President Lincoln appointed me a Brigadier-General by brevet, November 30, 1864; the commission recited the appointment was "for gallant and meritorious services in the battles of Opequon, Fisher's Hill, and Cedar Creek, Virginia," and I was assigned to duty by him as Brigadier-General, December 29, 1864.
Sheridan's army returned to Kearnstown and went into winter quarters.
The Sixth Corps was, however, soon transferred by rail and steamboat,
via Harper's Ferry and Washington, to City Point, rejoining the
Army of the Potomac, December 5, 1864.
( 1) Memoirs of Sheridan, vol. ii., p. 64.
( 2) Manassas to Appomattox (Longstreet), p. 574.
( 3) War Records, vol. xliii., Part I., p. 580, Captain Hotchkiss' Journal.
( 4) War Records, vol. xliii., Part I., p. 580.
( 5) General Ricketts was supposed to be mortally wounded. His wife a second time came to him on the battle-field. He was taken to Washington, his home, and slowly recovered. He was able again to perform some field service near the close of the war. He died of pneumonia, September 22, 1887, and is buried at Arlington.
( 6) Major A. F. Hayden, of Wright's staff, while the battle was raging in the early morning, was seen galloping towards me with one hand raised to indicate he had some important order. Just before reaching me he was shot through the body and plunged off his horse on the hard ground, rolling over and over until he lay almost in a ball. He was borne off in a blanket for dead. In February following I met him on a steamer on the Chesapeake returning to duty, and I saw him again at the Centennial in Philadelphia in 1876.
( 7) War Records, vol. xliii., Part I., p. 132.
( 8) War Records, vol. xliii., Part I., p. 53.