THE LAST OF THE FRIGATE.
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THE LAST CONFLICTS IN THE SHENANDOAH

The occasion of this demonstration before the very gates of the city was the result of General Lee’s project to relieve the pressure on his own army, by an invasion of the border States and a threatening attitude toward the Union capital. The plan had worked well before, and Lee believed it again would be effective. Grant was pushing him hard in front of Petersburg. Accordingly, Lee despatched the daring soldier, General Jubal A. Early, to carry the war again to the northward. He was to go by the beautiful and fertile Shenandoah valley, that highway of the Confederates along which the legions of the South had marched and countermarched. On the 9th of July, the advance lines of the Confederate force came to the banks of the Monocacy, where they found General Lew Wallace posted, with eight thousand men, half of Early’s numbers, on the eastern side of that stream, to contest the approach of the Southern troops.

The battle was brief but bloody; the Confederates, crossing the stream and climbing its slippery banks, hurled their lines of gray against the compact ranks of blue. The attack was impetuous; the repulse was stubborn. A wail of musketry rent the air and the Northern soldiers fell back to their second position. Between the opposing forces was a narrow ravine through which flowed a small brook. Across this stream the tide of battle rose and fell. Its limpid current was soon crimsoned by the blood of the dead and wounded. Wallace’s columns, as did those of Early, bled, but they stood. The result of the battle for a time hung in the balance. Then the Federal lines began to crumble. The retreat began, some of the troops in order but the greater portion in confusion, and the victorious Confederates found again an open way to Washington.

Now within half a dozen miles of the city, with the dome of the Capitol in full view, the Southern general pushed his lines so close to Fort Stevens that he was ready to train his forty pieces of artillery upon its walls.

General Augur, in command of the capital’s defenses, hastily collected what strength in men and guns he could. Heavy artillery, militia, sailors from the navy yard, convalescents, Government employees of all kinds were rushed to the forts around the city. General Wright, with two divisions of the Sixth Corps, arrived from the camp at Petersburg, and Emory’s division of the Nineteenth Corps came just in time from New Orleans. This was on July 11th, the very day on which Early appeared in front of Fort Stevens. The Confederate had determined to make an assault, but the knowledge of the arrival of Wright and Emory caused him to change his mind. He realized that, if unsuccessful, his whole force would be lost, and he concluded to return. Nevertheless, he spent the 12th of July in threatening the city. In the middle of the afternoon General Wright sent out General Wheaton with Bidwell’s brigade of Getty’s division, and Early’s pickets and skirmishers were driven back a mile.

This small engagement had many distinguished spectators. Pond in “The Shenandoah Valley” thus describes the scene: “On the parapet of Fort Stevens stood the tall form of Abraham Lincoln by the side of General Wright, who in vain warned the eager President that his position was swept by the bullets of sharpshooters, until an officer was shot down within three feet of him, when he reluctantly stepped below. Sheltered from the line of fire, Cabinet officers and a group of citizens and ladies, breathless with excitement, watched the fortunes of the flight.”

Under cover of night the Confederates began to retrace their steps and made their way to the Shenandoah, with General Wright in pursuit. As the Confederate army was crossing that stream, at Snicker’s Ferry, on the 18th, the pursuing Federals came upon them. Early turned, repulsed them, and continued on his way to Winchester, where General Averell, from Hunter’s forces, now at Harper’s Ferry, attacked them with his cavalry and took several hundred prisoners.

The Federal authorities were looking for a “man of the hour”—one whom they might pit against the able and strategic Early. Such a one was found in General Philip Henry Sheridan, whom some have called the “Marshal Ney of America.” He was selected by General Grant, and his instructions were to drive the Confederates out of the Valley once for all.

The middle of September found the Confederate forces centered about Winchester, and the Union army was ten miles distant, with the Opequon between them. At two o’clock on the morning of September 19th, the Union camp was in motion, preparing for marching orders. At three o’clock the forward movement was begun, and by daylight the Federal advance had driven in the Confederate pickets. Emptying into the Opequon from the west are two converging streams, forming a triangle with the Winchester and Martinsburg pike as a base.

The town of Winchester is situated on this road, and was therefore at the bottom of the triangle. Before the town, the Confederate army stretched its lines between the two streams. The Union army would have to advance from the apex of the triangle, through a narrow ravine, shut in by thickly wooded hills and gradually emerging into an undulating valley. At the end of the gorge was a Confederate outwork, guarding the approach to Winchester. Both generals had the same plan of battle in mind. Sheridan would strike the Confederate center and right. Early was willing he should do this, for he planned to strike the Union right, double it back, get between Sheridan’s army and the gorge, and thus cut off its retreat.

It took time for the Union troops to pass through the ravine, and it was late in the forenoon before the line of battle was formed. The attack and defense were alike obstinate. Upon the Sixth Corps and Grover’s division of the Nineteenth Corps fell the brunt of the battle, since they were to hold the center while the Army of West Virginia, under General Crook, would sweep around them and turn the position of the opposing forces. The Confederate General Ramseur, with his troops, drove back the Federal center, held his ground for two hours, while the opposing lines were swept by musketry and artillery from the front, and enfiladed by artillery. Many Federal prisoners were taken.

