the position held by Burnside at the time of the mine affair. From these points two saps might have been run, and in the course of a month, with well-led storming columns, there is every likelihood that the Confederate line might have been carried.

The second method is more bold. It is to have abandoned for a time the attempt to hold the long intrenched lines and the connections with the depot at City Point, and moved out the whole army against Lee's railroad communications. This would have compelled him to leave his defences and fight a battle in the open field, or to have evacuated Petersburg and Richmond. The immediate recovery of his railroad communications would have been an absolute necessity to Lee, for so bad was the conduct of the Confederate commissariat and transport system that he was never able to accumulate even one day's supplies ahead-a fact well known to the Union commander. This line of action would have been a realization of that cardinal principle in American warfare which teaches that it should be the aim of the general on the offensive to so threaten the enemy's vital lines as to compel him to fight for their recovery. General Grant's great preponderance in numbers would have made the contingency of his being beaten in such a fight a very remote one. It is true that this plan would not have been without hazard, and would have demanded proportionate skill and vigor in its execution; but if successful, it would have been decisive.

The proposed operation would have resembled the manœuvre by which General Sherman compelled the evacuation of Atlanta. That, also, was not without danger, though it is to be remembered that Sherman's opponent was infinitely inferior to the commander of the Army of Northern Virginia.

VIII.

SHERIDAN'S OPERATIONS IN THE VALLEY.

Before proceeding to recount the history of the final campaign of the Army of the Potomac, it will be necessary to describe briefly the summer and autumn operations in the Shenandoah Valley, as they have an important bearing on the events that are to follow.

In the relative situations of the contending armies in Virginia, the operations in the Shenandoah Valley had always exercised a powerful influence on the main current of action. From the peculiar geographical relations of that Valley in a military point of view, it was always open to a detached force to make incursions across the frontier of the loyal States, whether for the purpose of plunder or of a diversion in favor of the main Confederate army, by a menace against Washington. At the same time, the line of the Blue Ridge perfectly covered its communications with Richmond and Lee's army. From this circumstance, the Confederates had always been able, with astonishingly small bodies of cavalry and infantry, to retain a powerful Federal force for the protection of the frontier of Maryland and Pennsylvania. In several critical situations the Shenandoah column had, by vigorous demonstrations, paralyzed the Army of the Potomac, by calling away therefrom so considerable a force as to compel a surcease of operations on the main line.

Relying on the oft-proved effect of such threats, Lee, as soon as he found himself under beleaguerment at Petersburg, had detached the column of Early to menace the Federal capital. It has already been seen that the result did not correspond with his wishes; for Grant, parting only with a sufficiency of force to protect Washington, continued to hold Lee with an unrelaxing grip.

But although the direct object of the Confederate menace had failed, it nevertheless met so considerable a measure of success that even after Early had retired to the Valley of the Shenandoah, he was there able to take up so threatening an attitude that it was found impossible to return the Sixth and Nineteenth corps to the Army of the Potomac. No sooner was this attempted, than Early was again across the borderhis cavalry penetrating Pennsylvania as far as the town of Chambersburg, which they laid in ashes. Upon this, the Sixth Corps, which had been retired to Washington en route for the James, was returned to Harper's Ferry, to unite with the Nineteenth Corps and the Federal forces of West Virginia in an effort to clear the Valley of the Shenandoah.

The distribution of the Union force in the region of Northern and West Virginia, and along the frontier of the loyal States, was at this time as little conformable to military principles as it had been in the worst period of 1862. Washington and Baltimore, and the country adjacent, formed the Department of Washington; Eastern and Central Pennsylvania and Northern Maryland, the Department of the Susquehanna ; Northwestern Virginia and Western Pennsylvania, the Department of West Virginia; and the region of the Shenandoah, and eastward to the Bull Run Mountains, the Middle Department. These several military bailiwicks were under control of independent military commanders, whose petty jealousies and want of harmony of action enabled the Confederates, with a force ridiculously inferior, to pluck at any time cheap laurels.

