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Updated: May 18, 2025
Sheridan's invincible riders, fresh from the Shenandoah, have shattered the steadfast at Five Forks. Gloomy days have fallen, also, on the cause in the West. The despairing valor of the day at Franklin and the assault on Nashville only needlessly add to. the reputation for frantic bravery of the last of the magnificent Western armies of the Confederacy.
Totally without the beaten track of those great armies which had battled so fiercely for the Shenandoah, it had been traversed only by a few scouting and foraging parties, and so short had been their stay that even the rail fences remained undisturbed to guard the fields, and nowhere did I note outward signs of devastation.
It got into eyes and they grew red and smarting. It stopped ear and nostril. It lined the mouth; it sifted down the neck and made the body miserable. At the starting, as the men quit the green banks of Shenandoah, several of the aesthetic sort had been heard to comment upon the beauty of the scenery. Possibly the soul for beauty lasted, but as for the scenery, it vanished.
Jackson and overlooking the Shenandoah River. About once in three days our two Parrott guns, to one of which I belonged, were sent down to General Ashby, some ten miles, for picket service to supply the place of Chew's battery, which exhausted its ammunition in daily skirmishes with the enemy. Ashby himself was always there; and an agreeable, unpretending gentleman he was.
Sheridan pushed Early up the Shenandoah, defeating him at Opequon Creek, September 19th, and at Fisher's Hill two days later. One-half of Early's army had been destroyed or captured, and the rest driven southward.
By crossing the Potomac, at Williamsport and Shepherdstown, twenty and ten miles north-west respectively, the Federals would threaten the communications of the garrison with Winchester; in case they were attacked, the Confederates would have to fight with their backs to the Shenandoah, broad, deep, and unbridged; and the ground westward of Harper's Ferry was ill adapted for defence.
It was followed later by Sheridan's campaign in the Shenandoah Valley; and these two campaigns probably had more effect in settling the election of the following November than all the speeches, all the bonfires, and all the parading with banners and bands of music in the North.
The right flank of the shortened front rests securely upon the north fork of the Shenandoah, where it winds about the base of Three Top Mountain before bending widely toward the east to join the south fork and form the Shenandoah River.
But he had always to bear in mind that the Federals, finding their retreat on Winchester compromised, might make a dash for Manassas Gap. Now the road from Strasburg to Manassas Gap was protected throughout its length by the North Fork of the Shenandoah; and to attack the Federals on the march, should they take this road, the Confederates would have to move through Cedarville on Front Royal.
So Emory was ordered to retire to Winchester on the night of the 15th, and Wright and Crook to follow through Winchester to Clifton the next night. For the cavalry, in this move to the rear, I gave the following instructions: "....In pushing up the Shenandoah Valley, as it is expected you will have to go first or last, it is desirable that nothing should be left to invite the enemy to return.
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