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ous roar, and seemed to roll towards him, until the conviction became too strong for doubt that a heavy battle was raging in the front, and that the defeated party were being rapidly pushed northward. He put spurs to his horse and rode at full speed towards the firing, fearing, yet unwilling to believe, that any disaster could have overtaken the army which he had twice led to signal victory. But soon the first group of fugitives and camp-followers streaming northward told him that his army was beaten and in full retreat. Galloping along far ahead of his escort, he dashed up to the front soon after ten o'clock, his charger reeking with foam, and by his voice and presence infused confidence and new courage into the disheartened troops. Even wounded men by the roadside greeted him with cheers. At once he directed every effort to stopping the retreat and re-forming the men. This was favored by a pause in the pursuit on the part of the enemy, which enabled the army to fall back out of range. The provost-marshals of the several corps succeeded in forming a line of guards in the rear, which was gradually effective in preventing desertion. In a short time the strag glers were partially organized and moving towards the front. The Army of Western Virginia, which had been so completely broken up and scattered in the morning, was thus re-formed in a measure and put in position. Sheridan ordered all retreat to be stopped at once, and at one P. M. had got his army established in line of battle, as follows: the Sixth Corps in the centre, Nineteenth Corps on the right, Crook's command on the left, Custer's cavalry division on the extreme right, and Merritt's cavalry division on the extreme left.

The enemy meantime had moved up his guns in range of the new position, and having again got his troops in hand, once more came on to the charge, but was severely repulsed by the Nineteenth Corps. General Bidwell was killed and Grover wounded during this attack. It now became evident that Early had relinquished offensive movements for the day. The enemy began throwing up breast works. Their wagons and ambulances were brought across Cedar Run, and every thing indicated their intention to retain the position during the night. Having now become somewhat prepared to take the offensive, Sheridan, at three P. M., ordered an attack with a view of regaining the position at Cedar Creek. The Sixth Corps was drawn up in the centre, along the pike, with Getty's Second Division in advance, and the other divisions supporting. Between three and four o'clock Getty dashed forward on the charge, and the remainder of the line followed. A tremendous fire of artillery and musketry greeted our troops as they burst out of the woods. For a time it seemed impossible to withstand it. Our lines once fell back, broken, but were again re-formed, and while such of our own batteries as remained answered the enemy with vigor and effect, the troops again pressed on. Despite determined and bloody resist ance, they carried the town, and drove the discomfited enemy through it. This was the crisis of the day, and from that moment victory was ours. On through Middletown, and beyond, the enemy hurried, and the Army of the Shenandoah pursued. Custer and Merritt, charging in on right and left, doubled up the flanks of the foe, taking prisoners,

slashing, killing, driving as they went. The march of the infantry, though more slow, was more effective.

The retreat of the enemy was continued back to Fisher's Hill. At Cedar Creek he attempted to hold us in check, and planted his batteries on the opposite banks, to hold the bridge and fords. But our forces pressed on, carried the fords and bridge, and drove him from the creek through Strasburg to Fisher's Hill. A part of our infantry reached Strasburg, but the main army bivouacked in the old camp along Cedar Creek. The cavalry dashed through Strasburg to Fisher's Hill, and there the victorious march terminated. The enemy subsequently retired upon Newmarket, abandoning almost every thing in their flight. The total losses, exclusive of recaptures, were as follows: Early's loss in killed, wounded, and prisoners was stated by the enemy to be less than twelve hundred, but was in reality far greater. He lost in prisoners alone over sixteen hundred men. He also lost twenty-three cannon, besides all those captured by him in the morning, and a few caissons. The other losses, wagons, &c., exclusive of recaptures, were small. A part of the medical stores of each side was captured by the other. Our losses were about six thousand five hundred men, including over fifteen hundred prisoners. The official statement of losses in the Sixth and Nineteenth Corps made them about five thousand five hundred in all. The official estimates of those in the Eighth Corps put them at about eight hundred and fifty. Among the rebel dead was General Ramseur.

