, slowly setting behind the mountain range, cast the long shadows down the near valley. There then emerged from the forests of the steep slopes of the mountain, as if the very heavens had opened and an armed host had descended from the clouds, the vast host of Union warriors. With a great cheer, the men rushed over the Confederate flank and rear and swept everything before them. It was another rout for Stonewall’s old corps, which, until the previous battle, had never tasted defeat. Taken completely by surprise, the Confederates made no resistance and fled in confusion.
The Federal cavalry then swept along the Confederate left flank, taking the enemy line in reverse and pushing the Rebel cavalry off the field. The two infantry corps, the incomparable Sixth, Wright’s corps, and the Nineteenth, then surged forward, rushed into the ravine and across Tumbling Run and, the men leaping over wall, rocks, and felled trees, added their weight to the Union onslaught.
Sheridan rode back and forth along his victorious line, shouting “Forward! Forward everything! Go on, don’t stop, go on.”
The men, flushed with the excitement of victory, needed no prodding. On they went, until it was, without question, “everything.” The entire Confederate line broke from its trenches and Early’s army began its second retreat in three days. The defeated and dejected southern army fell back under darkness to a position just beyond Woodstock, on the Valley Pike.
The Confederate general was powerless to halt the Federal advance up the Valley. Sheridan pursued the defeated army as far south as Mt. Crawford, at the southern edge of Massanutten Mountain, where he gave the infantry rest, while the cavalry raided Staunton and Waynesboro.
On the morning of October 6, the Federal army was again on the move, this time back down the Valley toward the Potomac. As the infantry marched on the Valley Pike, the cavalry spread across the Valley, stretching from the Blue Ridge to North Mountain, and began its work of destruction. Only the houses in which people lived were spared. During the next few days, the destruction was fearful: 2,000 barns filled with wheat, hay, and farming implements; 70 mills filled with flour and wheat; four large herds of stock; and over 3,000 sheep. From one wall to the other the Valley was filled with great clouds of smoke. At night the whole Valley was lit with a hundred fires, shooting lurid sheets of flame skyward. Great masses of hungry, starving people streamed north to escape the awful devastation. The Shenandoah Valley, the granary of Virginia, could no longer provide subsistence for the armies of the Confederacy.
Having received reinforcements from Richmond, Early set off down the Valley in pursuit of Sheridan. On October 9, the Union cavalry defeated Early’s cavalry at Tom’s Brook, a short distance south of Strasburg. The next day the Union forces crossed Cedar Creek, a few miles north of Strasburg, and occupied the northern heights. Wright’s Sixth Corps was sent to Front Royal on its way to join Grant at Petersburg. On the 12th, Early’s forces appeared on Fisher’s Hill, just five miles south of the Union position on Cedar Creek. Sheridan recalled the Sixth Corps, which had progressed eastward as far as Ashby’s Gap in the Blue Ridge, and made his Cedar Creek position secure from Confederate attack. On the 16th, General Halleck, the Federal chief of staff, called Sheridan to Washington for a strategy conference. When he arrived at Front Royal, he received a message from Wright, who had been left in charge of the Cedar Creek forces, that the Confederate general Longstreet was approaching to reinforce Early. The message had been taken from the Confederate signal station on Three Top Mountain, at the northern end of Massanutten Mountain:
“To Lieutenant General Early:
“Be ready to move as soon as my forces join you, and we will crush Sheridan.
“Longstreet, Lieutenant-General.”
Although Sheridan had doubts as to the authenticity of the message, he nevertheless exercised prudence and returned the cavalry, which had accompanied him to Front Royal, to the Union lines at Cedar Creek. He then proceeded to Washington.
About three miles west of the Valley Turnpike, there is a road, called the Back Road, which parallels the Pike. Cedar Creek flows southeast across the space between the two roads and empties into the North Fork of the Shenandoah at the northern edge of Massanutten Mountain. The Federal army was entrenched clear across this intervening space, on the north bank of the
creek. Wright’s Sixth Corps held the right of the line, at the Back Road. The Nineteenth Corps, under Emory, took the center of the line, while the Eighth Corps, Crook’s Army of West Virginia, was at the junction of the creek and the river. Divisions of cavalry were flung out short distances beyond both wings of the army.
The Confederate line at Fisher’s Hill stretched from west of the Back Road, across the space between that road and the Valley Pike and anchored its right wing on the Shenandoah River. The two armies were now in readiness once again to contest possession of the Valley.
At midnight on October 18, Major-General John B. Gordon’s division of Early’s army crossed the North Fork of the Shenandoah and commenced its trek north along a narrow path between the river and the western side of Massanutten Mountain. It was a slow, tortuous march, as the men had to proceed in single file. At 3:30 the next morning, the 19th, the men in gray reached the near bank of the river, and, under the light of a brilliant moon, saw the Union camps on the hills beyond wrapped in slumber.
At 4:30 Gordon’s troops plunged across the river, which they had to cross once again, and burst upon the sleeping men of Crook’s corps, the Army of West Virginia. This time Early had turned Sheridan’s left flank. It was a
Union rout. The two divisions of Crook’s corps, followed quickly by two divisions of Emory’s Nineteenth Corps, broke and fled through the lines of Wright’s Sixth Corps, which was positioned somewhat in the rear across the Valley Pike.
By now, the men of the Sixth Corps were up. General Wright ordered the corps, as well as Emory’s corps to fall back to a more defensible position, from which to stem the Confederate onslaught. The two corps took position on a ridge just west of Middletown. On came the Confederate tide, and for the second time that morning Wright had to pull his troops back, this time nearly two miles in rear of Middletown.
George found himself in the thick of the fight during the movement of the Sixth Corps to its second position. When the Sixth Corps fell back from its original position, the Fifth Maine Battery followed the retreating troops until it reached the ridge west of Middletown. The drivers urged their horses at top speed and reached a line of woods. Even before the caisson had been brought to an abrupt stop, George and his fellows, who had clung perilously to the moving vehicle, jumped to the ground. While the drivers unhitched the horses and led them to a more secure position, the men removed the limber chest, turned their gun around, and wheeled it to face the advancing enemy. Again, amidst the dust and smoke, George worked with the crew and fired rounds of canister into the oncoming horde.
George had just finished ramming a charge down the muzzle of his gun when he heard a terrific explosion, which caused him instantly to duck down at the side of the gun. A shell from a Confederate gun had hit a nearby ammunition chest and had sent pieces of metal flying in all directions.
“Now that was a close one, John,” George yelled to his companion who had just pulled the lanyard and sent a charge of canister hurtling toward the enemy.
“You bet,” was the reply. “It can’t get much nearer to us than that. Now, move on! Give me another round.”
With a hearty laugh, George returned to his deadly work. “Here it is,” he shouted, as he rammed another charge home.
George and his crew fought on for over an hour. Several guns had by now been hit and destroyed. Many horses had been killed. Colonel Tompkins, the battery commander, saw that he had accomplished his mission and bought time for the Sixth Corps to take its new position. He therefore ordered the battery to limber up and join the corps beyond Middletown. The Fifth Maine was soon on the road again, although several guns of the brigade were left behind, owing to their horses having been killed.
It was now mid-morning. Generals Early and Gordon stood side by side at the front of their lines and looked across the distance to the Union army.
“Well, Gordon, this is glory enough for one day,” he exulted to his subordinate.
“It is very well so far, general, but we have one more blow to strike, and then there will not be left an organized company of infantry in Sheridan’s army.”
“No use in that,” Early replied. But Gordon demurred. “This is the Sixth Corps, General. It will not go unless we drive it from the field.”
“Yes, it will go directly,” he affirmed.
Sheridan had completed his conference with Halleck and, on the morning of the battle, was having breakfast at Winchester. An officer informed him that sounds of artillery fire had been heard in the distance. He was not concerned about this, for he supposed that the firing came from a reconnaissance. He decided to ride north and see for himself. As he rode through Winchester, he continued to hear sounds of firing and realized that, indeed, there was a battle in progress. For the second time in a few weeks, he again rode furiously, accompanied by his escort, to the field of battle. It was not long until he met trains and troops who had fled the broken Union lines. He ordered the trains to park and called the fugitives to return with him to the battle. His magnetism was irresistible, and the men turned around and with resounding cheers began their back-trek. It was a twelve mile ride–“Sheridan’s Ride,” it would come to be called.
When he reached the army and rode along the line, the soldiers welcomed him with shouts of joy. George looked upon Sheridan with admiration as the general rode by the battery. He saw a small man, dressed in black, perched on a great black steed, “Rienzi,” flourishing his little flat-topped cap in salute to his men. His features were set as hard as granite and his black eyes radiated a dull red glint. It appeared to George that Sheridan singled him out from all others and shouted to him,
“We are going to get a twist on those fellows. We are going to lick them out of their boots.”