By this time, Russell’s division of the Sixth Corps emerged from the ravine. Forming in two lines, it marched quickly to the front. About the same time the Confederates were also being reënforced. General Rodes plunged into the fight, making a gallant attack and losing his life. General Gordon, with his columns of gray, swept across the summit of the hills and through the murky clouds of smoke saw the steady advance of the lines of blue. One of Russell’s brigades struck the Confederate flank, and the Federal line was reestablished. As the division moved forward to do this General Russell fell, pierced through the heart by a piece of shell.

The Fifth Maine battery, galloping into the field, unlimbered and with an enfilading storm of canister aided in turning the tide. Piece by piece the shattered Union line was picked up and reunited. Early sent the last of his reserves into the conflict to turn the Union right. Now ensued the fiercest fighting of the day. Regiment after regiment advanced to the wood only to be hurled back again. Here it was that the One hundred and fourteenth New York left its dreadful toll of men. Its position after the battle could be told by the long, straight line of one hundred and eighty-five of its dead and wounded.

It was three o’clock in the afternoon; the hour of Early’s repulse had struck. To the right of the Union lines could be heard a mighty yell. The Confederates seemed to redouble their fire. The shivering lightning bolts shot through the air and the volleys of musketry increased in intensity. Then, across the shell-plowed field, came the reserves under General Crook. Breasting the Confederate torrent of lead, which cut down nine hundred of the reserves while crossing the open space, they rushed toward the embattled lines of the South.

At the same moment, coming out of the woods in the rear of the Federals, were seen the men of the Nineteenth Corps under General Emory, who had for three hours been lying in the grass awaiting their opportunity. The Confederate bullets had been falling thick in their midst with fatal certainty. They were eager for action. Rushing into the contest like madmen, they stopped at nothing. From two sides of the wood the men of Emory and Crook charged simultaneously. The Union line overlapped the Confederate at every point and doubled around the unprotected flanks. The day for the Southerners was irretrievably lost. They fell back toward Winchester in confusion. As they did so, a great uproar was heard on the pike road. It was the Federal cavalry under General Torbert sweeping up the road, driving the Confederate troopers before them. The surprised mass was pressed into its own lines. The infantry was charged and many prisoners and battle-flags captured.

The sun was now sinking upon the horizon, and on the ascending slopes in the direction of the town could be seen the long, dark lines of men following at the heels of the routed army. Along the crest of the embattled summit galloped a force of cavalrymen, which, falling upon the disorganized regiments of Early, aided, in the language of Sheridan, “to send them whirling through Winchester.” The Union pursuit continued until the twilight had come and the shadows of night screened the scattered forces of Early from the pursuing cavalrymen. The battle of Winchester, or the Opequon, had been a bloody one—a loss of five thousand on the Federal side, and about four thousand on the Confederate.

By daylight of the following morning the victorious army was again in pursuit. On the afternoon of that day, it caught up with the Confederates, who now turned at bay at Fisher’s Hill to resist the further approach of their pursuers. The position selected by General Early was a strong one, and his antagonist at once recognized it as such. The valley of the Shenandoah at this point is about four miles wide, lying between Fisher’s Hill and Little North Mountain. General Early’s line extended across the entire valley, and he had greatly increased his already naturally strong position. His army seemed safe from attack. From the summit of Three Top Mountain, his signal corps informed him of every movement of the Union army in the valley below. General Sheridan’s actions indicated a purpose to assault the center of the Confederate line. For two days he continued massing his regiments in that direction, at times even skirmishing for position. General Wright pushed his men to within seven hundred yards of the Southern battle-line. While this was going on in full view of the Confederate general and his army, another movement was being executed which even the vigilant signal officers on Three Top Mountain had not observed.

On the night of September 20th, the troops of General Crook were moved into the timber on the north bank of Cedar Creek. All during the next day, they lay concealed. That night they crossed the stream and the next morning were again hidden by the woods and ravines. At five o’clock on the morning of the 22d, Crook’s men were nearly opposite the Confederate center. Marching his men in perfect silence, by one o’clock he had arrived at the left and front of the unsuspecting Early. By four o’clock he had reached the east face of Little North Mountain, to the left and rear of the Confederates. While the movement was being made, the main body of the Federal army was engaging the attention of the Confederates in front. Just before sundown, Crook’s men plunged down the mountain side, from out of the timbered cover. The Confederates were quick to see that they had been trapped. They had been caught in a pocket and there was nothing for them to do except to retreat or surrender. They preferred the former, which was, according to General Gordon, “first stubborn and slow, then rapid, then—a rout.”

