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"'Well, no, admitted Sykes; 'I see plenty of pieces, but I guess that dog as a dog, ain't of much account. "Just so, Medill, there may be fragments of Hood's army around, but I guess that army, as an army, ain't of much more account!" Another version of this anecdote is applied to the breaking up of General Early's rashly advanced army in July; but it would seem, by Mr.
Some six miles south of this place Early left the Valley Pike and took the road to Keezletown, a move due in a measure to Powell's march by way of Timberville toward Lacy's Springs, but mainly caused by the fact that the Keezletown road ran immediately along the base of Peaked Mountain a rugged ridge affording protection to Early's right flank and led in a direction facilitating his junction with Kershaw, who had been ordered back to him from Culpeper the day after the battle of the Opequon.
Early's reconnoissance north of Cedar Creek ended in a rapid withdrawal of his infantry after feeling my front, and with the usual ill-fortune to his cavalry; Merritt and Custer driving Rosser and Lomax with ease across Cedar Creek on the Middle and Back roads, while Powell's cavalry struck McCausland near Stony Point, and after capturing two pieces of artillery and about three hundred officers and men chased him into the Luray Valley.
The demonstration had begun and it was a big one, big enough to make the defenders think it was reality and not a sham. Before Early's earthworks a great cloud of smoke was gathering. Dick looked over his shoulder at it. It gave him a curious feeling to be marching past, while all that crash of battle was going on in the valley. It almost looked as if they were deserting their general.
Early's force, with this increase, cannot exceed forty thousand men, but this is too much for General Sheridan to attack. Send General Sheridan the remaining brigade of the Nineteenth Corps. "I have ordered to Washington all the one-hundred-day men. Their time will soon be out, but for the present they will do to serve in the defenses. "U. S. GRANT, Lieutenant-General."
The ground was very difficult, broken and rocky, and to hold it the Sixth corps had to be drawn toward the right, while Emory, following the movement, in the dark hours of the early morning of the 22d of September, extended his front so as to cover the ground thus given up by Wright. Sheridan now thought of nothing short of the capture of Early's army.
On account of this diminution of force, it became necessary for me to keep thoroughly posted in regard to the enemy, and I now realized more than I had done hitherto how efficient my scouts had become since under the control of Colonel Young; for not only did they bring me almost every day intelligence from within Early's lines, but they also operated efficiently against the guerrillas infesting West Virginia.
At night Early held and covered the valley turnpike between Newtown and Middletown, while Sheridan, who before crossing the Opequon had heard of Early's movement, and had simply continued his own march up the right or east bank, rested between the Millwood crossing of the Opequon and Stony Point on the road to Front Royal.
"What do you mean?" asked the depot master. "I mean that Jonadab's been givin' me heart disease, that's what; givin' it to me in a good many diff'rent ways, too. We opened the Old Home House the middle of April this year, because Peter T. Brown thought we might catch some spring trade. We did catch a little, though whether it paid to open up so early's a question.
On the very day Grant left City Point, Early marched north from Bunker Hill, meaning to cover McCausland's retreat and to destroy Hunter, and so, curiously enough, it happened that Early's whole army actually crossed the Potomac into Maryland at Martinsburg and Shepherdstown a few hours before Crook passed over the ford at Harper's Ferry into Virginia; and, still more curiously, while, ten days before, the groundless apprehension of another invasion by Early had thrown the North into a fever and the government into a fright, here was Early actually in Maryland on the battle-field of Antietam without producing so much as a sensation.
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