Early having retired upon Newmarket and intrenched there, began to recuperate with that energy for which he was conspicuous. His cavalry began at once to scour the Luray Valley, under Lomax, whence Sheridan's Cavalry failed to draw him. By the 20th of October he again showed signs of an advance, by throwing forward a strong cavalry force, while Breckinridge, having relieved Echols in Southwestern Virginia, was reorganizing a force there with a view to sup port Early. Sheridan was also drilling, clothing, and organizing his men, while Mosby and Imboden's troopers were so busy on his flanks that it required a strong force along the lines to protect the communications.

In the first week of November the enemy's demonstrations were more marked, and his cavalry under Rosser threatened Sheridan's communications north of Winchester. On the morning of the 7th, Sheridan broke up his camp and fell back to Newtown, four and onehalf miles distant on the turnpike, and about nine miles south of Winchester. The Nineteenth Corps was on the right of the pike in advance, the Sixth on the left, and the wagon trains between them on the road. The artillery followed, and the Eighth Corps brought up the rear. The cavalry covered the flanks and rear. The retrograde movement continued next day along the pike from Newtown to Kearnstown, four miles south of Winchester. On the afternoon of Friday, the 11th, Lomax's Cavalry, who had been following us, pressed severely against the cavalry divisions of Custer and Merritt, in reconnoitring, and drove them in. Our army was then in line at Kearnstown. After a sharp skirmish the enemy was forced to retire.

Next morning, the 12th, Lomax again attacked our cavalry, driving in our pickets. On reaching our main force, he was repulsed after a protracted engagement. Powell's Division then pursued him to Front Royal, and captured two guns and one hundred and fifty men. The fighting was spirited, and our losses were considerable. Early subsequently advanced his army and again occupied Fisher's Hill with about fifteen thousand men. On the 21st of November he occupied Mount Jackson and Newmarket with his infantry, with his cavalry thrown forward from his right. In the first week in December the Sixth Corps left the valley to re-enforce Grant, as did also a considerable portion of Sheridan's infantry. In the same way Lee was re-enforced by Kershaw and other troops from Early, leaving but a few thousand men at Newmarket. Both armies thenceforth remained quiet for some months.

During the first week in December, Merritt's (First) Cavalry Division crossed the Blue Ridge, and made a grand raid through the upper parts of Loudon and Fauquier Counties, which were the chief haunts of Mosby and his men. Every thing was laid waste-barns, houses, farms, and mills; many cattle were captured, and others slaughtered and burned. Unfortunately, not a few Union citizens suffered the loss of every thing in the general destruction. The raid was in accordance with the policy initiated by Grant and Sheridan, and its results, officially reported, are as follows:

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Estimated value of property destroyed and captured by the First

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$857,716

Second Brigade, General Devin.

Reserve Brigade....

Total...

.1,239,520

411,520

.$2,508,756

Perhaps the statement of a rebel commissioner of the revenue in

Shenandoah County, made about the same time, will give a clearer idea of Sheridan's previous cavalry operations in that county alone. He says:

"I will now try and give you some idea of the damage done in part of this county by the Yankees in the way of burning of barns, mills, &c. I have been over nearly the whole of my district, comprising all the upper end of the county, from Narrow Passage Creek to Rockingham County line, and I find there have been burned by Sheridan's army two hundred and fifteen barns, eighteen dwellings, eleven grist mills, nine water saw mills, two steam saw mills, one furnace, two forges, one fulling mill, one carding machine, besides a number of smaller buildings, such as stables, &c. The quantity of grain destroyed is immense. I cannot give you any idea of the amount of grain, hay, fodder, &c., destroyed, but the quantity is very large."

CHAPTER LXIX.

Political Parties.-Elections of 1862.-Organization and Strength of the Peace Party.— Banishment of Vallandigham.-Ohio Election.-Political Reaction in favor of the Administration.-Thirty-eighth Congress.-President's Plan of Reconstruction.— Amendment to the Constitution.-Presidential Canvass of 1864.-Conventions at Baltimore and Chicago.- Nomination of Lincoln and McClellan.-Result of the Election.-Peace Negotiations.-Colonel Jaques.-The Niagara Falls Correspondence.

