The American Civil War - This Mighty Scourge of War

The fighting 219

small Southern force launched against him
one of the most amazing surprise assaults of
the war. Lee had sent Early reinforcements
from Richmond, among them some of the
army's most dependable units. Confederate
generals reconnoitered Sheridan's camps
from a towering aerie atop Massanutten
Mountain and discovered that the Federals
were strewn randomly across a wide stretch
of rolling country north of Strasburg and
Cedar Creek, with scant attention to tactical
considerations. They hatched a daring plan.
General John B. Gordon led a long,
stealthy, circuitous march along a trail so
primitive that he called it 'a pig's path.'
Gordon's column crossed the North Fork of
the Shenandoah, crept across the nose of a
mountain, and came back to the river
opposite the unsuspecting left flank of
Sheridan's force. At dawn on 19 October,
they splashed into the stream and dashed up
the opposite slope into camps full of sleeping
Yankees, screaming the chilling 'Rebel Yell' as
they ran. The onslaught routed the entire
Federal VIII Corps. The Federal XIX Corps

fought bravely for a time, but the

momentum of the Southern surprise attack

overwhelmed them too, and swept north to

the vicinity of the village of Middletown.

Only the Federal VI Corps remained

unassailed and unbroken. Together with the

unhurt Northern cavalry, the VI Corps

numbered as many men as Early's entire

army, but staying the Rebels' momentum

proved to be a difficult task. General Horatio

G. Wright, commander of the corps, was

acting as army commander that morning in

Sheridan's absence. Wright deserves far more

As the winter of 1864-65 drew to a close, Petersburg's

days as the last bastion of the Confederacy were starkly

numbered. Federal thrusts farther and farther west to

Burgess' Mill and Hatcher's Run had stretched Lee's lines

impossibly thin. A final Confederate offensive at Fort

Stedman on 25 March won brief, illusory success, before

ending in a costly repulse. At Five Forks on 1 April and

all around Petersburg on 2 April, Northern troops broke

the Confederate line and forced the abandonment of

the city. A desperate stand by a handful of Southern

troops in Fort Gregg bought time for Lee's army to slip

away and dash westward in a vain attempt to escape

from Virginia and continue the war in North Carolina.

The Battles around Petersburg, 1865