After the battle of Fisher’s Hill the pursuit still continued. The Confederate regiments re-formed, and at times would stop and contest the approach of the advancing cavalrymen. By the time the Union infantry would reach the place, the retreating army would have vanished. Torbert had been sent down Luray Valley in pursuit of the Confederate cavalry, with the hope of scattering it and seizing New Market in time to cut off the Confederate retreat from Fisher’s Hill. But at Milford, in a narrow gorge, General Wickham held Torbert and prevented the fulfilment of his plan; and General Early’s whole force was able to escape. Day after day this continued until Early had taken refuge in the Blue Ridge in front of Brown’s Gap. Here he received reënforcements. Sheridan in the mean time had gone into camp at Harrisonburg, and for some time the two armies lay watching each other. The Federals were having difficulty in holding their lines of supply.

With the Valley practically given up by Early, Sheridan was anxious to stop here. He wrote to Grant, “I think the best policy will be to let the burning of the crops in the Valley be the end of the campaign, and let some of this army go somewhere else.” He had the Petersburg line in mind. Grant’s consent to this plan reached him on October 5th, and the following day he started on his return march down the Shenandoah. His cavalry extended across the entire valley. With the unsparing severity of war, his men began to make a barren waste of the region. The October sky was overcast with clouds of smoke and sheets of flame from the burning barns and mills.

As the army of Sheridan proceeded down the Valley, the undaunted cavaliers of Early came in pursuit. His horsemen kept close to the rear of the Union columns. On the morning of October 9th, the cavalry leader, Rosser, who had succeeded Wickham, found himself confronted by General Custer’s division, at Tom’s Brook. At the same time the Federal general, Wesley Merritt, fell upon the cavalry of Lomax and Johnson on an adjacent road. The two Union forces were soon united and a mounted battle ensued. The fight continued for two hours. There were charges and countercharges. The ground being level, the maneuvering of the squadrons was easy. The clink of the sabers rang out in the morning air. Both sides fought with tenacity. The Confederate center held together, but its flanks gave way. The Federals charged along the whole front, with a momentum that forced the Southern cavalrymen to flee from the field. They left in the hands of the Federal troopers over three hundred prisoners, all their artillery, except one piece, and nearly every wagon the Confederate cavalry had with them.

The Northern army continued its retrograde movement, and on the 10th crossed to the north side of Cedar Creek. Early’s army in the mean time had taken a position at the wooded base of Fisher’s Hill, four miles away. The Sixth Corps started for Washington, but the news of Early at Fisher’s Hill led to its recall. The Union forces occupied ground that was considered practically unassailable, especially on the left, where the deep gorge of the Shenandoah, along whose front rose the bold Massanutten Mountain, gave it natural protection.

The movements of the Confederate army were screened by the wooded ravines in front of Fisher’s Hill, while, from the summit of the neighboring Three Top Mountain, its officers could view, as in a panorama, the entire Union camp. Seemingly secure, the corps of Crook on the left of the Union line was not well protected. The keen-eyed Gordon saw the weak point in the Union position. Ingenious plans to break it down were quickly made.

Meanwhile, Sheridan was summoned to Washington to consult with Secretary Stanton. He did not believe that Early proposed an immediate attack, and started on the 15th, escorted by the cavalry, and leaving General Wright in command. At Front Royal the next day word came from Wright enclosing a message taken for the Confederate signal-flag on Three Top Mountain. It was from Longstreet, advising Early that he would join him and crush Sheridan. The latter sent the cavalry back to Wright, and continued on to Washington, whence he returned at once by special train, reaching Winchester on the evening of the 18th.

Just after dark on October 18th, a part of Early’s army under the command of General John B. Gordon, with noiseless steps, moved out from their camp, through the misty, autumn night. The men had been stripped of their canteens, in fear that the striking of them against some object might reveal their movements. Orders were given in low whispers. Their path followed along the base of the mountain—a dim and narrow trail, upon which but one man might pass at a time. For seven miles this sinuous line made its way through the dark gorge, crossing the Shenandoah, and at times passing within four hundred yards of the Union pickets.

It arrived at the appointed place, opposite Crook’s camp on the Federal right, an hour before the attack was to be made. In the shivering air of the early morning, the men crouched on the river bank, waiting for the coming of the order to move forward. At last, at five o’clock, it came. They plunged into the frosty water of the river, emerged on the other side, marched in “double quick,” and were soon sounding a reveille to the sleeping troops of Sheridan. The minie balls whizzed and sang through the tents. In the gray mists of the dawn the legions of the South looked like phantom warriors, as they poured through the unmanned gaps. The Northerners sprang to arms. There was a bloody struggle in the trenches. Their eyes saw the flames from the Southern muskets; the men felt the breath of the hot muzzles in their faces, while the Confederate bayonets were at their breasts. There was a brief struggle, then panic and disorganization. Only a quarter of an hour of this yelling and struggling, and two-thirds of the Union army broke like a mill-dam and poured across the fields, leaving their accouterments of war and the stiffening bodies of their comrades. Rosser, with the cavalry, attacked Custer and assisted Gordon.

Meanwhile, during these same early morning hours, General Early had himself advanced to Cedar Creek by a more direct route. At half-past three o’clock his men had come in sight of the Union camp-fires. They waited under cover for the approach of day. At the first blush of dawn and before the charge of Gordon, Early hurled his men across the stream, swept over the breastworks, captured the batteries and turned them upon the unsuspecting Northerners. The Federal generals tried to stem the impending disaster. From the east of the battlefield the solid lines of Gordon were now driving the fugitives of Crook’s corps by the mere force of momentum. Aides were darting hither and thither, trying to reassemble the crumbling lines. The Nineteenth Corps, under Emory, tried to hold its ground; for a time it fought alone, but after a desperate effort to hold its own, it, too, melted away under the scorching fire. The fields to the rear of the army were covered with wagons, ambulances, stragglers, and fleeing soldiers.

The Sixth Corps now came to the rescue. As it slowly fell to the rear it would, at times, turn to fight. At last it found a place where it again stood at bay. The men hastily gathered rails and constructed rude field-works. At the same time the Confederates paused in their advance. The rattle of musketry ceased. There was scarcely any firing except for the occasional roar of a long-range artillery gun. The Southerners seemed willing to rest on their well-earned laurels of the morning. In the language of the successful commander, it was “glory enough for one day.”

But the brilliant morning victory was about to be changed to a singular afternoon defeat. During the morning’s fight, when the Union troops were being rapidly overwhelmed with panic, Rienzi, the beautiful jet-black war-charger, was bearing his master, the commander of the Federal army, to the field of disaster. Along the broad valley highway that leads from Winchester, General Sheridan had galloped to where his embattled lines had been reduced to a flying mob. While riding leisurely away from Winchester about nine o’clock he had heard unmistakable thunder-peals of artillery. Realizing that a battle was on in the front, he hastened forward, soon to be met, as he crossed Mill Creek, by the trains and men of his routed army, coming to the rear with appalling rapidity.

News from the field told him of the crushing defeat of his hitherto invincible regiments. The road was blocked by the retreating crowds as they pressed toward the rear. The commander was forced to take to the fields, and as his steed, flecked with foam, bore him onward, the disheartened refugees greeted him with cheers. Taking off his hat as he rode, he cried, “We will go back and recover our camps.” The words seemed to inspire the demoralized soldiers. Stragglers fell into line behind him; men turned to follow their magnetic leader back to the fight.

Vaulting his horse over the low barricade of rails, he dashed to the crest of the field. There was a flutter along the battle-line. The men from behind their protecting wall broke into thunderous cheers. From the rear of the soldiers there suddenly arose, as from the earth, a line of the regimental flags, which waved recognition to their leader. Color-bearers reassembled. The straggling lines re-formed. Early made another assault after one o’clock, but was easily repulsed.

It was nearly four o’clock when the order for the Federal advance was given. General Sheridan, hat in hand, rode in front of his infantry line that his men might see him. The Confederate forces now occupied a series of wooded crests. From out of the shadow of one of these timbered coverts, a column of gray was emerging. The Union lines stood waiting for the impending crash. It came in a devouring succession of volleys that reverberated into a deep and sullen roar. The Union infantry rose as one man and passed in among the trees. Not a shot was heard. Then, suddenly, there came a screaming, humming rush of shell, a roar of musketry mingling with the yells of a successful charge. Again the firing ceased, except for occasional outbursts. The Confederates had taken a new position and reopened with a galling fire. General Sheridan dashed along the front of his lines in personal charge of the attack. Again his men moved toward the lines of Early’s fast thinning ranks. It was the final charge. The Union cavalry swept in behind the fleeing troops of Early and sent, again, his veteran army “whirling up the Valley.”

The battle of Cedar Creek was ended; the tumult died away. The Federal loss had been about fifty-seven hundred; the Confederate over three thousand. Fourteen hundred Union prisoners were sent to Richmond. Never again would the gaunt specter of war hover over Washington.

COPYRIGHT, 1911, REVIEW OF REVIEWS CO.

GENERAL JUBAL A. EARLY,
THE CONFEDERATE RAIDER WHO
THREATENED WASHINGTON

“My bad old man,” as General Lee playfully called him, was forty-eight years of age when he made the brilliant Valley campaign of the summer of 1864, which was halted only by the superior forces of Sheridan. A West Point graduate and a veteran of the Mexican War, Early became, after the death of Jackson, one of Lee’s most efficient subordinates. He was alert, aggressive, resourceful. His very eccentricities, perhaps, made him all the more successful as a commander of troops in the field. “Old Jube’s” caustic wit and austere ways made him a terror to stragglers, and who shall say that his fluent, forcible profanity did not endear him to men who were accustomed to like roughness of speech?

COPYRIGHT, 1911, REVIEW OF REVIEWS CO.

