History of the Nineteenth Army Corps

by Richard B. Irwin

About this time, Battery L, 1st Ohio, was relieved from duty with the Nineteenth Corps, and four other batteries joined it from the reserve park at Washington. Of these Taft's 5th New York was assigned to the First division, Bradbury's 1st Maine, an old friend, to the Second division, Lieutenant Chase's D, 1st Rhode Island and Miner's 17th Indiana to the Artillery Reserve, commanded at first by Captain Taft, afterward by Major Bradbury.

Crook led the way across the Potomac at Harper's Ferry on the evening of the 5th of August, Emory followed the next morning, and Ricketts with the Sixth Corps brought up the rear. Averell with the cavalry, as will be remembered, was still far away, engaged in the long chase after McCausland. Hunter took up his position covering Halltown and proceeded to strengthen it by entrenchments. Crook's left rested on the Shenandoah, Emory extended the line to the turnpike road, and Wright carried it to the Potomac.

On the very day Grant left City Point, Early marched north from Bunker Hill, meaning to cover McCausland's retreat and to destroy Hunter, and so, curiously enough, it happened that Early's whole army actually crossed the Potomac into Maryland at Martinsburg and Shepherdstown a few hours before Crook passed over the ford at Harper's Ferry into Virginia; and, still more curiously, while, ten days before, the groundless apprehension of another invasion by Early had thrown the North into a fever and the government into a fright, here was Early actually in Maryland on the battle-field of Antietam without producing so much as a sensation. As soon as Early got the first inkling of what was going on behind him, he tripped briskly back to Martinsburg, and finding Hunter at Halltown resumed his old position at Bunker Hill.

Grant had already proposed to unite in a single command the four distinct departments covering the theatre of war on the Shenandoah and on the upper Potomac; as the commander he had first suggested Franklin and afterward Meade. Now, since no action had followed either suggestion, he sent up Sheridan, meaning to place him in command of all the active forces of these four departments, for the purpose of overthrowing Early or expelling him from the Shenandoah. Upon learning this, Hunter, to remove the difficulty, asked to be relieved; and thus, on the 7th of August, Grant gained his wish, and an order was issued by the War Department, creating the Middle Military Division, to include Washington, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and part of Ohio, and Sheridan was assigned to the command.

Amusing though it may have been to Early and his followers to note the panic and confusion into which McCausland's predatory riders once more threw the capital and the border States, this absurd freak produced far-reaching consequences that were not in the thoughts of any one on either side. Its first effect was to stop the withdrawal of the Sixth Corps, and to put Wright and Emory once more in march toward the Shenandoah. It determined Lee to keep Early in the valley, where his presence seemed so effective; and this shortly led to the concentration there, under a single commander, and that commander Sheridan, of the largest and best appointed Union army that had ever occupied that theatre of war, and thus at last in one short campaign worked the destruction of Early's army and the elimination of the valley as a feature in the war.

Upon the officers and men of the Nineteenth Corps the change from the enervating climate of Louisiana to the bracing air, the crystal waters, the rolling wheatfields, and the beautiful blue mountains of the Shenandoah acted like a tonic. Daily their spirits rose and their numbers for duty increased. The excellence of the roads and the openness of the country on either side enabled them to achieve long marches with ease and comfort. Nor were they slow in remarking that they had never had a commissary and quartermaster so good as Sheridan.

(1) About three miles N.-N.-E. from the Capitol, overlooking the Baltimore road and railway.

(2) In Major William F. Tiemann's truly admirable "History of the 159th New York," he says: "July 26th we were camped near Major-General Birney's headquarters, not far from Hatcher's house between batteries 'five' and 'six,' one of which enjoyed the euphonious title of 'Fort Slaughter.' . . . The works were built more strongly and with more art than at Port Hudson, but were not nearly as strong in reality, as Port Hudson was fortified naturally and the obstructions were much harder to overcome." (P. 87.) I think this book a model of everything that a regimental history ought to be; above all, for the rare gifts of modesty and accuracy.

CHAPTER XXXI. IN THE SHENANDOAH.

The fourth year of the war was now well advanced, and the very name of the Shenandoah valley had long since passed into a byword as the Valley of Humiliation, so often had those fair and fertile fields witnessed the rout of the national forces; so often had the armies of the Union marched proudly up the white and dusty turnpike, only to come flying back in disorder and disgrace. With the same rough humor of the soldier, half in grim jest, half in sad earnest, yet always with a grain of hard sense lying at the bottom, the Union veterans had re-named as Harper's Weekly the picturesque landscape that appeared to them so regularly; and Lee's annual invasion of the country beyond the Potomac had come to be known among them as the Summer Excursion and Picnic into Maryland.