Terrible Swift Sword (22 page)

The Union and Confederate cavalry skirmished almost daily, but weeks passed without a decisive battle. Brigadier General Wesley Merritt believed the clashes between Union cavalry and Rebel infantry served an important purpose. “They gave the cavalry increased confidence, and made the enemy correspondingly doubtful even of the ability of its infantry, in anything like equal numbers, to contend against our cavalry in the open fields of the Valley.”

From the Northern public, “mutterings of dissatisfaction” reached Sheridan from many quarters, with some critics calling for his removal. Convinced that “the best course was to bide my time,” Sheridan waited for “an opportunity under such conditions that I could not well fail of success.”
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IN JUBAL EARLY, SHERIDAN faced a wily opponent who had excelled as a division commander but had little experience in leading an independent command. Self-reliant, aggressive, cool under fire, and with a knack for strategy, Early, forty-seven years old, was full-bearded and tall, although somewhat stooped from arthritis. In 1837, he had graduated eighteenth in his West Point class of fifty, and he later fought in the Mexican War. When the Civil War began, Early, a lawyer in private practice, had represented Unionist Franklin County at the Virginia Secession Convention. The clamor for states' rights had drowned out his arguments against secession. When Virginia seceded, Early, loyal to his state no matter what, became commander of the 24th Virginia Infantry.

He had capably led infantry divisions at Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and the Wilderness. Sarcastic, abrupt, and profane, Early was unpopular with his subordinates. And while he was unquestionably courageous, he lacked the quality of self-assurance, or perhaps greatness, that inspired Jackson and Lee—and, later, Sheridan, Grant, and Sherman—to act boldly when presented with unexpected opportunities.

Early's Army of the Valley never exceeded 20,000 men; therefore, when confronting Sheridan's army, it was usually outnumbered by two to one or more. But all of Early's troops were lean, weathered veterans of nearly every battle in the East since 1861. With the arrival of Kershaw's infantry division and Fitzhugh Lee's cavalry division, Early commanded five infantry divisions, two cavalry divisions, and five artillery battalions, including some horse artillery. His II Corps included the proud remnants of the Stonewall Brigade, the legendary “foot cavalry” that had run roughshod over Union armies in the Valley during 1861 and 1862. The survivors
of those campaigns knew the locations of the region's most obscure footpaths, its secret valleys, and its most defensible and vulnerable points.
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AUGUST BECAME SEPTEMBER, AND Sheridan's infantry remained largely idle. He kept his cavalry active, though, maintaining a six-mile interval between the two lines. Sheridan wrote that he “wished to control this ground” so that when he went on the offensive, the Rebels could not easily observe his preparations.

But no preparations were under way. Stanton and Halleck had warned Sheridan not to risk a defeat, and Grant had cautioned him to remain on the defensive until Early sent away some of his troops. Sheridan waited and watched.
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Early, satisfied that he had accomplished his object of threatening the North and tying up a large Yankee force, was scornful of Sheridan's inaction. “The commander opposed to me was without enterprise, and possessed an excessive caution which amounted to timidity,” Early wrote. “If it was his policy to produce the impression that his force was too weak to fight me, he did not succeed, but if it was to convince me that he was not an able or energetic commander, his strategy was a complete success.”

Early's men began calling Sheridan's army “Harper's Weekly” for its frequent withdrawals to its breastworks in the north end of the Valley near Harper's Ferry.
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ON SEPTEMBER 3, GENERAL Richard Anderson, needed by Lee in Richmond, began marching south from Winchester with Kershaw's infantry division and Fitzhugh Lee's cavalry. Reaching Berryville, the Rebels turned east toward Ashby's Gap through the Blue Ridge Mountains.

The Confederates were unpleasantly surprised when, rather than passing through the mountains, they encountered Major General George Crook's West Virginia army, now known as VIII Corps. Sheridan had shifted troops from Charlestown to lines northeast of Winchester to better guard the lower mountain gaps and the approaches to the B&O Railroad.

“A bitter little fight” erupted when Anderson collided with VIII Corps, with the result that Crook's troops threw back the Confederates. Anderson retraced his steps to Winchester, intending to wait for a more favorable time to leave the Valley and join Lee.
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SHERIDAN'S BROTHER MICHAEL, AN aide-de-camp on Sheridan's staff, was a man of action like his big brother. Another Sheridan brother, John, was a different sort: nearsighted, shy, and bookish. He happened to be serving with the Army of the Shenandoah as a one-hundred-day volunteer with an Ohio infantry regiment when he became ill. His two brothers rallied around him, with Michael making sure that
John received all the medications he needed and procuring “delicacies” to speed his recovery.
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AS SEPTEMBER ADVANCED, THE cavalries of Sheridan and Early tirelessly marched, countermarched, and skirmished, seeking to gain an advantage by maneuver. An expert on the Union cavalry, Stephen Z. Starr, compared the armies' relatively bloodless movements during these weeks to “the elaborate choreographed evolutions of eighteenth-century warfare.”

But Sheridan was doing more than marking time until he might attack Early with an assurance of victory; he was acclimating his infantry and cavalry to joint operations.
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Their objective would be not just victory but the complete destruction of the enemy's fighting capabilities. When the time came to give battle, Sheridan intended to utilize his mounted troops' superior speed and mobility to cut off the enemy's avenues of retreat and force him into pockets where combined infantry and cavalry might annihilate him.