THE CAPITOL AT WASHINGTON IN 1863

When the Capitol at Washington was threatened by the Confederate armies, it was still an unfinished structure, betraying its incompleteness to every beholder. This picture shows the derrick on the dome. It is a view of the east front of the building and was taken on July 11, 1863. Washington society had not been wholly free from occasional “war scares” since the withdrawal of most of the troops whose duty it had been to guard the city. Early’s approach in July, 1864, found the Nation’s capital entirely unprotected. Naturally there was a flutter throughout the peaceable groups of non-combatants that made up the population of Washington at that time, as well as in official circles. There were less than seventy thousand people living in the city in 1864, a large proportion of whom were in some way connected with the Government.

COPYRIGHT, 1911, REVIEW OF REVIEWS CO.

PROTECTING LOCOMOTIVES FROM THE CONFEDERATE RAIDER

The United States railroad photographer, Captain A. J. Russell, labeled this picture of 1864: “Engines stored in Washington to prevent their falling into Rebel hands in case of a raid on Alexandria.” Here they are, almost under the shadow of the Capitol dome (which had just been completed). This was one of the precautions taken by the authorities at Washington, of which the general public knew little or nothing at the time. These photographs are only now revealing official secrets recorded fifty years ago.

COPYRIGHT, 1911, PATRIOT PUB. CO.

ONE OF WASHINGTON’S DEFENDERS

Heavy artillery like this was of comparatively little use in repulsing such an attack as Early might be expected to make. Not only were these guns hard to move to points of danger, but in the summer of ’64 there were no trained artillerists to man them. Big as they were, they gave Early no occasion for alarm.

COPYRIGHT, 1911, PATRIOT PUB. CO.

ENTRANCE TO WASHINGTON FROM THE SOUTH—THE FAMOUS “CHAIN BRIDGE”

The sentry and vedette guarding the approach to Washington suggest one reason why Early did not make his approach to the capital from the Virginia side of the Potomac. A chain of more than twenty forts protected the roads to Long Bridge (shown below), and there was no way of marching troops into the city from the south, excepting over such exposed passages. Most of the troops left for the defense of the city were on the Virginia side. Therefore Early wisely picked out the northern outposts as the more vulnerable. Long Bridge was closely guarded at all times, like Chain Bridge and the other approaches, and at night the planks of its floor were removed.

COPYRIGHT, 1911, REVIEW OF REVIEWS CO.

LONG BRIDGE AND THE CAPITOL ACROSS THE BROAD POTOMAC

INSIDE FORT TOTTEN—THREE SHIFTING SCENES IN A BIG-GUN DRILL

Constant drill at the guns went on in the defenses of Washington throughout the war. At its close in April, 1865, there were 68 enclosed forts and batteries, whose aggregate perimeter was thirteen miles, 807 guns and 98 mortars mounted, and emplacements for 1,120 guns, ninety-three unarmed batteries for field-guns, 35,711 yards of rifle-trenches, and three block-houses encircling the Northern capital. The entire extent of front of the lines was thirty-seven miles; and thirty-two miles of military roads, besides those previously existing in the District of Columbia, formed the means of interior communication. In all these forts constant preparation was made for a possible onslaught of the Confederates, and many of the troops were trained which later went to take part in the siege of Petersburg where the heavy artillery fought bravely as infantry.

COPYRIGHT, 1911, PATRIOT PUB. CO.

WHERE LINCOLN WAS UNDER FIRE

This is Fort Stevens (originally known as Fort Massachusetts), north of Washington, near the Soldiers’ Home, where President Lincoln had his summer residence. It was to this outpost that Early’s troops advanced on July 12, 1864. In the fighting of that day Lincoln himself stood on the ramparts, and a surgeon who stood by his side was wounded. These works were feebly garrisoned, and General Gordon declared in his memoirs that when the Confederate troops reached Fort Stevens they found it untenanted. This photograph was taken after the occupation of the fort by Company F of the Third Massachusetts Artillery.

COPYRIGHT, 1911, PATRIOT PUB. CO.

MEN OF THE THIRD MASSACHUSETTS HEAVY ARTILLERY IN FORT STEVENS

Fort Stevens, on the north line of the defenses of Washington, bore the brunt of the Confederate attack in the action of July 12, 1864, when Early threatened Washington. The smooth-bore guns in its armament were two 8-inch siege-howitzers en embrasure, six 24-pounder siege-guns en embrasure, two 24-pounder sea-coast guns en barbette. It was also armed with five 30-pounder Parrott rifled guns, one 10-inch siege-mortar and one 24-pounder Coehorn mortar. Three of the platforms for siege-guns remained vacant.

COPYRIGHT, 1911, PATRIOT PUB. CO.

COMPANY K, THIRD MASSACHUSETTS HEAVY ARTILLERY, IN FORT STEVENS, 1865

Washington was no longer in danger when this photograph was taken, and the company is taking its ease with small arms stacked—three rifles held together by engaging the shanks of the bayonets. This is the usual way of disposing of rifles when the company is temporarily dismissed for any purpose. If the men are to leave the immediate vicinity of the stacks, a sentinel is detailed to guard the arms. The Third Massachusetts Heavy Artillery was organized for one year in August, 1864, and remained in the defenses of Washington throughout their service, except for Company I, which went to the siege of Petersburg and maintained the pontoon bridges.

