Year: 1867

| Townsend saws About him in the Field.


The strong historic figure of this Valley
was Sheridan. He was the most perfect
embodiment of the professional cavalryman
that ever appeared on our continent. His
two grand qualities were lightning perception
and lightning action. When he came East
ward from the scene of his Western cam
paigns, he mastered the topography of the
country so rapidly that it seemed he had
climbed to some lookout, and examined it all
at glance. He found the cavalry of the
East handled by a vicious system, used for
picket and Gordon duty merely, its horses
wasted by perpetual use to no result, and he
laid down the broad principle that cavalry
ought to fight cavalry, and infantry to fight
infantry. In this, we can understand how,
whenever he met the enemy's foot, he dis
mounted his carbineers, although he had in
high degree that Murat eye for the weak
point of line of battle that a powerful
cavalry column could penetrate. lie used
| light infantry and cavalry together with mar.
Eellous unanimity. and his favorite plan of
battle was t. sweep upon the right flank
with the former, and half wheel the latter to
link in line of battle again. His history in
the East comprehended altogether one year
and five days, and sent an average of two
captured flags every three days during all
that time to the central Government. In the
same period he sent a captured field piece
every two days, and his flags united were
equal TO all the other armies Of the Union
He had instinct and wriggIe'' in IL wonder
iul degree, but it was always wriggle forward
He adapted himself to changed conditions
with 10 homie chat was ludcrous, if light
ming can be ludicrous, and still his decision
was almost fierceness. II Il newspaper cor
respondent could keep up with him he always
said, Come !" and in this respect he was
high minded and thick skinned beyond any
other General. He was invaded, when on
one of his great raids, by two Richmond
newsboys, with the papers of the day. The
General shook hands with them, and com.
mended their enterprise in his official report
At White House he found the bridge down;
instead of sending eighty miles, as he was
advised, to Fortress Monroe for pontoons,
he sent out thousand cavalry in divers
directions, commanding each man to bring
back a plank; the bridge was up in six
hours. He always shot his disabled horses
in the enemy's country to prevent the enc
my recuperating them and using them His
theories Of war were automatic in expression
y
the Loudon Valley to be untenable for
Mosby he said " As war is punishment and
death the maximum punishment, if we can,
by reducing its advocates to poverty, end it
quicker, We are on the side of humanity. If
war is fought only on the duello principle,
those who live ut home in peace and plenty
will do so as long as the best youth of the
country enlist in their cause"


Of Harry Eiln,ora bo eo;1 T.
ed to be the last link between Maryland and
the Confederacy-I desired to sever that
link


OF Mosby he took this bold, original
ground 9 believed him to be substantially
benefit to me; he prevented struggling,
kept my trains well closed up, and discharged
the provost duty Of at least two regiments of
cavalry.


Ofone of his battles, he thus picturesouely
says when the head of the column
reached the summit of the hill. the moon
rose from behind. and a medallion view of
the column was disclosed as it crossed the
moons disc and attacked the enemy.


In camp or field Sheridan was n rouph
soldier in his amenities; when he wanted a
house IN Winchester he took it if he liked
to lie down on the sidewalk he did so he
had literally nothing to do with rebels no
meat to eat with them, no hopes to exchange
and no threats to make. If he burned a mill
he burned 1t without words or tears. There
was not one civilian trait about him. no am.
pllicaton; if he quarrelled with pretentious
ness or deceit he did it in a bombshell wav
and was unappeasable afterward A man
sad to me IN Winchester g | looked at him
first and didn't like his looks then | spoke
to him and felt troubled. He was more like
our men than any Yankee General | had seen.
l was sorry from the first they sent him
here" Sherman and Sheridan are men of
parallel and resemblances s-combative, lido
syneratlc, sleepless, original, decided /;
Sherman is thin skinned, nervous, with all
the powers and defects of genius A man
OF more arching intellect than Sheridan,
but without the latter's wriggle and adapta-
bllity. The one is geographical poet,
whose march to the sea was like the swing of
great rhyme; the other born rider, who
likes as much music as the Jingle of his
spurs.


The scene on the 9th of October, 1864,
when Sheridan's army deployed across the
forty miles OF the valley and moved slowly
northward, touching the Blue Ridge on the
east the Allegheny on the west. was of the
most thrilling character that this historic
region has to remember Almost four years
OF war had left this Garden of the Continent
as beautiful and fertile as the peace it threw
away. The barns and bins were bursting
with good cheer. Stone walls that the ar
mics could not burn protected the high
rolling tllages. All the harvests had been
gathered. Men and women sat waiting for
the frosts to come. and snow to can the
mountain spires. that they might rlide into
the gossip of winter nights. and see their
boys come home on furlough to share the
apples roasted in the fire and the bIossominc
of popcorn on the hearth The cattle were
lowing in the straw; the pigs were plump
for the butcher; the horses and mules were
mounching for the long rest of half the wear
Across the stubble upland the white turn
pixies leaped from crest to crest. vanishing in
the mountain gaps, or leading straight as
beams from the North Star into the land