Sheridan’s ride helps turn 1864 vote

Up from the South at the break of day,

Bringing to Winchester fresh dismay,

The affrighted air with a shudder bore,

Like a herald in haste, to the chieftain’s door,

The terrible grumble, and rumble, and roar,

Telling the battle was on once more,

And Sheridan twenty miles away.

— “Sheridan’s Ride” by Thomas Buchanan Read

As morning dawned in Washington, the incumbent had to ponder the possibility of defeat in the fall presidential

election, three weeks away. Two months earlier, in fact, he had written in a note to his Cabinet that “it seems exceedingly probable that this Administration will not be re-elected.”

The president was leading the nation through an increasingly bloody and utterly divisive war, a war his adversaries branded a failure. His foes accused him of indifference to the mounting toll of casualties. His opponent, meanwhile, nicknamed “the Young Napoleon,” was a popular commander, while he himself had no combat experience, although he did serve in the militia during an earlier war.

The date, in this instance, was Oct. 19, 1864; the president, Abraham Lincoln; and his opponent, Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan, a veteran of the Mexican War and former commander of the Army of the Potomac, the principal Union force facing the Confederates in Virginia.

To better illustrate Lincoln’s concern, consider that he himself came under fire in July, when Confederate Gen. Jubal Early had moved down the Shenandoah Valley to the outskirts of Washington. The raid alarmed those in the capital and prompted Lincoln to twice visit nearby Fort Stevens to get a firsthand look at the enemy. Skirmishing erupted, prompting Capt. Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. to tell Lincoln, “Get down, you fool.”

By sundown of this October day, however, a stunning and magnificently timed victory engineered by Gen. Philip Sheridan would dramatically boost Lincoln’s spirits and prospects.

Signs of trouble

That morning, a Wednesday, started quietly enough, with Sheridan, commander of the Federal Army of the Shenandoah, sleeping soundly in a comfortable bed in Winchester, Va. Sheridan was a pugnacious Irish-American, or possibly even Irish-born, depending on which story one believes. He had left his command five days earlier and traveled to Washington to meet with Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. With the enemy near his army and still formidable, Sheridan was uneasy, however, and returned to Winchester on Tuesday.

Although Sheridan had decisively defeated Early’s forces in the valley at Fisher’s Hill on Sept. 22, there had been some signs of renewed Confederate activity before he departed for Washington. Sheridan had hurried back to Winchester by train and horse, but Gen. Horatio Wright, commander of the 6th Corps, had reported all was quiet and that he would send out a reconnaissance force in the morning. Thus Sheridan laid down to his rest Tuesday night somewhat assured.

As Sheridan slumbered, 17 miles south, Early was preparing a very rude awakening for Sheridan’s force.

Out of the fog

The sounds of singing birds in the valley were masked that morning by a fierce attack on troops of the 7th and 19th Corps, in the advance of the rest of Sheridan’s army. Two veteran Confederate division commanders, Joseph Kershaw and John Gordon, commanded the Confederate spearhead.

Just south of Middletown, along the Valley Pike and on a foggy morning, many Federal pickets reported hearing unusual sounds to their front. Some scattered firing was heard, but no general alarm was sounded; most Federal soldiers were still snug in their beds.

With the sun not yet over the horizon, Kershaw’s men waded Cedar Creek and crashed into the 8th Corps. Kershaw’s Georgia Brigade overran the sparsely held first set of entrenchments, scattering the Federals holding them. A Union officer who escaped the rout in the trenches said the fight in the foggy gloom “was a blind, confused, feeble scuffle.” Now, with muskets rattling and the high-pitched “Rebel yell” resounding, the Federal camps came alive.

Gordon’s division struck about 20 minutes after Kershaw’s, just as the sun was coming up, and with it, the rout of the advanced Federal forces was complete. Farther north, the 6th Corps was able to get into line, but the stream of Federal fugitives made organization difficult. Nineteenth Corps staff officer John DeForest said, “They were not running, not breathless and looking over their shoulders, but just trudging tranquilly rearward like a crowd hastening home from the circus.” By about 10 a.m., the Federal troops had been driven several miles through Middletown, where the 6th Corps formed a line.

At that point, Early called a halt, feeling sure the Federals were in full retreat. Hundreds of Confederate soldiers, unable to avoid the tempting plunder of the Union camps, had left their units, and those in the ranks were exhausted, having marched most of the previous night. They had now fought for five hours.

This halt by the Confederates marked a turning point of the battle, along with the boost that the Federals were about to receive.

No retreat

Sheridan had been awakened shortly after dawn by an officer reporting the sound of artillery fire from the south. The commander was not overly concerned, believing it was merely Wright’s planned reconnaissance meeting resistance. But he ordered breakfast made and had Rienzi, his huge horse (17 hands) saddled. By 9 a.m., the 5-foot-5 Sheridan swung himself onto Rienzi (his men sometimes joked that he had to shinny up his saber to do so) and headed to the sound of combat. Not far from town, Sheridan and his staff halted, as the din was now constant.

Shortly, the group began to run into the stragglers headed from the battlefield. From some of the officers, Sheridan heard that the army had been routed. But he could still hear the sounds of battle. If the army were vanquished, then his place was here in the rear, where they could reorganize. But his men were still fighting, and Sheridan decided he should “share their fate because of what they had done hitherto.”

The farther he rode, the more of his retreating army he met. Sheridan’s blood up now, he waved his hat and shouted to them as he went: “Come on back, boys. Face the other way. We’ll make our coffee out of Cedar Creek tonight.” A cowed colonel cried, “The army is whipped.”

