Zzzhis Army in flight.
As it happened,
Sheridan was in
Winchester when
Early's attack was delivered, on his return from a visit to
Washington.
As he rode out of town that morning towards his army he heard the firing, and, galloping towards the field, nearly twenty miles distant, was met by its fugitives.
As he arrived on the field he found
Getty's Divison and the cavalry resisting
Early's army.
He at
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once ordered all his troops in line, and late that afternoon, knowing
Early's weakness of numbers, he ordered an advance.
An interval between
Payne's Brigade on our extreme left and the rest of
Kershaw's line having been penetrated, the troops there gave away, and presently the whole line followed.
Vainly did
Gordon try to stay the steps of his thin and weary but now receding lines.
Vainly did
Ramseur, with a few hundred men, and
Major Goggin, of
Conner's staff, with as many more of his brigade and
Cutshaw's artillery, try to stem the tide.
For an hour and a half they held it in check, but
Ramseur fell mortally wounded fighting like a lion, the artillery ammunition was exhausted, and they, too, fell back.
Pegram and
Wharton and
Wofford, on our right, had successfully checked the enemy, but as they now attempted to retire, the disorder spread and the last organized force dissolved into general rout.
Vainly did
Early try to rally his men on the south bank of
Cedar creek and at
Hupp's Hill, and he declares that if 500 men had stood by him all his artillery and guns would have been saved, as the enemy's pursuit was feeble, but the bridge broke down at
Strausburg, blocking all passage, and they were lost, and
Early's army was in disastrous flight from the field of battle.
Thus are we left with the reflection that so often arises, that ‘war, however crowned by splendid strokes, is commonly a series of errors and accidents’; and thus was illustrated what
Napier says that ‘without fortune, which is only another name for the unknown combinations of infinite power, the designs of men are as bubbles on a troubled ocean.’
And so ‘the sun of
Middletown’ that had risen so gloriously went down behind the storm clouds that had spent their wrath upon the field of its illumination.
The enemy was terribly shattered, and his footsteps weary, his pursuit feeble,
Sheridan complains of his cavalry, and that they did not get the full fruits of victory.
Terrible as was the shock to
Early—wonder 'tis it did not crush him—he was quick upon his feet again, and November 11th; lo!
his tattered banners flew again in front of
Sheridan north of
Cedar creek, near
Newtown, the latter retiring to
Winchester.
At this time
Sheridan had 60,000 and
Early 14,000 men.
November 27th
Rosser suddenly swept down on
New Creek, a fortified port on the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, and captured 800 prisoners, eight pieces of artillery, several hundred cattle, and many stores.
In December
Sheridan sent back the Sixth Corps to
Grant,
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and
Early soon sent
Kershaw's Division and the Second Corps back to
Lee; and then made his headquarters at
Staunton, with
Wharton's infantry and
Rosser's cavalry, which he alone retained.
Thus ended 1864,
Early having some 3,000 men at
Staunton, and
Sheridan at
Winchester, with 43,000, the enemy holding, as
President Davis says in his history, ‘precisely the same position in the
Valley which he had before the beginning of the campaign in the spring.’
Meantime,
Sherman had marched through
Georgia, and was at
Savannah.
