IN THE RANKS AT CEDAR CREEK.
ON the night of October 18, 1864, the army of Sheridan lay encamped near Belle Grove, three miles northerly from Strasburg. The campaign seemed virtually ended; we who lived beyond the atmosphere of head-quarters supposed there was no longer an enemy of respectable strength in the Shenandoah Valley. In the first days of the previous August a series of adroit strategic movements had commenced between Early and Sheridan, whose armies alternately faced each other within striking distance, and marched back and forth between Harper's Ferry and Front Royal, often on parallel lines, as the chieftains manoeuvred for an advantage of position. Not until the middle of September did the first general shock of arms occur; and then there was a brief and sanguinary battle of five hours near Winchester, resulting in the utter rout of Early's army, and its precipitate flight up the Valley. At Fisher's Hill the remnants of it were gathered in hand, and a feeble resistance offered; but the Union army, in the full flush of its proud success, easily drove them before it, dispersing them beyond Staunton. The bulk of our forces paused a week at Harrisonburg, for recuperation; and then, with the main object of the campaign, the breaking of the Rebel power in the Valley, supposed to be accomplished, and in order to secure a shorter line of supply, Sheridan fell back leisurely to this position at Belle Grove. There was some faint show of annoyance by the enemy—an irruption of Rosser's cavalry, which was easily checked, with additional captures of artillery and material—and there had been a small demonstration on the right of the present position; but these were regarded as the puerile efforts of an enemy who was no longer formidable. There was known to be a force of several thousands lying beyond Fisher's Hill, and the customary pickets were advanced from our front; but nobody dreamed of attack. Such, at least, was the opinion of the rank and file who had pursued the routed enemy for eighty miles, beating him in two engagements, and capturing prisoners, cannon and stores, till it seemed as if the utmost practicable limit of victory had I een gained. The northern press had heralded the splendid results of the campaign, and the Rebel journals duly bemoaned them; and well assured that there could not, in the nature of things, be more fighting at present, we enjoyed the bracing atmosphere of the Virginia Autumn in the quiet of encampment, while Sheridan took advantage of the lull to make a flying visit to Washington.
There never was an army more deceived in its fancied security; there never were leaders more utterly astonished by the developments of the next twelve hours than were those in command of the subdivisions of this army; in short, there was not, during the whole course of the Rebellion, a movement so original in its conception, so audacious in its execution, or so threatening in its results, as that by which the Rebel army crept tiger-like upon our left flank on the early morning of October 19th. This was a stroke of strategy undertaken