By four o’clock that afternoon, Sheridan had reformed his lines. The Sixth Corps, which had held fast throughout the day, was formed southeast across the Pike. Emory’s Nineteenth Corps was brought up on the right of the Sixth Corps. Crook’s Eighth Corps was on the left of the Nineteenth, a short distance in the rear. The cavalry were on both extreme flanks of the line.
At that late afternoon hour, the Union army launched a massive counter attack on the Confederate forces. A brigade of Emory’s corps pierced the center of the Confederate line. Brigadier-General George Custer’s brigade of cavalry charged forward and split the enemy line in two. The two severed parts were hurled back in confusion beyond Cedar Creek. Twilight found the southern army back at Fisher’s hill. Before daylight next morning, the army continued its retreat toward New Market.
On a clear, crisp late afternoon in early November, the Fifth Maine Battery drew up in a large meadow situated a short distance west of the Valley Turnpike about midway between Newtown and Middletown. The men parked the caissons and guns, unhitched the teams, and led the horses to feed and water. Rails, which had formed the fences marking the several fields of a once-prosperous farm, were gathered from the ground and used to build campfires. George and his good friend, John, were warming themselves around one of the fires, watching the cooks prepare the evening meal.
“This has once been a fine and prosperous farm, John,” George remarked as he surveyed the landscape.
“That must be the dwelling,” John observed, pointing to a large, two-story structure nestled among great, old trees that crowned the hill on which the house was situated.
“So it seems. But it is sad to see such a lovely place going to rack and ruin. I guess we had to destroy the Valley so as to shorten the war, but I feel for these people who are suffering so much.”
At twilight, when the men were sitting by their fires and swapping accounts of the recent events, George noticed one of the men of another gun crew coming from the direction of the farmhouse. This person was a surly, mean-spirited individual with whom many of the men of the battery had had some difficulty in the past. He carried in his hand a packet, which, it was evident, he had taken from the people living in the house.
“Well, enough is enough, John. It’s one thing to devastate this beautiful valley to deprive the Rebel army, but it’s another thing to rob helpless people of their personal possessions. I think that is what has just happened. Let’s put a stop to it. Are you with me?”
“You bet I am.”
With that both men got up and met the fellow, who was by now publicly applauding his achievement of thievery, to the great disgust of the men who were witnessing the incident.
“Hold up, there,” George shouted, as he neared the man. The man turned to run, but John stepped in front of him while George pinned the fellow’s arms, causing him to drop his packet.
“I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time,” George exclaimed. He then gave the culprit a swift kick in the seat of his pants and sent him, cursing, scurrying off.
“If there’s any trouble,” someone yelled to George and John, “we didn’t see anything.” This brought huzzah and laughter from the men who had witnessed the occurrence.
“Come, we’ll take this back to the owner,” George called to his companion.
The two then walked to the house. It was a large stone house. On the lower floor the long windows and shutters provided entrance to a platform that encircled the house. It was graced by surrounding trees and shrubbery at its entrance. The two soldiers saw at once that it was a home to which the owners had devoted much attention in the prewar days, although it was now showing signs of neglect.
As George and John stood at the entrance, they heard faint sounds of conversation interspersed with sobs. The voices were those of ladies.
George rapped on the door softly. The sounds subsided. The men could tell that there was the shadow of fear within the enclosed walls. Once again George rapped his knuckles on the door.
“Who is it?” came the response.
“Don’t be afraid; we’re two Union soldiers returning your stolen property. We will not harm you.”
The door opened and the men stepped across the threshold into the room.
“Oh, thank you so much,” a refined lady in her early thirties exclaimed with evident relief. She opened the packet and removed, unharmed, a small picture set in gold and a beautiful and costly bracelet.
“Do be seated,” an elderly, cultured lady said, pointing to chairs near the fireplace in which a fire burned, giving warmth to the room.
“I was so heartsick to lose these,” the younger lady said. “The picture is of my mother, and the bracelet is my husband’s wedding gift to me. He is presently away, and his mother and I and the children are doing our best to keep the house and farm in some semblance of good condition. But it is very hard, with both armies marching and fighting on our property.”
“Families throughout the country, North as well as South, are separated by this war. Your situation is more grievous than that of mine, but I too have a wife and a recently born son at home on my farm in Maine. I’m George Prescott and this is John Loring, also from Maine.”
“And I am Mary Jones, and this,” Mary said, ” is my husband’s mother, Mrs. Strother Jones. My husband, Strother, Jr., is in danger from Federal authorities who, wrongfully, accuse him of passing information to our army.”
Just then a small boy came into the room.
“Mamma,” he cried, pointing to John, “is he the enemy?”
There was a moment of silence. It was broken by George’s amused chuckle. He quoted a passage from the Psalms, “Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.”
“Come here, my boy. I’m not your enemy,” John said. The boy, his fear abated, came forward and stood by John’s chair.
“Well, your son has phrased the question well,” George said. “Who is the enemy? Certainly, we in this room this evening are not enemies. The men in both armies, those who fight, bleed, and die, have no personal enmity against each other. Wherever it lies, the enmity is somewhere else.”
“The real enmity lies in the hearts of the extremists, in the North as well as the South, who have refused to find ways of reconciling our different ways of life,” the elderly Mrs. Jones offered by way of explanation. “I’m a Virginian and I’m for the Confederacy, but I hate slavery and never want to see another slave as long as I live. Slavery was becoming a thing of the past, even without the war, and it is regrettable that it should have brought on this dreadful war. What do you think, Mr. Prescott? Do you think that we have lost the war?”
“Yes, the days of the Confederacy are about over. Your beautiful valley will no longer feed Lee’s armies or provide a route for invasion of the North. It is for these two reasons that you have had to suffer so much. It is regrettable but unavoidable. We now hold the Mississippi River and have cut the Trans-Mississippi from the Confederate East. We are virtually in total possession of Tennessee and Kentucky. Atlanta has fallen and Sherman’s army will in all likelihood move east and cut the eastern Confederacy in half. And it will not be long until General Grant will take Richmond and capture Lee’s army. Then, for all intents and purposes, the war will be over.”
“Yes, I think you are right,” Mary said, with a deep sigh. “Then what will happen to us? What will the North yet do to us?”
“As strange as it may seem to you,” George answered, “the South’s best friend today is Lincoln. My brother, Asa, who was wounded at Antietam, is an aide to the President. Asa says that Lincoln will go light with the South, be merciful, and do his best to restore the broken fabric of our national life.”
“I too have heard that,” the elderly Mrs. Jones replied. “It may be best for us all that he has been elected to his second term. We have lost the war, I know, and now I hope and pray for its speedy conclusion and the time when peace will again come to the land.”
It was by this time growing quite dark. After again receiving profuse thanks from the ladies, George and John bid their hostesses goodby and made their way to their camp.
Sheridan remained in the Valley to complete his work of destruction. On March 2, 1865, he defeated Early at Waynesboro, then destroyed the Central Railroad and Canal. Early and his fellow generals fled into the woods and, barely escaping capture, finally made their way to Lee’s army at Richmond.
The Shenandoah Valley, the Garden of Virginia, lay in ruins.
Back in September, Grant had instructed Sheridan,
Give the enemy no rest . . . . Do all the damage to railroads and crops that you can. Carry off stock of all descriptions and negroes, so as to prevent further planting. If the war is to last another year, we want the Shenandoah Valley to remain a barren waste.
This Sheridan and his army had done. “For one hundred miles,” the Union
general Crook said, “a cricket could not subsist on the country.”
So he drove out the man;
and he placed at the east of the
garden of Eden . . . a flaming
sword which turned every way,
to keep the way . . . .
ROSTER OF THE ARMIES
SHENANDOAH, 1864
ARMY OF THE SHENANDOAH, USA
Major-General Philip H. Sheridan, Commanding
Cavalry: Brigadier-General Alfred T. A. Torbert
First Division (A.P.C.): Brigadier-General Wesley Merritt
Third Division (A.P.C.): Brigadier-General James H. Wilson
First Division (W. Va. C): Brigadier-General Alfred A. Duffie
Second Division (W. Va. C): Brigadier-General William W. Averell
Sixth Corps: Major-General Horatio G. Wright
First Division: Brigadier-General David A. Russell
Second Division: Brigadier-General George W. Getty
Third Division: Brigadier-General James B. Ricketts
Artillery Brigade: Colonel Charles H. Tompkins
Maine Light Artillery, 5th Battery: Captain Greenleaf T. Stevens
George C. Prescott
Nineteenth Corps: Brigadier-General William H. Emory
First Division: Brigadier-General William Dwight
Second Division: Brigadier-General Cuvier Grover
Army of West Virgiania: Brigadier-General George Crook
First Division: Colonel Joseph Thoburn
Second Division: Colonel Isaac H. Duval
ARMY OF THE VALLEY DISTRICT, CSA
Lieutenant-General Jubal A. Early, Commanding