The Civil War, a narrative by Shelby Foote

Author:Shelby Foote [Foote, Shelby]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: New York, Random House
Published: 1958-10-14T16:00:00+00:00

War Is Cruelty ... [ 557 ]

drawn-out business, continuing well past midday, since Crook's West Virginians — so-called because that was where they had done most of their fighting until now, though in fact they were in large part from Ohio, with a sprinkling of Pennsylvanians and New Yorkers thrown in to leaven or "easternize" the lump — had a long hard way to travel, much of it uphill. Finally at 4 o'clock, twelve hours after they set out, they struck.

"Flanked! Outflanked!" the cry went up on Early's left as the dismounted horsemen he had scorned from the outset, calling them buttermilk rangers and worse, fled before the onslaught of Crook, whose two divisions came whooping down the mountainside to strike them flank and rear. Eastward along Fisher's Hill, where the defenders had begun to remark that Sheridan must have lost his nerve and called off the attack he had been threatening all day, the confusion spread when Wright's corps joined the melee, advancing division by division across Tumbling Run as the gray line crumbled unit by unit from the shattered left. Fearful of being trapped in the angle between river and run, they too bolted, leaving the teamless cannoneers to slow the blue advance while they themselves took off, first down the rearward slope, then southward up the turnpike.

"Forward! Forward everything!" Sheridan yelled, coursing the field on his black charger and gesturing with his flat-topped hat for emphasis. "Don't stop! Go on!" he shouted as his infantry overran and captured twelve of the guns on Fisher's Hill.

Anticipating "results still more pregnant," he counted on Averell, whose division he presently launched in pursuit of the rebels fleeing through the twilight, to complete the Cannae he had had in mind when he sent Torbert with two divisions up the Luray Valley for a crossing of Massanutton to cut off* Early's retreat at New Market. Alas, both cavalry generals failed him utterly in the crunch. Torbert came upon Fitz Lee's two brigades, posted in defense of a narrow gorge twelve miles beyond Front Royal, and decided there was nothing to be gained from being reckless. He withdrew without attempting a dislodgment. Sheridan was "astonished and chagrined" when he heard of this next morning. But his anger at Torbert was mild compared to what came over him when he learned that Averell had put his troopers into bivouac the night before to spare them the risk of attacking Early's rear guard in the darkness. Enraged, Little Phil fired off a message informing the cavalryman that he expected "resolution and actual fighting, with necessary casualties, before you retire. There must be no more backing and filling," he fumed, and when Averell did no better today, despite this blistering, he relieved him of command and sent him forthwith back to West Virginia, "there to await orders from these headquarters or higher authority."

By that time Early had cleared New Market, and though Sheridan

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