Terrible Swift Sword (30 page)

It did not take Sheridan long to reach his momentous decision. “I felt that I ought to try now to restore their broken ranks, or, failing in that, share their fate because of what they had done hitherto.” Forsyth watched Sheridan's face harden with resolution, “as though carved in stone, and the same dull red glint I had seen in his piercing black eyes when, on other occasions, the battle was going against us, was there now.” As Sheridan's party rode on, an infantry colonel they encountered declared, “We're whipped,” to which Sheridan retorted, “You are, but the army isn't.”
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At every point along the way to the front lines, Sheridan conducted a running exhortatory with the stragglers, as they continued to applaud him furiously. “About face, boys! We are going back to our camps. We are going to lick them out of their boots!” “Boys, turn back! Face the other way! I am going to sleep in that camp tonight or in hell!”
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THE SIGHT OF THE fiery little man on the big black horse sent an electric charge through the shell-shocked army. Frank Flinn's 38th Massachusetts Infantry of XIX Corps had just taken a new position when, from the rear, he heard “a faint cheer. Louder and louder, nearer and nearer it came.”
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Major Walker of the 11th Vermont was astounded when he heard cheering behind him on the Valley Turnpike, coming from “the stragglers and hospital bummers, and the gun-less artillerymen . . . . as though a victory had been won.”
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Sheridan met Major William McKinley, the future twenty-fifth president, who was on Crook's staff, and McKinley began spreading the news among the VIII Corps refugees that Sheridan had returned. Sheridan rode past XIX Corps, shouting to the men to turn around, but he didn't stop, “desiring to get to the extreme front.”

The extreme front was Getty's division of VI Corps. Sheridan reached it at 10 a.m., about the time Early stopped his attack. After pulling out of the Middletown cemetery, Getty's men had occupied positions on high ground a mile or two to the rear, on Old Forge Road near Meadow Creek. Torbert's two cavalry divisions were nearby, holding Early's army in check on the Valley Pike. “This division and the cavalry were the only troops in the presence of and resisting the enemy,” Sheridan wrote.

Torbert galloped up to Sheridan, exclaiming, “My God! I am glad you've come.” Sheridan jumped Rienzi over Getty's fence-rail fieldworks, rode to the hillcrest, removed his hat, and waved it at the troops. The men rose up from behind the barricade and roared their approval.
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“Such a scene as his presence produced and such emotions as it awoke cannot be realized but once in a century . . . . a pressure of emotion beyond description,” wrote Major Walker of Sheridan's greeting by VI Corps. “No more doubt or chance for doubt existed; we were safe, perfectly and unconditionally safe, and every man knew it.”
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Riding to the rear of Getty's division, Sheridan was surprised when suddenly “a line of regimental flags rose up out of the ground, it seemed to welcome me”—the colors of Crook's routed regiments. The color guard was composed of officers, among them Colonel Rutherford Hayes. Sheridan crossed a small valley, dismounted on the opposite crest, and there established his headquarters.
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Major Hazard Stevens, a Getty staff officer, wrote that the pall of desolation hanging over the division staff instantly lifted with Sheridan's return. “Hope and confidence returned at a bound. . . . . Now we all burned to attack the enemy, to drive him back, to retrieve our honor, and sleep in our camps that night. And every man knew that Sheridan would do it.”
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GENERALS CROOK, TORBERT, EMORY, and Wright gathered at Sheridan's new headquarters. Sheridan embraced his old West Point roommate, Crook. “What are you doing way back here?” he asked him. “Well, we've done the best we could,” Wright wearily replied, the bloodstained bandages on his chin attesting to the fight he had made. Emory said XIX Corps was ready to cover the army's retreat. Sheridan instantly disabused them of that notion.

“Retreat hell!” he told his generals. “We'll be back in our camps tonight!”

