ORGANIZATION OF THE MIDDLE MILITARY DIVISION. 795

CHAPTER LXIII.

THE MIDDLE MILITARY DIVISION ORGANIZED, AND GENERAL SHERIDAN APPOINTED ITS COMMANDER-ORGANIZATION OF THE NEW ARMY OF THE SHENANDOAH-SHERIDAN CONCENTRATES HIS TROOPS ON THE LINE OF THE POTOMAC-ADVANCING AND RETREATING"HARPER'S WEEKLY"-EARLY'S MISCONCEPTION OF SHERIDAN'S CHARACTER HIS MOVEMENT TO BERRYVILLE-THE CAVALRY FIGHT AT DARKESVILLE-THE BATTLE OF OPEQUAN CREEK, OR WINCHESTER-EARLY "SENT WHIRLING" UP THE VALLEY-BAttle of fisher's HILL-EARLY AGAIN DEFEATED AND ROUTED—“ SETTLING A NEW CAVALRY GENERAL"ROSSER'S DEFEAT-EARLY DEFEATED AGAIN AT LITTLE NORTH MOUNTAIN, ON THE 12TH OF

OCTOBER-SHERIDAN VISITS WASHINGTON-EARLY CREEPS UP ON THE LEFT FLANK OF THE UNION ARMY-THE UNION TROOPS DEFEATED BADLY, AND DRIVEN TO MIDDLETOWN—SHERIDAN COMES UP, MAKES THE FUGITIVES "FACE THE OTHER WAY," REORGANIZES THE ARMY, ATTACKS, DEFEATS, AND ROUTS EARLY, AND SENDS HIM ONCE MORE WHIRLING" UP THE VALLEY, WITH THE LOSS OF HIS ARTILLERY, WAGONS, ETC.-SUBSEQUENT OPERATIONS IN THE VALLEY, IN THE AUTUMN-DESOLATING THE VALLEY TO REPRESS THE GUERRILLASEARLY SENDS A PART OF HIS FORCE TO LEE, AND SHERIDAN RETURNS THE SIXTH CORPS TO THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC-BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF SHERIDAN.

IN the account given in a previous chapter of the expedition of the Rebel General Early into Maryland and Pennsylvania, it was noticeable that there was a want of harmony and consentaneous action on the part of the Union troops, strangely in contrast with their united and vigorous movements in Virginia. They were numerous enough at any time after the battle of Monocacy, to have driven the Rebels out of Maryland so hastily that they could not have taken a wagon-load of their plunder with them, yet they did nothing of the sort; they pursued the enemy in squads and small bodies of troops, and when they came up with them, more than once were borne back by the overwhelming numbers of the foe, who always took good care to have his troops massed.

This want of concentration and efficiency resulted mainly from the conflicting commands, or departments, into which the territory in question was divided. Western Virginia, toward the Ohio, constituted one small department; the Shenandoah valley, and the route of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, another; Washington and its vicinity was a department by itself, and the Department of Annapolis covered Baltimore and part of northern Maryland; while Pennsylvania was divided into the Departments of the Susquehanna and the Monongahela. The commanders of these several military districts did not co-operate harmoniously with each other, and being co-equal in authority, there was no end of jealousies and discords on questions of rank and precedence. General Grant had observed this difficulty and the disasters it had occasioned, and determined to remedy it. He therefore suggested to the Government the organization of a

Middle Military Division, analogous in character to the Military Division of the Mississippi, which should include all these departments, and have control over military affairs in the States of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. This suggestion being adopted, he nominated for the command of that division, Major-General Philip H. Sheridan, the chief of his cavalry corps, whose skill, caution, and daring, he had already tested in the West, and in his well conducted expeditions in Virginia in May and June. The new position required military genius of a high order; but though Sheridan was the junior in years of nearly every major-general in his new division, General Grant was satisfied of his capacity for the command.

On the 7th of August, General Sheridan received his appointment, and on the same day established his headquarters at Harper's Ferry. His first work was to concentrate his troops as rapidly as possible along the Potomac, in the immediate vicinity of the Shenandoah valley, whither General Early had withdrawn with his troops and his plunder. The force assigned permanently to Sheridan was, the army of West Virginia, Crook's corps, including the remainder of Hunter's troops (Hunter himself being relieved), and Averell's cavalry; the nineteenth-Emory'scorps, and the sixth-Wright's-corps, together with two divisions of cavalry from the army of the Potomac. These were the forces in the field. Beside thesc, the garrisons of Washington, Baltimore, Annapolis, Frederick, and other points in Maryland and Pennsylvania were subject to his control. General Ord, lately in command in Maryland, was sent back to the army of the James, and put in command of a corps there. When General Sheridan took command, his troops were widely scattered. Crook, and a part of his corps, were in Virginia, threatening the enemy at Snicker's and Ashby's gaps; Wright's corps was at Washington, and along the Potomac, toward Harper's Ferry; and Emory's was still in Maryland. The cavalry from the army of the Potomac had not yet arrived. It was to be commanded by General Torbert, a young cavalry officer, who had already achieved some reputation in southern Virginia.