He had broken new ground in the Army of the Potomac by utilizing the Cavalry Corps as an independent strike force. Now, in the Shenandoah Valley, he was on the verge of another innovation: integrating the cavalry's operations with the infantry's. This was as revolutionary a concept as would be the use of tanks and aircraft in the twentieth century to support fighting men on the ground.

Sheridan's dynamic twining of infantry and cavalry would prove extremely useful to the pioneers of mechanized warfare during the 1930s. But Sheridan's early attempts to effect the most basic combinations of these two arms would run up against frustrating human limitations.

SEPTEMBER 1864

THE YOUNG QUAKER SCHOOLTEACHER was lecturing a roomful of girls when she was interrupted by a knock on the door of her Winchester classroom on September 16. When she opened the door, an older black man stood before her. Was she Rebecca Wright? he asked. Yes, she answered.

There were more questions until the stranger had satisfied himself that she was indeed the Miss Wright who lived in the Wright family home on Fort Hill in Winchester—the same Miss Wright who two months earlier had made the acquaintance of Major General George Crook during Crook's brief occupation of Winchester. Wright was all of that, and a Union sympathizer, which was what had brought Thomas Laws to her door.

Laws, who lived between the Union and Rebel lines near Berryville, had obtained a pass from Confederate lieutenant general Jubal Early that permitted him to travel through the Rebel lines and into Winchester to sell vegetables. But he hadn't come to sell vegetables to Wright; today, he was acting as a messenger for Major General Phil Sheridan.

After Wright had invited Laws inside, he removed some tinfoil secreted beneath his tongue and opened it to reveal a piece of tissue paper. The small pellet would have been easy to swallow if Rebel pickets had decided to search Laws; they hadn't. The message said,

Wright told Laws to return at 3 p.m. She then sought her mother's advice about whether to aid Sheridan. Her father was unavailable for consultation—he was in Richmond's infamous Libby Prison, where Union officers were held captive. Wright's mother encouraged her to assist the Yankee general.

Coincidentally, the previous day a convalescing Confederate officer had visited the Wright home and spoken unrestrainedly about the movements and strength of the Army of the Valley. When Laws returned, Wright handed him the compressed pellet of foil, now containing her reply to Sheridan:

Wright's note confirmed the reports of Richard Anderson's departure that had reached the Union camp over the past several days. It freed Sheridan to act at last—for Joseph Kershaw's departure gave Sheridan a lopsided advantage, with more than 40,000 Union troops to Early's 18,000.

Sheridan began making a battle plan. He would not act upon it until Anderson had marched too far away to come to Early's assistance when Sheridan attacked.
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LATE THAT NIGHT, SHERIDAN received a message from Ulysses Grant. The general in chief was ten miles away in Charles Town, West Virginia, and he wanted Sheridan to meet him there.

Weeks earlier, President Abraham Lincoln had emphasized to Grant that he must personally oversee the Shenandoah Valley campaign because, he feared, “it will neither be done nor attempted, unless you watch it every day and hour and force it.” Since then, Grant had closely monitored the operations in the Valley. Throughout August and September, he peppered Sheridan with telegrams every two or three days. They included his observations and thoughts, as well as gleaned intelligence—often incorrect—on the movement of Rebel units to and from the Shenandoah.

On August 21, Grant had told Sheridan that if his operations near Petersburg were successful, Confederate troops would probably be withdrawn from the Valley to reinforce Robert E. Lee. On August 25 and 26, Grant was certain that Fitzhugh Lee's cavalry was being recalled from the Valley to southern Virginia; it wasn't. On August 29, he reported that Major General John Breckenridge had been sent from the Valley to West Virginia—to which Sheridan exasperatedly replied, “There is not one word of truth in the report. . . . . It is a copperhead report. I saw his corps at the crossing of Opequon Creek this evening.” On September 1, Grant passed along a rumor, also false, that Early's army had been ordered to Richmond.

On September 8, Grant suggested that Sheridan reinforce his army with troops from Washington, “if you want to attack Early.” But the next day, Grant advised against an assault: “I would not have you make an attack with the advantages against you, but would prefer just the course you seem to be pursuing: that is pressing closely upon the enemy and when he moves, follow him up, being ready at all times to pounce upon him if he detaches any considerable force.”
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Lincoln's reelection prospects had received an enormous boost on September 3, when the electrifying news of William Sherman's capture of Atlanta had reached Washington. But Atlanta's fall alone might not necessarily secure Lincoln a second term. George McClellan, the Democratic Party's presidential nominee and a former Union Army major general, had a large following of dissidents: those demanding immediate peace and others who were disheartened by Early's menacing of Washington, Grant's stalemate at Petersburg, and this war without apparent end.

On September 12, Lincoln, pressured by the growing number of Northern critics derogating the seemingly inert Army of the Shenandoah, penned a note to Grant:

Grant replied to the president the next day: “It has been my intention for a week back to start to-morrow, or the day following, to see Sheridan and arrange what was necessary to enable him to start Early out of the valley. It seems to me it can be successfully done.”
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