Sheridan began to put into action his plan to re-form his dispersed Army of the Shenandoah into a dangerous offensive weapon that he would unleash upon Early's
triumphant but now idle troops. Praising the tenacious stand made that morning by Getty's division, Sheridan declared that his army would “fight on Getty's line.”
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WHEATON'S AND BRIGADIER GENERAL James B. Ricketts's VI Corps divisions were placed to the right of Getty, and XIX Corps were positioned to their right. Sheridan sent Custer's cavalry division back to the extreme right, beyond XIX Corps. The cavalry brigade of Colonel Charles Russell Lowell Jr.—the ninth-generation, Harvard-educated scion of the famous Massachusetts Lowells and nephew of poet James Russell Lowell—was placed to Getty's left, along with Crook's shattered VIII Corps, whenever it could be reassembled, and Merritt's cavalry division.
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Throughout the late morning and noon hour, Sheridan personally supervised the arrangement of his divisions on the ridges north of Middletown, while periodically riding to a commanding height to see what the Rebels were up to. Shortly before 1 p.m., he detected unmistakable signs that the Confederates were preparing to attack. Major George Forsyth suggested that Sheridan ride along his army's battle lines so that all of the troops would know that he had reassumed command. Major McKinley further recommended that he remove his coat and hat so that he would be readily identifiable.

At first, Sheridan modestly declined. But then, hat in hand, he rode the length of his army's battle line, stopping before each unit to transmit to the men his fierce belief that they could retrieve victory from apparent defeat. “We'll whip 'em like hell before night!” he told them again and again. “We'll raise them out of their boots before the day is over!”

Never before had Sheridan's personal magnetism exerted as powerful an influence as it did on this day. His mere presence, cementing the special bond Sheridan had formed with his men during their previous victories over Early, produced an electric, if not magical, effect—an “all-conquering energy,” wrote Major Walker; “an immediate stimulus to battle,” said Captain George B. Sanford of the 1st US Cavalry.

Sheridan wrote that he was received with “heartiness,” but the reception was in fact tumultuous.
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“The men went wild,” wrote Reverend James Ewer of the 3rd Massachusetts Cavalry. “Cheer after cheer broke forth, and rolled from regiment to regiment as he passed along.” Officers pressed in to shake Sheridan's hand. A soldier in the 114th New York Infantry said the men were thrown into “a perfect frenzy of enthusiasm.” “The presence of a master spirit was at once felt,” wrote a soldier of the 38th Massachusetts. “Instantly all thought of merely defeating an attack upon us ended,” wrote Lieutenant Colonel Moses Granger of the 122nd Ohio Infantry. “In its stead was a conviction that we were to attack and defeat them that very afternoon.”
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Before that happened, the Rebels attacked again, although it was more of a probe than an assault. From Massanutten Mountain, the Confederate Signal Corps, watching the Yankees re-form their ranks, had been reporting these developments to Early and Gordon. Wishing to test the enemy lines, Early told Gordon not to press if he found them too strong.

At 1 p.m., the Yankees heard a “low, rustling murmur” in the dense woods in front of XIX Corps, and then “a long gray line stretching away through the woods” began advancing on the waiting Union infantrymen. With small arms fire alone, Emory's men easily flung back the Rebel thrust. It was so limited in scope and brief that many of Sheridan's troops were unaware that it had even happened. But the repulse restored the Yankees' confidence. Now, they enjoyed not only numerical superiority but a psychological advantage too. Early decided not to attack again.

“That's good! That's good!” Sheridan exclaimed when Captain John De Forest gave him the news from Emory. “Thank God for that! Now then, tell General Emory if they attack him again to go after them, and to follow them up, and to sock it to them, and to give them the devil. We'll get the tightest twist on them yet that you ever saw. We'll have all those camps and cannon back again.”
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FOR MORE THAN TWO hours, nothing happened. Sheridan knew that he now held the initiative, and the aggressor's role suited him fine. He could afford to wait for stragglers from the rear to rejoin his “thin ranks,” with Crook's badly dispersed corps especially needed on the left. As the hours passed, the Yankee divisions grew steadily stronger as more bluecoats returned to the front. While he waited, Sheridan told his infantrymen to lie down—to rest and eat and to make smaller targets for the Confederate sharpshooters sniping at them.

He ordered Merritt to raid a Rebel battery and bring back prisoners. The fear that Longstreet's I Corps had either joined Early, or was on its way, continued to nag him. But Merritt's prisoners said Longstreet was not coming.