THE failure of the Peninsular campaign of 1862, followed by the defeat of Pope in the second Bull Run campaign, the invasion of Maryland by Lee, and the indecisive battle of Antietam, together with the aggressive strength exhibited by the rebels in the West by the invasion of Kentucky under Bragg, all conspired to bring the Administration into temporary disfavor; and in the fall elections of 1862 several of the States, including New York, which had given large majorities for Lincoln two years previous, were carried by the opposition. The gains of Congressmen made by the latter in these elections threatened to neutralize, and perhaps considerably overcome, the Administration majority in Congress. Incapacity, wastefulness, corruption, and imbecility were freely charged upon the President and his constitutional advisers; but the most serious objection urged against the Administration was its alleged unconstitutional method of conducting the war. Confiscation, arbitrary arrests, conscription, the emancipation of slaves belonging to rebels, and similar forcible measures initiated by Government, for which it was insisted there was no warraut afforded in the Constitution, were alike condemned by the opposition, who contended that the war could be carried to a successful completion without resort to so radical a policy, and that in point of fact it had better be terminated at once than conducted unconstitutionally. The political contest of 1862 may, therefore, be considered to have shown in some degree a public dissatisfaction with the course of the Administration during the year, though it cannot be doubted also that military reverses had much to do in causing that dissatisfaction. With those who claimed to be superior to such accidental influences as success or defeat, the emancipation proclamation of September was a sufficient reason for trying to overthrow the Administration in Congress, and at the close of the year it looked as if their

efforts might be rewarded with success. It is worthy of note, however, that in those States in which the soldiers were allowed to vote, the Republican supremacy was easily maintained. This was notably the case in Iowa, where the soldiers' vote enabled the Republicans to return their full delegation to Congress.

The year 1863 opened with no favorable prospects for the National cause, and the repulses before Fredericksburg and Charleston, and the defeat at Chancellorsville, followed by the second invasion of Maryland, seemed to presage further losses for the Administration. The opposition had meanwhile been busy in other ways. Undeterred by the assertions of Government that its action in arresting suspected persons, at a time when the country swarmed with spies and secret traitors, was utterly disinterested, and by its efforts to release all prisoners against whom no evidence of treasonable intent could be brought; regardless also of the act of Congress sanctioning the action of the President in suspending the writ of habeas corpus, and clothing him with full au thority to check and punish all attempts to defeat the efforts of the Government in the prosecution of the war, the leaders of the opposition busied themselves with promoting public dissatisfaction and demanding that the war should be brought to a close. While many were sincere in believing that the evils which sprang from a vigorous prosecution. of the war were worse than secession itself, it cannot be doubted that many were also influenced by a factious, partisan spirit, which prompted them to rejoice in the humiliation of their country, provided the overthrow of their political opponents could be thereby secured. The latter branch of the opposition formed the nucleus around which rallied a party whose watchword was "Peace on any Terms," and whose numbers were swelled by the whole disloyal element in the North, and by various secret organizations formed to promote the independence of the "Southern Confederacy," of which the K. G. C.'s, or "Knights of the Golden Circle," were the most conspicuous. One of the most active advocates of peace with the rebel Confederacy was Clement L. Vallandigham, a Democratic member of Congress from Ohio, who, after the adjournment of the Thirty-seventh Congress, made public speeches in his congressional district, denouncing and counselling resistance to the draft which was about to be enforced. He charged the Government at Washington with aiming, under the pretext of restoring the Union, to crush out liberty and establish a despotism, and with deliberately rejecting propositions by which the Southern States could have been brought back to the Union. He also denounced Order No. 38, issued by General Burnside, then commanding the Department of the Ohio, forbidding certain disloyal practices, and announced his intention to disobey it, at the same time calling upon the people who heard him to resist and defeat its execution. For this conduct he was tried before a court-martial in May, 1863, and sentenced to be placed in close confinement within some fortress of the United States. The President modified this sentence by directing that, instead of being imprisoned, Vallandigham should be sent within the rebel lines, and should not return to the United States until after the termination of the war. This sentence was at once carried into execution.

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