COPYRIGHT, 1911, PATRIOT PUB. CO.

A HOUSE NEAR WASHINGTON STRUCK BY ONE OF EARLY’S SHELLS

The arrival of Grant’s trained veterans in July, 1864, restored security to the capital city after a week of fright. The fact that shells had been thrown into the outskirts of the city gave the inhabitants for the first time a realizing sense of immediate danger. This scene is the neighborhood of Fort Stevens, on the Seventh Street road, not far from the Soldiers’ Home, where President Lincoln was spending the summer. The campaign for his reëlection had begun and the outlook for his success and that of his party seemed at this moment as dubious as that for the conclusion of the war. Grant had weakened his lines about Richmond in order to protect Washington, while Lee had been able to detach Early’s Corps for the brilliant Valley Campaign, which saved his Shenandoah supplies.

COPYRIGHT, 1911, REVIEW OF REVIEWS CO.

GENERAL SHERIDAN’S “WINCHESTER”

“Winchester” wore no such gaudy trappings when he sprang “up from the South, at break of day” on that famous ride of October 19, 1864, which has been immortalized in Thomas Buchanan Read’s poem. The silver-mounted saddle was presented later by admiring friends of his owner. The sleek neck then was dark with sweat, and the quivering nostrils were flecked with foam at the end of the twenty-mile dash that brought hope and courage to an army and turned defeat into the overwhelming victory of Cedar Creek. Sheridan himself was as careful of his appearance as Custer was irregular in his field dress. He was always careful of his horse, but in the field decked him in nothing more elaborate than a plain McClellan saddle and army blanket.

COPYRIGHT, 1911, REVIEW OF REVIEWS CO.

GENERAL PHILIP H. SHERIDAN IN THE SHENANDOAH CAMPAIGN

Two generations of schoolboys in the Northern States have learned the lines beginning, “Up from the south at break of day.” This picture represents Sheridan in 1864, wearing the same hat that he waved to rally his soldiers on that famous ride from “Winchester, twenty miles away.” As he reined up his panting horse on the turnpike at Cedar Creek, he received salutes from two future Presidents of the United States. The position on the left of the road was held by Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes, who had succeeded, after the rout of the Eighth Corps in the darkness of the early morning, in rallying some fighting groups of his own brigade; while on the right stood Major William McKinley, gallantly commanding the remnant of his fighting regiment—the Twenty-third Ohio.

FROM THE ARMY TO THE WHITE HOUSE

War-time portraits of six soldiers whose military records assisted them to the Presidential Chair.

Garfield in ’63—(left to right) Thomas, Wiles, Tyler, Simmons, Drillard, Ducat,
Barnett, Goddard, Rosecrans, Garfield, Porter, Bond, Thompson, Sheridan.

THE INVESTMENT OF PETERSBURG

In one month the Union army had lost fifty-five thousand men, while the Confederate losses had been comparatively small. The cost to the North had been too great; Lee could not be cut off from his capital, and the most feasible project was now to join in the move which heretofore had been the special object of General Butler and the Army of the James, and attack Richmond itself. South of the city, at a distance of twenty-one miles, was the town of Petersburg. Its defenses were not strong, although General Gillmore of Butler’s army had failed in an attempt to seize them on the 10th of June. Three railroads converged here and these were main arteries of Lee’s supply. Grant resolved to capture this important point. He sent General W. F. Smith, who had come to his aid at Cold Harbor with the flower of the Army of the James, back to Bermuda Hundred by water, as he had come, with instructions to hasten to Petersburg before Lee could get there. Smith arrived on the 15th and was joined by Hancock with the first troops of the Army of the Potomac to appear, but the attack was not pressed and Beauregard who, with only two thousand men, was in desperate straits until Lee should reach him, managed to hold the inner line of trenches.

The last of Grant’s forces were across the James by midnight of June 16th, while Lee took a more westerly and shorter route to Petersburg. The fighting there was continued as the two armies came up, but each Union attack was successfully repulsed. At the close of day on the 18th both opponents were in full strength and the greatest struggle of modern times was begun. Impregnable bastioned works began to show themselves around Petersburg. More than thirty miles of frowning redoubts connected extensive breastworks and were strengthened by mortar batteries and field-works which lined the fields near the Appomattox River. It was a vast net of fortifications, but there was no formal siege of Lee’s position, which was a new entrenched line selected by Beauregard some distance behind the rifle-pits where he had held out at such great odds against Hancock and Smith.

