By the spring of 1864, General Grant had abandoned the plan of suppressing the rebellion, by overcoming the Confederate Army, in open battle, in the field, and had resorted to the less heroic, but far more effective, policy of impairing the efficiency of that army, through starvation, by cutting off the sources of its supplies. The Battles of Spotsylvania Courthouse and the Wilderness had already closed, when, on May 17th, 1864, he despatched to Halleck, "Cannot Sigel go up the Shenandoah Valley to Staunton. The enemy is evidently drawing supplies largely from that source, and, if Sigel can destroy the road there, it will be of vast importance to us." About the same time, by another order, he directed the destruction of the Virginia & Tennessee Railroad, which brought supplies from the Southwest.
On the 2d of May, General Crook left the Kanawha River and moved with a large force in the direction of the Virginia & Tennessee Railroad, and on May 6th General Averell left Logan Courthouse with about 3,000 men and joined Crook at Union, in Monroe County, on the 15th. Neither force had been idle in the meanwhile; General Crook had encountered a Confederate force, under General A. G. Jenkins, and had defeated it at Cloyds Mountain, on May 6th, mortally wounding General Jenkins—the command of whose brigade and department then devolved on Colonel John McCausland, a distinguished graduate of this Institute, who soon after was made a Brigadier-General. General Averell had endeavored to strike the railroad at Saltville, at Wytheville, at Dublin and at Lynchburg, but with results which are clearly stated by General Crook in his report of May 20th, "heard that night by courier from General Averell that he had not succeeded in reaching Saltville, but would strike the railroad at Wytheville, heard that he had met a large force and could not get to Wytheville, but would be at Dublin that night, I consequently sent him instructions to move to Lynchburg, destroying the railroad," &c. But McCausland and W. E. Jones and Morgan were actively and effectually guarding the line of railroad, and the object of this movement wholly failed, and the general result is told by General Grant in these concise words:
