General Early was delegated to threaten Washington and scare the able officers of the army who were stopping there at that time talking politics and abusing Grant. He defeated General Wallace at Monocacy River, and appeared before Fort Stevens, one of the defences of Washington, July 11. Had he whooped right along instead of pausing a day somewhere to get laundry-work done before entering Washington, he would easily have captured the city.
Reinforcements, however, got there ahead of him, and he had to go back.
He sent a force of cavalry into Pennsylvania, where they captured Chambersburg and burned it on failure of the town trustees to pay five hundred thousand dollars ransom.
General Sheridan was placed in charge of the troops here, and defeated Early at Winchester, riding twenty miles in twenty minutes, as per poem.
At Fisher's Hill he was also victorious. He devastated the Valley of the Shenandoah to such a degree that a crow passing the entire length of the valley had to carry his dinner with him.
It was, however, at the battle of Cedar Creek that Sheridan was twenty miles away, according to historical prose. Why he was twenty miles away, various and conflicting reasons are given, but on his good horse Rienzi he arrived in time to turn defeat and rout into victory and hilarity.
Rienzi, after the war, died in eleven States. He was a black horse, with a saddle-gall and a flashing eye.
He passed away at his home in Chicago at last in poverty while waiting for a pension applied for on the grounds of founder and lampers brought on by eating too heartily after the battle and while warm, but in the line of duty.
The Red River campaign under General Banks was a joint naval and land expedition, resulting in the capture of Fort de Russy, March 14, after which, April 8, the troops marching towards Shreveport in very open order, single file or holding one another's hands and singing "John Brown's Body," were attacked by General Dick Taylor, and if Washington had not been so far away and through a hostile country, Bull Run would have had another rival. But the boys rallied, and next day repulsed the Confederates, after which they returned to New Orleans, where board was more reasonable. General Banks obtained quite a relief at this time: he was relieved of his command.
August 5, Commodore Farragut captured Mobile, after a neat and attractive naval fight, and on the 24th and 25th of December Commodore Porter and General Butler started out to take Fort Fisher. After two days' bombardment, Butler decided that there were other forts to be had on better terms, and returned. Afterwards General Terry commanded the second expedition, Porter having remained on hand with his vessels to assist. January 15, 1865, the most heroic fighting on both sides resulted, and at last, completely hemmed in, the brave and battered garrison surrendered; but no one who was there need blush to say so, even to-day.
At the South at this time coffee was fifty dollars a pound and gloves were one hundred and fifty dollars a pair. Flour was forty dollars a barrel; but you could get a barrel of currency for less than that.
Money was plenty, but what was needed seemed to be confidence. Running the blockade was not profitable at that time, since over fifteen hundred head of Confederate vessels were captured during the war.
The capture of Fort Fisher closed the last port of the South, and left the Confederacy no show with foreign Powers or markets.
The Alabama was an armed steam-ship, and the most unpleasant feature of the war to the Federal government, especially as she had more sympathy and aid in England than was asked for or expected by the Unionists.
However, England has since repaid all this loss in various ways. She has put from five to eight million dollars into cattle on the plains of the Northwest, where the skeletons of same may be found bleaching in the summer sun; and I am personally acquainted with six Americans now visiting England who can borrow enough in a year to make up all the losses sustained through the Alabama and other neutral vessels.