Grant, as soon as the army was safely protected, started to extend his lines on the west and south, in order to envelop the Confederate right flank. He also bent his energies to destroying the railroads upon which Lee depended for supplies. Attempts to do this were made without delay. On June 22d two corps of the Union army set out for the Weldon Railroad, but they became separated and were put to flight by A. P. Hill. The Federal cavalry also joined in the work, but the vigilant Confederate horsemen under W. H. F. Lee prevented any serious damage to the iron way, and by July 2d the last of the raiders were back in the Federal lines, much the worse for the rough treatment they had received.

Now ensued some weeks of quiet during which both armies were strengthening their fortifications. On June 25th Sheridan returned from his cavalry raid on the Virginia Central Railroad running north from Richmond. He had encountered Hampton and Fitzhugh Lee at Trevilian Station on June 11th, and turned back after doing great damage to the railway. Ammunition was running short and he did not dare risk another engagement. Sheridan was destined not to remain long with the army in front of Petersburg. Lee had detached a corps from his forces and, under Early, it had been doing great damage in Maryland and Pennsylvania. So Grant’s cavalry leader was put at the head of an army and sent to the Shenandoah valley to drive Early’s troops from the base of their operations.

Meanwhile the Federals were covertly engaged in an undertaking which was fated to result in conspicuous failure. Some skilled miners from the upper Schuylkill coal regions in the Forty-eighth Pennsylvania attached to the Ninth Corps were boring a tunnel from the rear of the Union works underneath the Confederate fortifications. Eight thousand pounds of gunpowder were placed in lateral galleries at the end of the tunnel. At twenty minutes to five on the morning of July 30th, the mine was exploded. A solid mass of earth and all manner of material shot two hundred feet into the air. Three hundred human beings were buried in the débris as it fell back into the gaping crater. The smoke had barely cleared away when General Ledlie led his waiting troops into the vast opening. The horror of the sight sickened the assailants, and in crowding into the pit they became completely demoralized. In the confusion officers lost power to reorganize, much less to control, their troops.

The stunned and paralyzed Confederates were not long in recovering their wits. Batteries opened upon the approach to the crater, and presently a stream of fire was poured into the pit itself. General Mahone hastened up with his Georgia and Virginia troops, and there were several desperate charges before the Federals withdrew at Burnside’s order. Grant had had great expectations that the mine would result in his capturing Petersburg and he was much disappointed. In order to get a part of Lee’s army away from the scene of what he hoped would be the final struggle, Hancock’s troops and a large force of cavalry had been sent north of the James, as if a move on Richmond had been planned. In the mine fiasco on that fatal July 30th, thirty-nine hundred men (nearly all from Burnside’s corps) were lost to the Union side. The Confederate loss was about one thousand.

In the torrid days of mid-August Grant renewed his attacks upon the Weldon Railroad, and General Warren was sent to capture it. He reached Globe Tavern, about four miles from Petersburg, when he encountered General Heth, who drove him back. Warren did not return to the Federal lines but entrenched along the iron way. The next day he was fiercely attacked by the Confederate force now strongly reënforced by Mahone. The assault was most sudden. Mahone forced his way through the skirmish line and then turned and fought his opponents from their rear. Another of his divisions struck the Union right wing. In this extremity two thousand of Warren’s troops were captured and all would have been lost but for the timely arrival of Burnside’s men.

Two days later the Southerners renewed the battle and now thirty cannon poured volley after volley upon the Fifth and Ninth corps. The dashing Mahone again came forward with his usual impetuousness, but the blue line finally drove Lee’s men back. And so the Weldon Railroad fell into the hands of General Grant. Hancock, with the Second Corps, returned from the north bank of the James and set to work to assist in destroying the railway, whose loss was a hard blow to General Lee. It was not to be expected that the latter would permit this work to continue unmolested and on the 25th of August, A. P. Hill suddenly confronted Hancock, who entrenched himself in haste at Ream’s Station. This did not save the Second Corps, which for the first time in its glorious career was put to rout. Their very guns were captured and turned upon them.

In the following weeks there were no actions of importance except that in the last days of September Generals Ord and Birney, with the Army of the James, captured Fort Harrison, on the north bank of that river, from Generals Ewell and Anderson. The Federals were anxious to have it, since it was an excellent vantage point from which to threaten Richmond. Meanwhile Grant was constantly extending his line to the west and by the end of October it was very close to the South Side Railroad. On the 27th there was a hard fight at Hatcher’s Run, but the Confederates saved the railway and the Federals returned to their entrenchments in front of Petersburg.

The active struggle now ceased, but Lee found himself each day in more desperate straits. Sheridan had played sad havoc with such sources of supply as existed in the rich country to the northwest. The Weldon Railroad was gone and the South Side line was in imminent danger. The Southerners were losing heart. Many went home for the winter on a promise to return when the spring planting was done. Lee was loath to let them go, but he could ill afford to maintain them, and the very life of their families depended upon it. Those who remained at Petersburg suffered cruelly from hunger and cold. They looked forward to the spring, although it meant renewal of the mighty struggle. The Confederate line had been stretched to oppose Grant’s westward progress until it had become the thinnest of screens. A man lost to Lee was almost impossible to replace, while the bounties offered in the North kept Grant’s ranks full.