Happily the conduct of the war was now under one military head, so that General Grant could at will end this costly and disgraceful policy. The events of July showed the urgent need of unity of command in Northern Virginia, and the lieutenant-general, in August, consolidated these four departments into one, named the Middle Military Division, under General Hunter. That officer, however, before entering on the proposed campaign, expressed a willingness to be relieved, and General P. H. Sheridan, who had been transferred

from the Army of the Potomac to the command of the forces in the field under Hunter, was appointed in his stead. The selection was a fortunate one. An excellent strategist, of sound military views, and a wary, enterprising, and aggressive temper, General Sheridan was of all others the man best fitted for the peculiar command intrusted to him. To the column of active operation under his command, consisting of the Sixth and Nineteenth corps and the infantry and cavalry of West Virginia, under Generals Crook and Averill, were added two divisions of cavalry from the Army of the Potomac, under Torbert and Wilson. This gave him an effective in the field of forty thousand men, whereof ten thousand consisted of excellent cavalry-an arm for the use of which the Shenandoah region affords a fine field.

General Sheridan was appointed to the command on the 7th of August, and his operations during that month and the fore part of September were mainly confined to manœuvres having for their object to prevent the Confederates from gaining the rich harvests of the Shenandoah Valley. But after once or twice driving Early southward to Strasburg, he each time returned on his path towards Harper's Ferry. General Grant had hesitated in allowing Sheridan to take a real initiative, as defeat would lay open to the enemy the States of Maryland and Pennsylvania before another army could be interposed to check him. Finding, however, while on a personal visit to General Sheridan, in the month of September, that that officer expressed great confidence of success, he authorized him to attack.

At this time the Confederate force held the west bank of Opequan Creek, covering Winchester; and the Union force lay in front of Berryville, twenty miles south of Harper's Ferry. The situation of the opposing armies was peculiar: each threatened the communications of the other, and either could bring on a battle at any time.

It would appear that General Early had designed assuming the offensive; for, leaving one division of infantry and Fitz Hugh Lee's cavalry to cover Winchester, he had thrown the

bulk of his army well forward by his left to Bunker Hill, twelve miles north of Winchester. From this point he, on the 18th, advanced a reconnoitring force as far as Martinsburg, twelve miles further to the north. Sheridan, whose position at Berryville was twelve miles east of Winchester, being well content with his antagonist's manoeuvre, advanced towards Winchester early on the morning of the 19th, expecting to catch his opponent in flagrante delicto.

Wilson's cavalry division, having the advance on the Winchester and Berryville turnpike, at dawn carried the Confederate intrenched skirmish line on the west bank of the Opequan. This stream runs northward at a distance of four miles east of Winchester. The way being thus opened, the infantry column, the Sixth Corps in the van, crossed at the ford and took position within two miles of Winchester. The direction of Sheridan's advance brought his attack full upon Early's isolated right, which, but for a vexatious delay, might readily have been overwhelmed, while the main Confederate force was still ten miles off at Bunker Hill. This delay, which consumed two hours, was caused by the non-arrival of the Nineteenth Corps under General Emory, who had moved his column to the rear of the baggage-train of the Sixth Corps, instead of keeping his command closed up in the rear of the infantry of the Sixth. This enabled Early to hurry his force southward from Bunker Hill in time to meet the attack. Sheridan formed his line of battle with the Sixth Corps on the left, covered on that flank by Wilson's cavalry division, the Nineteenth Corps in the centre, and the Kanawha infantry on the right. The latter flank was covered by Merritt's division of cavalry. Averill's division of cavalry, which had pressed down on the retreating Confederates from the direction of Bunker Hill, succeeded in closing in on the Union right. This, therefore, brought two powerful divisions of horse on the right of the Federal line, which had a development of about four miles, enveloping Winchester from the north and east. Early's left rested on a series of detached and fortified hills to the northwest of the town. It is due to