General-in-Chief Ulysses S. Grant, the overall Federal army commander, went to meet with Major-General David Hunter, commanding the Department of West Virginia on the Monocacy River in Maryland. Grant was to inform Hunter of the recent changes being made that affected his department. Arriving at Hunter’s headquarters, Grant recalled:
“I found General Hunter’s army… scattered over the fields along the banks of the Monocacy, with many hundreds of cars and locomotives, belonging to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, which he had taken the precaution to bring back and collect at that point. I asked the general where the enemy was. He replied that he did not know. He said the fact was, that he was so embarrassed with orders from Washington moving him first to the right and then to the left that he had lost all trace of the enemy.”
Under Grant’s plan, Major-General Philip Sheridan was to command the new Army of the Shenandoah while Hunter took over administrative duties within the new military division. Sheridan was on his way to take over; in the meantime, Grant directed Hunter to lead his army southward into Virginia and try to locate Lieutenant-General Jubal Early’s Confederate Army of the Valley. Grant instructed:
“In pushing (southward) up the Shenandoah Valley… it is desirable that nothing should be left to invite the enemy to return (to Maryland or Pennsylvania). Take all provisions, forage and stock wanted for the use of your command. Such as cannot be consumed, destroy. It is not desirable that the buildings should be destroyed–they should, rather, be protected; but the people should be informed that so long as an army can subsist among them recurrences of these raids must be expected, and we are determined to stop them at all hazards… Bear in mind, the object is to drive the enemy south; and to do this you want to keep him always in sight. Be guided in your course by the course he takes…”
In short, Grant wanted relentless pressure placed upon Early’s army until it was either destroyed or driven out of the Shenandoah Valley for good. But Grant did not expect Hunter to lead the operation; instead, Sheridan was to take direct command. Once Sheridan arrived, Hunter was to leave field operations to him and assume desk duty in Baltimore or some other nearby locale.
Hunter began moving his Federals out, arriving at Halltown, Virginia, on August 5. Grant expected Early to confront the Federals at that point. But Hunter soon decided that he did not like this new arrangement, and he “expressed a willingness to be relieved from command.” Grant quickly accepted, satisfied that Sheridan could handle it all on his own.
Sheridan arrived on the scene the next day, and Grant handed him the orders that he had given to Hunter. Grant added, “Carry off stock… and negroes, so as to prevent further planting. If the war is to last another year, we want the Shenandoah Valley to remain a barren waste. Give the enemy no rest, and if it is possible to follow to the Virginia Central (Rail)road, follow that far.”
Sheridan’s command would include the personnel and materiel of four military departments: Washington, West Virginia, the Susquehanna, and the Middle. His army would consist of:
- Hunter’s Army of West Virginia, now the Eighth Corps under Brigadier-General George Crook
- Major-General Horatio G. Wright’s Sixth Corps from the Army of the Potomac
- Two divisions of Brigadier-General William Emory’s the Nineteenth Corps from the Army of the Gulf
- Two divisions of Sheridan’s old Cavalry Corps from the Army of the Potomac, now under Brigadier-General Alfred T.A. Torbert
- The cavalry division from the Army of West Virginia under Brigadier-General William W. Averell
By the night of the 6th, Sheridan wrote Grant, “I find affairs somewhat confused, but will soon straighten them out.” Grant notified him the next day, “The Departments of Washington, the Middle, the Susquehanna, and of Western Virginia, have been formed into a military division called the Middle Division, and you have been assigned to the temporary command. You can assume command without any further authority.”
President Abraham Lincoln, Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, and Chief of Staff Henry W. Halleck had all expressed reservations about giving Sheridan such a large responsibility, but Grant insisted that he could do the job. A staff officer traveling with Grant wrote to Grant’s chief of staff, Brigadier-General John A. Rawlins, still back at Grant’s City Point headquarters:
“He (Grant) has settled Halleck down to a mere staff officer for Stanton. Halleck has no control over troops except as Grant delegates it. He can give no orders and exercise no discretion. Grant now runs the whole machine independently of the Washington directory. I am glad to say he is fully himself, works vigorously, and will soon devise another plan for discomfiting all the enemies of the country.”
The staff officer added that Grant had instructed Sheridan “to drive Early out of the Valley and to receive orders from no live man but Grant himself.”
Sheridan rode from Harpers Ferry to Halltown and joined his new army on the 7th. It was an eclectic mixture of troops from various commands, with varying levels of skill, equipage, and morale. Crook’s corps had been consistently defeated in the Shenandoah Valley and the men were “ragged, famished, discouraged, sulky and half of them in ambulances.” Men of Wright’s corps were some of the best fighters in the Potomac army and would set a good example for the others. Emory’s corps had come from Louisiana, where it had seen both success and failure. But they all had one thing in common: they were unsure of Sheridan’s abilities as their new leader.
Sheridan received word that Early’s Confederates were around Winchester, and thus directed his new army to go there. But most of Early’s forces were actually in Maryland, harvesting wheat at Sharpsburg and Hagerstown. Early fell back southward across the Potomac River to Bunker Hill on the 7th, but he would soon receive reinforcements.
General Robert E. Lee, commanding the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia at Petersburg, went to Richmond to discuss strategy with Lieutenant-General Richard H. Anderson and President Jefferson Davis. It was agreed to send Major-General Joseph B. Kershaw’s division of Anderson’s corps to Culpeper, along with a cavalry division under Major-General Fitzhugh Lee, with Anderson in overall command. From there, Anderson could return to Petersburg in case of emergency or threaten Sheridan’s flank if he moved any deeper into the Shenandoah.
The final struggle over control of the vital Shenandoah Valley had begun.
Bibliography
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- Catton, Bruce, The Army of the Potomac: A Stillness at Appomattox. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1953.
- Catton, Bruce, Grant Takes Command. Open Road Media, Kindle Edition, 2015.
- Foote, Shelby, The Civil War, A Narrative: Red River to Appomattox. New York: Vintage Civil War Library, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group (Kindle Edition), 2011.
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