COPYRIGHT, 1911, REVIEW OF REVIEWS CO.

MAHONE, “THE HERO OF THE CRATER”

General William Mahone, C. S. A. It was through the promptness and valor of General Mahone that the Southerners, on July 30, 1864, were enabled to turn back upon the Federals the disaster threatened by the hidden mine. On the morning of the explosion there were but eighteen thousand Confederates left to hold the ten miles of lines about Petersburg. Everything seemed to favor Grant’s plans for the crushing of this force. Immediately after the mine was sprung, a terrific cannonade was opened from one hundred and fifty guns and mortars to drive back the Confederates from the breach, while fifty thousand Federals stood ready to charge upon the panic-stricken foe. But the foe was not panic-stricken long. Colonel McMaster, of the Seventeenth South Carolina, gathered the remnants of General Elliott’s brigade and held back the Federals massing at the Crater until General Mahone arrived at the head of three brigades. At once he prepared to attack the Federals, who at that moment were advancing to the left of the Crater. Mahone ordered a counter-charge. In his inspiring presence it swept with such vigor that the Federals were driven back and dared not risk another assault. At the Crater, Lee had what Grant lacked—a man able to direct the entire engagement.

COPYRIGHT, 1911, REVIEW OF REVIEWS CO.

WHAT EIGHT THOUSAND POUNDS OF POWDER DID

The Crater, torn by the mine within Elliott’s Salient. At dawn of July 30, 1864, the fifty thousand Federal troops waiting to make a charge saw a great mass of earth hurled skyward like a water-spout. As it spread out into an immense cloud, scattering guns, carriages, timbers, and what were once human beings, the front ranks broke in panic; it looked as if the mass were descending upon their own heads. The men were quickly rallied; across the narrow plain they charged, through the awful breach, and up the heights beyond to gain Cemetery Ridge. But there were brave fighters on the other side still left, and delay among the Federals enabled the Confederates to rally and re-form in time to drive the Federals back down the steep sides of the Crater. There, as they struggled amidst the horrible débris, one disaster after another fell upon them. Huddled together, the mass of men was cut to pieces by the canister poured upon them from well-planted Confederate batteries. At last, as a forlorn hope, the colored troops were sent forward; and they, too, were hurled back into the Crater and piled upon their white comrades.

COPYRIGHT, 1911, PATRIOT PUB. CO.

FORT MAHONE—“FORT DAMNATION”

RIVES’ SALIENT

TRAVERSES AGAINST CROSS-FIRE

COPYRIGHT, 1911, PATRIOT PUB. CO.

GRACIE’S SALIENT, AND OTHER FORTS ALONG THE TEN MILES OF DEFENSES

Dotted with formidable fortifications such as these, Confederate works stretched for ten miles around Petersburg. Fort Mahone was situated opposite the Federal Fort Sedgwick at the point where the hostile lines converged most closely after the battle of the Crater. Owing to the constant cannonade which it kept up, the Federals named it Fort Damnation, while Fort Sedgwick, which was no less active in reply, was known to the Confederates as Fort Hell. Gracie’s salient, further north on the Confederate line, is notable as the point in front of which General John B. Gordon’s gallant troops moved to the attack on Fort Stedman, the last desperate effort of the Confederates to break through the Federal cordon. The views of Gracie’s salient show the French form of chevaux-de-frise, a favorite protection against attack much employed by the Confederates.

COPYRIGHT, 1911, PATRIOT PUB. CO.

AN AFTERNOON CONCERT AT THE OFFICERS’ QUARTERS, HAREWOOD HOSPITAL, NEAR WASHINGTON

Hospital life for those well enough to enjoy it was far from dull. Witness the white-clad nurse with her prim apron and hoopskirt on the right of the photograph, and the band on the left. Most hospitals had excellent libraries and a full supply of current newspapers and periodicals, usually presented gratuitously. Many of the larger ones organized and maintained bands for the amusement of the patients; they also provided lectures, concerts, and theatrical and other entertainments. A hospital near the front receiving cases of the most severe character might have a death-rate as high as twelve per cent., while those farther in the rear might have a very much lower death-rate of but six, four, or even two per cent. The portrait accompanying shows Louisa M. Alcott, the author of “Little Men,” “Little Women,” “An Old Fashioned Girl,” and the other books that have endeared her to millions of readers. Her diary of 1862 contains this characteristic note: “November. Thirty years old. Decided to go to Washington as a nurse if I could find a place. Help needed, and I love nursing and must let out my pent-up energy in some new way.” She had not yet attained fame as a writer, but it was during this time that she wrote for a newspaper the letters afterwards collected as “Hospital Sketches.” It is due to the courtesy of Messrs. Little, Brown & Company of Boston that the war-time portrait is here reproduced.

LOUISA M. ALCOTT, THE AUTHOR OF “LITTLE WOMEN,” AS A NURSE IN 1862