Just when Sheridan was satisfied that he could launch his counteroffensive, a new report reached him that Longstreet was marching from Front Royal to strike his rear in Winchester. He sent a courier to Powell, whose 2nd Cavalry Division was hanging on the Union far left, near Front Royal. Longstreet wasn't there, Powell said.
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Sheridan was now free to execute his plan of attack, which resembled his revised Winchester strategy: simultaneous assaults on Early's center and left, with XIX Corps on the Union right then swinging to the left like a door closing on the Valley Turnpike. Custer would lead a cavalry charge on the Rebel left to get behind Early and block his retreat.
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Orders reached the Union troops to get ready to attack. The infantrymen retied their shoes, drew their woolen socks over their trouser bottoms, rebuckled and tightened
their waist belts, rearranged their haversacks and canteens, and pulled down the visors of their forage caps to shield their eyes. Seasoned veterans that they were, they took meticulous pains to ensure that their weapons were in perfect working order. “There rang from one end of the line to the other the rattle of ramrods and snapping of gun locks as each man tested for himself the condition of his rifle,” wrote Major George Forsyth. When they were satisfied that their weapons were battle worthy, they grounded their arms and stood at ease, “grimly gazing straight toward the front.”
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BEFORE SHERIDAN'S ARMY STRETCHED a broad depression cleaved by two ravines and a creek. A hill fringed with woods rose to the south. Dug in there were the Rebels, whose unease grew with each passing hour. The messages from Massanutten Mountain had increased in urgency as the afternoon progressed.

Gordon became alarmed when a “long gap” appeared on the left side of the Confederate lines. Then Rosser reported that Union infantry and cavalry were gathering in front of the gap; if they attacked, the Confederate army's left and rear would be placed in extreme jeopardy.

Gordon sent one staff officer after another to Early to apprise him of the problem. When he received “no satisfactory answer,” Gordon rode to Early to entreat him personally to reinforce the left, where every commander foresaw impending disaster. Early told him to move a gun battery to the left and stretch out his lines. By the time Gordon returned to his corps, columns of blue-clad infantry were rushing through the gap.
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JUST BEFORE 4 P.M., the blare of two hundred bugles echoed across the accordion ridges, the artillery opened a thunderous fire, and 25,000 Union infantrymen began advancing across the shallow depression toward the entrenched Rebels. Before XIX Corps stepped off, Sheridan had instructed General Emory's brigades on the far right to wait until they saw Custer descending the hills. “And then, by God, I want you to
push
the rebels!” he said, standing up in his stirrups and thrusting both arms forward. To Emory, Sheridan emphasized that the attack must be made boldly and energetically, “and I want you to see to it, General.”

When Sheridan had gone, Captain De Forest said aloud, “If we beat them now, it will be magnificent.” Emory replied, “And we are very likely to do it; they will be so far from expecting us.” A soldier was heard to say, “We may as well whip them tonight; if we don't, we shall have to do it tomorrow. Sheridan will get it out of us some time.”
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A Rebel brigade suddenly raked XIX Corps's right flank with enfilading fire. Without breaking stride, Brigadier General James McMillan wheeled his division
to the right and attacked the Confederate enfilades, cutting them off from the main Rebel force and driving them to the west.

The moment was ripe for Custer's cavalry to deliver a powerful follow-up blow that would end the Rebel flanking attack and roll up the Rebel left and rear. While his cavalrymen formed for the attack, Custer, who had not seen Sheridan since his return, impulsively galloped up to him, flung his arms around his neck, and kissed him. With the counterattack only minutes under way and Custer's counterstroke brooking no delay, Sheridan was irritated by Custer's extravagant gesture.

Moments later, however, when Sheridan saw Custer's men sweeping toward Cedar Creek, while taking large numbers of prisoners, “I forgave his delay,” he wrote. Sheridan ordered Crook and Merritt to assail the Rebel right, and he then personally joined the attack. The men saw his two-starred pennant snapping above the front and center of the army, “literally leading it to victory.”
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