On the 19th Sheridan, therefore, advanced, and met the enemy at Winchester, and drove them through the town, night stopping the pursuit. Early, however, retreated to Fisher's Hill, thirty miles south of Winchester, and Sheridan arrived in front of this position on the morning of the 22d, and attacking again, drove him back; nor did Early stop until he had reached the passes of the Blue Ridge, with the loss of half his army. Sheridan pushed the pursuit as far as Staunton, destroyed the Virginia Central Railroad, and returned to Strasburg, laying the country completely waste on his return. This course has been thought to be indefensible, and can be justified only on the grounds that anything in war can be justified. Certain it was, that this course, by beggaring the inhabitants, laying waste the fields, destroying the crops, burning the mills, and so on, prevented the people in this region from continuing to aid the enemy on every occasion, as they had repeatedly done before. It is difficult, if not impossible, to draw a line that shall accurately divide the allowable from the unallowable in war; the entire system is one of violence and injury, and if these are necessary, who shall say how far they shall go? Of course there is a difference between a love of carnage and destruction for their own sake, such as the savage display's, and severity for the purpose of accomplishing the object which every civilized nation engaged in war has, that is, of putting a stop to the war; and it cannot be said that Sheridan here overstepped the bounds allowed to this last.

The next month, while Sheridan still occupied a position on the north bank of Cedar Creek, Early,

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having been reënforced from Lee's army, assumed the offensive, and having made his dispositions at Fisher's Hill, moved forward, on the night of the 18th of October, to surprise the Union force. Fording the north fork of the Shenandoah, and under the cover of a fog, they attacked our forces early in the morning of the 19th, while Sheridan was absent at Winchester, and came very near causing a most serious disaster. When daylight came, the whole of our left and centre was a confused mass; the Sixth Corps stood, however, firm, and protected the retreat, which now seemed the only course left, and it was not until a position was reached between Middletown and Newtown, and the pursuit of the enemy slackened, that the line could be re-formed. At about half past ten A. M., Sheridan, who had heard the guns at Winchester, came riding up post haste, and, inspiriting his men, led them back, and routed the enemy entirely, and finished the war forever in the Shenandoah Valley, so that most of his troops returned to the army of the Potomac, and the scattered remnants of Early's force to Lee's army, since the want of forage in the valley rendered it impossible for the Confederates to support an armed force there.

There is no doubt that it was Sheridan's personal bearing, and his magnetic influence over men which enabled him to thus pluck victory from the jaws of defeat; but it must not be forgotten that General Wright had already stayed the rout, and formed the line anew. General Early afterwards ascribed the rout of his army to the men, and some commissioned of ficers yielding" to a disgraceful propensity for plunder," and leaving their ranks in order to "appropriate" the "abandoned property of the enemy."

For this action Sheridan was made a Major General in the regular army, in the following order from the President, to fill the place resigned by McClellan, the order to take effect on the 8th of November:

"That for personal gallantry, military skill, and just confidence in the courage and patriotism of his troops, displayed by Philip H. Sheridan on the 19th of October, at Cedar Run, whereby, under the blessing of Providence, his routed army was reorganized, a great national disaster averted, and a brilliant victory achieved over the rebels for the third time in pitched battle within thirty days, Philip H. Sheridan is appointed Major General in the United States army, to rank as such from the 8th day of November, 1864."

The operations in the Shenandoah being thus brought to a happy conclusion, let us return to the army of the Potomac in its position before Petersburg.