“You are, but the army isn’t,” Sheridan retorted. Not all listened, but many did.

Finally, about 10:30 a.m., after riding 14 miles, the commander arrived at the 6th Corps’ line, a veritable whirl of motion. Gen. William Emory told him that his troops could cover the retreat. “Retreat, hell,” Sheridan replied. “We’ll be back in our camps tonight.” One officer recalled that the effect was electric. “Every man knew Sheridan would do it.”

A tide of cheering

At noon, the Federal line was reorganized and ready to attack. An officer on Sheridan’s staff, George Forsyth, suggested that Sheridan ride the length of the line to inspire the men. Union Army captain and future president William McKinley suggested that Sheridan remove his cap so his well-recognized bullet-shaped head could be seen. This he did, rippling a tumultuous tide of cheering from one end of the line to the other.

Early ignored warnings from Gordon that the Confederate left flank was in danger. About 4 p.m., 200 Federal bugles sounded the charge. Early’s exhausted troops resisted for half an hour, then Gen. George Armstrong Custer’s cavalry got around that left flank, and suddenly the Confederate line began to disintegrate. By sundown, Sheridan’s inspired troops had swept Early’s army from the field.

“We believe that not another man in America could have got that victory out of that army,” said the 14th New Hampshire’s Francis Buffum. Arguably no victory of the war could be said to have been more distinctly the work of one inspirational leader than Sheridan’s at Cedar Creek.

Impact of victory

How important was it that Sheridan avoided a rout of his army? If Sheridan had been driven from the Shenandoah Valley, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee might have stripped troops from Petersburg to reinforce Early to again threaten the capital. Considering the time of year, Early might have been threatening the capital on Election Day.

Sheridan’s stellar performance did more than just avoid that disaster, which surely helped Lincoln’s election. Inspired by the torrent of newspaper coverage, Thomas Buchanan Read quickly composed a 63-line poem titled “Sheridan’s Ride.” It was read all over the country in the week before the election, adding to the pro-Lincoln tide.

Writing in “The American Heritage Picture History of the Civil War,” historian Bruce Catton assessed the impact of Sheridan’s victory:

“Coming on the heels of [victories at] Mobile Bay and Atlanta, Sheridan’s conquest was a tonic that checked war weariness and created a new spirit of optimism. No longer could the Democrats make an effective campaign that the war was a failure. The war was visibly being won, and although the price remained high it was obvious that the last crisis had been passed.”

Mr. Catton added: “[Gen. William T.] Sherman, [Adm. David G.] Farragut, and Sheridan were winning Lincoln’s election for him.”

Emotional report in paper aids daring general’s image

Although Thomas Buchanan Read’s poem made Gen. Philip Sheridan’s ride the stuff of legend, New York World correspondent Jerome Bonaparte Stillson generated the Irishman’s headlines. Stillson covered Sheridan’s Army of the Shenandoah for the World, a lively antiwar newspaper that supported the election of Democratic candidate George B. McClellan.

Although containing non sequiturs and contradictions, Stillson’s account of the Battle of Cedar Creek stirred readers’ emotions, along with newspaper sales. Newspapers throughout the North reprinted Stillson’s dispatch. Here, Stillson describes Sheridan’s arrival on the field:

“The general rode on with his staff and escort, which soon become in the distance a mass of dust and gleaming hoofs. Galloping past the batteries to the extreme left of the line held by the cavalry, he rode to the front, took off his hat and waved it, while a cheer went up from the ranks not less hearty and enthusiastic than that which greeted him after the battle of Winchester.

“Generals rode out to meet him, officers waved their swords, men threw up their hats in an extremity of glee. General Custer, discovering Sheridan at the moment he arrived, rode up to him, threw his arms around his neck, and kissed him on the cheek. Waiting for no other parley than simply to exchange greeting, and to say, ’This retreat must be stopped, by God,’ Sheridan broke loose, and began galloping down the lines, along the whole front of the army.

“Everywhere the enthusiasm caused by his appearance was the same. It increased at last until that part of the army in line of battle became a new being, having twice its previous will to fight, and until that part of the army in rear, hearing of it, became partially ashamed of secession, and came back.”

Sheridan events re-enacted

Several events this month recall the exploits of Gen. Philip Sheridan and his command in Virginia’s scenic Shenandoah Valley.

This weekend, 10,000 re-enactors are expected to participate in the 15th annual anniversary re-enactment of the Battle of Cedar Creek on part of the actual battlefield in Middletown, Va., 80 miles west of Washington in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

The event includes tours of Belle Grove plantation, which served as Sheridan’s headquarters before and after the battle. There also will be portrayals of life within the plantation during the war and field demonstrations and re-enacted combat on the nearby grounds. More information can be found at www.cedarcreekbattlefield.org.

For those who prefer to tour on their own, a map for a self-guided tour of the battlefield is available online, assembled by historian Joseph W.A. Whitehorne of the Army’s Center of Military History, at www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/staff-rides/cedarcreek/ccfm.htm.

Meanwhile, John Heatwole will lead a three-day field tour Friday through Oct. 24 titled, “The Burning — Sheridan’s Devastation of the Shenandoah Valley and Related Incidents,” beginning in Harrisonburg, Va.

For more about 140th-anniversary events relating to the battles in the Shenandoah Valley, visit www.valley1864.com.

• To read more about Philip Sheridan and other Irish during America’s Civil War, visit www.thewildgeese.com.