While awaiting the complete concentration of his troops along the line of the Potomac, General Sheridan gradually pressed the Rebels back from the important positions of Martinsburg, Williamsport, &c., garrisoning these as fast as they were relinquished, and establishing complete and ready communications between his headquarters and his advanced posts. He then began to make feints of an advance, in order to test the enemy's strength and fighting qualities. Early, suspecting that Sheridan meditated the invasion of the Shenandoah valley, and desiring to entrap him, fell back gradually, for the purpose of luring him on; but Sheridan was more than a match for Early in astuteness, and understood too fully Early's plots, and the objects to be accomplished, to be hurried into any premsture movement. As Early retired, however, without appearing to

THE CAVALRY FIGHT AT DARKESVILLE.

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pursue him, he gradually occupied and secured every important position, seizing Winchester on the 12th of August, and throwing out a cavalry detachment to Front Royal, where it encountered and defeated, after a sharp battle, the Rebel cavalry. This accomplished, he fell back in turn, abandoning Winchester, and receiving and distributing from Harper's Ferry, his now rapidly increasing forces. As he expected, this brought Early and his troops northward again, and several sharp skirmishes took place, Sheridan's cavalry, meantime, reconnoitering thoroughly the enemy's position, and taking note of all his movements. Finding that there was some danger of their moving southward to join General Lee, a measure seriously contemplated by Early about this time, under the renewed pressure brought to bear upon Lee by General Grant, and being determined to prevent this at all hazards, Sheridan again advanced, as if to give Early battle, and thus arrested his progress; and then again withdrew toward Charlestown, to attract him nearer to the Potomac. Early, supposing that he had excited Sheridan's fears, indulged the hope that by skilful management he might flank him, and, entering Maryland again, reap another harvest of plunder. Accordingly, he moved east to Berryville, and issued a long general order to his troops, forbidding straggling and depredations upon the inhabitants of the Shenandoah valley.

The Rebel press, meanwhile, made itself exceedingly merry over these advances and retreats of Sheridan, whose object they could not comprehend. Some wag, who deemed himself extremely witty, bestowed the sobriquet of "Harper's Weekly" upon Sheridan, in consequence of his frequent movements to and from Harper's Ferry. It proved a sorry joko ere long, and when it was too late, the Rebels found that Sheridan's movements were only intended as manoeuvres for a favorable position to strike a telling and decisive blow.

Early's movement to Berryville was made on the 16th of September, and Sheridan was completely prepared to move upon him when it occurred. Lee was too fully occupied by the heavy and repeated blows Grant was inflicting, to be able to send Early any reinforcements, and Sheridan's force was more than a match for him. A part of Early's cavalry were west of Opequan creek, near Darkesville, about three miles south of Martinsburg, and upon these, Merritt's and Averell's cavalry divisions were hurled on the morning of the 18th, while the infantry attacking Early's main column at Berryville, in flank and rear, pushed it westward over the Opequan toward Winchester. The cavalry attack at Darkesville was a mere skirmish, the Rebel cavalry retreating like a flock of sheep toward Winchester. The main column of the Rebels at Berryville, finding itself attacked in rear and flank, moved off skirmishing, but not forming in line of battle till it had crossed the Opequan. Here it took up a strong position, and made evident preparations for a determined struggle the next day. Sheridan had now accomplished the object

