page_title: Battle of Cedar Creek
section_title: The "fatal halt"
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of Cedar Creek / Battle / The "fatal halt"
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of the Battle of Cedar Creek of the American Civil War, 2 of 2, drawn in Adobe Illustrator CS5 by Hal Jespersen. Graphic source file is available at http://www.cwmaps.com
context_page_description: The Battle of Cedar Creek, or Battle of Belle Grove, fought October 19, 1864, was the culminating battle of the Valley Campaigns of 1864 during the American Civil War. Confederate Lt. Gen. Jubal Early launched a surprise attack against the encamped army of Union Maj. Gen. Philip Sheridan, across Cedar Creek, northeast of Strasburg, Virginia. During the morning fighting, seven Union infantry divisions were forced to fall back and lost numerous prisoners and cannons. Early failed to continue his attack north of Middletown, and Sheridan, dramatically riding to the battlefield from Winchester, was able to rally his troops to hold a new defensive line. A Union counterattack that afternoon routed Early's army.
  At the conclusion of this battle, the final Confederate invasion of the North was effectively ended. The Confederacy was never again able to threaten Washington, D.C. through the Shenandoah Valley, nor protect one of its key economic bases in Virginia. The stunning Union victory aided the reelection of Abraham Lincoln and won Sheridan lasting fame.
context_section_description: Fortunately for Sheridan, Early's men were too occupied to take notice of the Union general's dramatic arrival; they were hungry and exhausted and fell out of their ranks to pillage supplies from the Union camps. By 10 a.m., Jubal Early had developed a stunning Confederate victory, capturing 1,300 Union prisoners and 24 cannons, and driving seven infantry divisions off the field with a smaller force. But rather than exploiting his victory, Early ordered a halt in his offensive to reorganize, a decision for which he later received criticism from his surviving subordinates. John B. Gordon wrote years later, "My heart went into my boots. Visions of the fatal halt on the first day at Gettysburg, and of the whole day's hesitation to permit an assault on Grant's exposed flank on the 6th of May in The Wilderness rose before me." Early wrote to Robert E. Lee, "So many of our men had stopped in the camp to plunder (in which I am sorry to say that officers participated), the country was so open, and the enemy's cavalry so strong, that I did not deem it prudent to press further, especially as Lomax had not come up." The two armies stood about a mile apart in lines perpendicular to the Valley Pike. At 1 p.m. Early gave a halfhearted order to Gordon to attack the Union line, but "not if he found the enemy's line too strong to attack with success." Gordon's division moved forward against the XIX Corps, with Kershaw and Ramseur ready to support them, but after firing a heavy volley into the Union line, they withdrew.
caption: Battle of Cedar Creek, Union counterattack
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