Most of
the Shenandoah Valley is in Virginia. It extends southwest from Harpers
Ferry on the Poptomac River and lies between the Blue Ridge Mountains
and the Alleghenies. It is approximately 241 km (150 miles) long and
40 km (25 miles wide).
During the American Civil War the Shenandoah
Valley was of great strategic importance and was the scene of many
battles. By the summer of 1862 the main Union
Army under George McClellan was
ready to march on Richmond. McClellan
and his 115,000 men encountered the Confederate
Army at Williamsburg on 4th May. McClellan moved his troops into
the Shenandoah Valley and along
with John C. Fremont, Irvin
McDowell and Nathaniel Banks surrounded
Thomas Stonewall Jackson and his
17,000 man army.
Thomas Stonewall Jackson was under
orders from President Jefferson Davis
to try and delay the attack on Richmond.
Jackson attacked John C. Fremont at Cross
Keys before turning on Irvin McDowell
at Port Republic. Jackson then rushed his troops east to join up with
Joseph E. Johnston and the Confederate
forces fighting George McClellan
in the suburbs the city.
Attempts to clear out the Shenandoah Valley by Major General Franz
Sigel in May and Major General David
Hunter in June, ended in failure. Major General Jubal
Early, who defeated Hunter, was sent north with 14,000 men in
an attempt to draw off troops from Grant's army. Major General Lew
Wallace encountered Early by the Monacacy River and although defeated
was able to slow his advance to Washington.
His attempts to breakthrough the ring forts around the city ended
in failure. Abraham Lincoln, who witnessed
the attack from Fort Stevens, became the first president in American
history to see action while in office.
In August 1864 the Union Army made another
attempt to take control of the Shenandoah Valley. Philip
Sheridan and 40,000 soldiers entered the valley and soon encountered
troops led by Jubal Early who had just
returned from Washington. After a
series of minor defeats Sheridan eventually gained the upper hand.
His men now burnt and destroyed anything of value in the area and
after defeating Early in another large-scale battle on 19th October,
the Union Army, for the first time, held
the valley. By
the early weeks of 1865 the Union
Army removed all resistance in the Shenandoah Valley.
(1)
Ulysses
Grant, Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant (1885)
The
Shenandoah Valley was very important to the Confederates, because
it was the principal storehouse they now had for feeding their armies
about Richmond. It was well known that they would make a desperate
struggle to maintain it. It had been the source of a great deal of
trouble to us heretofore to guard that outlet to the north, partly
because of the incompetency of some of the commanders, but chiefly
because of the interference from Washington. It seemed to be the policy
of General Halleck nd Secretary Stanton to keep any force sent there,
in pursuit of the invading army, moving right and left so as to keep
between the enemy and our capital; and, generally speaking, they pursued
this policy until all knowledge of the whereabouts of the enemy was
lost. They were left, therefore, free to supply themselves with horses,
beef cattle, and such provisions as they could carry away from Western
Maryland and Pennsylvania. I was determined to put a stop to this.
I had previously asked to have Sheridan assigned to that command but
Mr. Stanton objected, on the ground that he was too young for such
an important a command. On 1st August, 1864, I sent the following
orders to Major-General Halleck: "I am sending General Sheridan
for temporary duty whilst the enemy is being expelled from the border.
Unless General Hunter is in the field in person, I want Sheridan put
in command of all the troops in the field with instructions to put
himself south of the enemy and follow him to death. Wherever the enemy
goes let our troops go also."
(2)
John
Singleton Mosby, Memoirs of Colonel John
S. Mosby (1887)
During
this campaign of 1864, my battalion of six companies was the only
force operating in the rear of Sheridan's army in the Shenandoah Valley.
Our rendezvous was along the eastern base of the Blue Ridge, in what
is known as the Piedmont region of Virginia. Fire and sword could
not drive the people of that neighborhood from their allegiance to
what they thought was right, and in the gloom of disaster and defeat
they never wavered in their support of the Confederate cause. The
main object of my campaign was to vex and embarrass Sheridan and,
if possible, to prevent his advance into the interior of the State.
But my exclusive attention was not given to Sheridan, for alarm was
kept up continuously by threatening Washington and occasionally crossing
the Potomac. We lived on the country where we operated and drew nothing
from Richmond except the gray jackets my men wore. We were mounted,
armed, and equipped entirely off the enemy, but, as we captured a
great deal more than we could use, the surplus was sent to supply
Lee's army. The mules we sent him furnished a large part of his transportation,
and the captured sabres and carbines were turned over to his cavalry
- we had no use for them.
I
believe I was the first cavalry commander who discarded the sabre
as useless and consigned it to museums for the preservation of antiquities.
My men were as little impressed by a body of cavalry charging them
with sabres as though they had been armed with cornstalks. In the
Napoleonic wars cavalry might sometimes ride down infantry armed with
muzzle-loaders and flintlocks, because the infantry would be broken
by the momentum of the charge before more than one effective fire
could be delivered. At Eylau the French cavalry rode over the Russians
in a snowstorm because the powder of the infantry was wet and they
were defenseless. Fixed ammunition had not been invented. I think
that my command reached the highest point of efficiency as cavalry
because they were well armed with two six-shooters and their charges
combined the effect of fire and shock. We were called bushwhackers,
as a term of reproach, simply because our attacks were generally surprises,
and we had to make up by celerity for lack of numbers. Now I never
resented the epithet of "bushwhacker" - although there was
no soldier to whom it applied less - because bushwhacking is a legitimate
form of war, and it is just as fair and equally heroic to fire at
an enemy from behind a bush as a breastwork or from the casemate of
a fort.
(3)
General Philip
Sheridan, letter to General
Henry Halleck about the activities
of John
Singleton Mosby
(26th November, 1864)
I will soon commence work on Mosby. Heretofore
I have made no attempt to break him up, as I would have employed ten
men to his one, and for the reason that I have made a scapegoat of
him for the destruction of private rights. Now there is going to be
an intense hatred of him in that portion of the valley which is nearly
a desert. I will soon commence on Loudoun County, and let them know
there is a God in Israel. Mosby has annoyed me considerably; but the
people are beginning to see that he does not injure me a great deal,
but causes a loss to them of all that they have spent their lives
in accumulating. Those people who live in the vicinity of Harper's
Ferry are the most villainous in this valley, and have not yet been
hurt much. If the railroad is interfered with, I will make some of
them poor. Those who live at home in peace and plenty want the war
to go on; but when they have to bear the burden by loss of property
and comforts, they will cry for peace.
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