for which he had been manoeuvering so long. He had pushed Early west of Opequan creek, and lay with his force directly between the Rebel army and their line of retreat toward Richmond. It remained now only to defeat them in this new position, and drive them into the Shenandoah valley, and into the rough and precipitous region which formed the western boundary of that valley, in order completely to demoralize and destroy them. This was the task which Sheridan undertook the next day. The attack was ordered at daybreak of the 19th of September, and was com menced by the cavalry soon after that time, but the infantry were detained, waiting for the nineteenth corps, and the delay had nearly been produetive of serious disaster, for though falling back at first, yet finding themselves pressed by an inferior force, the Rebels turned and drove back the Union troops for some distance, but the infantry coming up at about noon, after about three hours of sharp and determined fighting, the Rebel left flank was turned, and they began to fall back toward Winchester, at first in good order, and stopping frequently to fight, but as they were pressed more and more closely, their retreat degenerated, after a time, into a rout, and they were driven into and through Winchester, or as Sheridan expressed it in his despatch "sent whirling through Winchester," and pursued relentlessly till, abandoning guns and knapsacks, cannon and trains, in their mad frenzy of flight, they reached their fortified posi tion on Fisher's Hill, thirty miles below Winchester, where they succeeded in rallying and making a stand. In this disastrous battle and retreat three of their ablest generals, Major-General Rhodes, and Brigadier-Generals Godwin and York were killed, and Brigadier-General Humphreys had fallen the previous day at Berryville. Three others, among them Fitzhugh Lee, since Stuart's death the commander of the Rebel cavalry corps of the army of Virginia, were seriously wounded. About three thousand of their killed and wounded were left on the battle-field, and the Union troops captured twenty-two hundred uninjured prisoners, five thousand stand of arms, five pieces of artillery, and fifteen battle-flags.

With the celerity which has always marked his movements, Sheridan marched at once to assault and dislodge the Rebels from their strong position on Fisher's Hill. To most generals this would have seemed an impossible task; there are few points stronger by nature, or better fortified by art, than this, where Early, regarding himself as perfectly secure, was resting and re-forming his wearied and demoralized troops. His right rested upon the north fork of the Shenandoah river, just where the Massanutten mountain terminates in a precipitous bluff on its eastern shore his left rested upon the equally precipitous, and as he believed impassable brow of the North mountain, and the slope of Fisher's Hill, steep, and covered with a heavy undergrowth, and swept at every point by his cannon, forbade approach in that direction. To Sheridan, however, these obstacles were only sufficient to give a zest to his enterprise of

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dispossessing his foe of his stronghold. On the morning of the 21st, his army was in position to assail the enemy. The front was too formidable to be carried by a direct attack alone, and therefore he determined while demonstrating on that with his sixth corps, to send the eighth-Crook'scorps far to the right, to sweep around Early's left, and flanking him attack him in rear, and drive him out of his intrenchments, and the nineteenth-Emory's-corps to assail him on his right flank, while Averell skirted along the southern base of the mountain. Confused and disorganized by attacks at so many different points, and disheartened at finding that Crook had already flanked them, and was pouring a destructive fire upon their rear, the enemy broke at the centre, and the sixth corps separating their two wings, they fled in complete disorder toward Woodstock. Artillery, horses, wagons, rifles, knapsacks, and canteens were abandoned, and strewn along the road. Eleven hundred prisoners and sixteen pieces of artillery were captured. The pursuit was continued until the 25th of September, and terminated only when the enemy had been driven beyond Port Republic, and large numbers of them, sick of the conflict, and determined to abandon it, had scattered in the mountains. The loss of the Rebels from the 19th to the 25th of September, in killed, wounded, miss ing, and prisoners, was certainly not less than ten thousand.

The President commissioned Sheridan as brigadier-general in the regular army, to fill the vacancy occasioned by the death of the lamented McPherson, for his gallantry and skill displayed in these battles. Pausing for a few days at Port Republic, and making his headquarters there, General Sheridan sent his cavalry forward under General Torbert to Staunton. They succeeded in capturing the town, and destroyed all the storehouses, machine shops, and other buildings owned and occupied by the Rebel Government, and also the saddles, small arms, hard bread, and other military stores found in the place. They then proceeded to Waynesboro, a town on the Virginia Central railroad, tore up seven miles of the railroad track, destroyed the depot, the iron bridge over the Shenandoah, a government tannery, and other stores. General Sheridan also improved his time, while holding possession of the upper Shenandoah valley, to destroy all the grain, hay, and forage to be found there, excepting what was necessary for the subsistence of his own army. He thus effectually crippled both Early's and Lee's armies, as each had depended upon this fertile valley for the greater part of their stores of grain and forage. The whole valley being thus rendered untenable by the Rebel army, and the guerrilla movements, which had been encouraged by the inhabitants who had harbored them, sternly repressed, General Sheridan moved leisurely northward, and on the 6th of October made his headquarters at Woodstock. South of this point, over two thousand barns, filled with wheat and hay, and over seventy mills, stocked with wheat and flour, had been destroyed; and a vast herd of stock, and more than three thousand sheep,