The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1895-01-10
POWELL SPEAKS AGAIN.
Mastery Discussion of the Complications
at Cedar Creek.

EDITOR NATIONAL TRIBUNE: And still
another Richard in the field in the person
age Of Comrade S. A. Mcdonald 122d n. Y,
who says he served in the Sixth Corps at
Cedar Creek on the morning of Oct. 49, 1864
| and supplies his criticism on the writer's
answers to Comrade Webster's attack upon
the conduct of Gen. Crooks troops on the
morning of the 10Th, when surprised and
driven from their camps by Gen. Early IS
forces.
The spirit in which Comrade Mcdonald
enters the controversy seems TO be charac-
terized by prejudice in his unqualified
charge that "Comrade Powell in his second
epistle garbles an extract from Sheridan's
Memoirs, and by forced construction at
tempts to show that Sheridan said the Sixth
Corps was also badly demoralized.n
Certainly no unprejudiced mind can or
will SO construe my reference in question.
/ merely quoted from Gen. Sberidan's Mem
oirs, Vol. 2, p. 95, Sheridan's exact words:
"After Crooks troops had been driven from
their camps Gen. Wright endeavored to form
line with the Sixth Corps to hold the Val
ley pike, to the left of the Nineteenth Corps;
but, in failing in this, he ordered the with
drawal of the latter troops"
Gen. Sheridan's words are few, plain and
easily understood. My own construction of
them u.s. that there were other than Crooks
troops badly demoralized at Cedar Creek on
the morning Of Oct. 10, 1864, which demon
alization, however, Was soon overcome after
Sheridan made his appearance in their
midst.
If my construction is not well founded, I
ask the reader why the Sixth Corps failed
to form line on the left of the Nineteenth
Corps to hold the Valley pike, when ordered
by Gen. Wright? A very important thing to
do at that juncture in the great surprise of
the morning that had swept every thing be-
tore IL for a time; that seriously threatened
to turn Gen. Sheridan's great victories in
the Shenandoah Valley at Opequon and
Fishers Hill into q disgraceful and over
whelming defeat.
The reader can place his OWE construction
upon the extract, as / did. Comrade Nc
Donald, however, questions the correctness
of Sheridan's Memoirs, claiming, as he
does, that "Sheridan's Memoirs were writ
ten over 20 years after the close of the war;
and" says he, it is a well-known fact that,
SO far as the narrative pertains to the morn
ing's operations at Cedar Creek, it is incor-
rect in many instances, and this is one of
them"
modest yet presumptuous way of gar
bling Gen. Sheridan's own words, as recorded
by him, bearing upon very important event,
yea, the most seriously important event in
his brilliant aud efficient war record, written
20 years after the close of the war, in the
closing scenes of his life.
And, though Comrade Med. denies the re-
liability of Sheridan's Memoirs, says: 81
feel at liberty to introduce an extract from
that work, which, in my opinion, does as
great an act of injustice to the Army of West
Virginia as can be charged to any writer
who has contributed to these columns. See
Vol 2, page SO, where Sheridan says: Il
then turned back to the rear of Getty's Di-
vision, and as / came behird it lire of
regimeutal flags rose up out of the ground,
as it seemed, to welcome ne. They were
mostly the colors Of Crooks troops, who had