Philip Sheridan Room

Throughout the war, the Confederacy sent armies out of Virginia through the Shenandoah Valley to invade Maryland and Pennsylvania and threaten Washington, D.C. General Jubal A. Early, following the same pattern in the Valley Campaigns of 1864, attacked Union forces near Washington and raided several towns in Pennsylvania. In August of that year, General Grant organized the Army of the Shenandoah. He put Sheridan in charge to drive Early out of the Valley and close it as a route to Washington.

Sheridan went at it with vigor. He beat Early at Third Winchester and Fisher’s Hill. At the Battle of Cedar Creek, Early launched a surprise attack while Sheridan was away from his army at Winchester, Virginia. Hearing the distant sounds of artillery, he rode aggressively to his command. (A famous poem, Sheridan’s Ride, was written by Thomas Buchanan Read to commemorate this event.) He reached the battlefield about 10:30am and began to rally his men. Fortunately for Sheridan, Early’s men were too occupied to take notice; they were hungry and exhausted and fell out of their ranks to pillage the Union camps. Sheridan’s actions saved the day and dealt Early his most significant defeat, rendering his army incapable of future offensive action.

Sheridan ordered total destruction in the Valley to deny the Confederacy its use as an agricultural resource. His troops destroyed crops and livestock, seized stores and equipment, and burned what they could not remove. Referring to the possibility of another Confederate army using the Valley to threaten the North, he said, “If a crow wants to fly down the Shenandoah, he must carry his provisions with him.” The destruction presaged the scorched earth tactics of Sherman’s March to the Sea through Georgia — deny an army a base from which to operate and bring the effects of war home to the population supporting it.