[BATTLE OF CLOYD MOUNTAIN]
In the early spring of 1864 the command of the Union forces in the Shenandoah Valley was given to General Hunter, who made ready to march upon Lynchburg, with the object of taking possession of the city and to capture large stores of provisions and munitions of war which belonged to the Confederates and were stored at Lynchburg. He also laid waste to the country over which his army passed so as to render the same of little value as a source for supplies to the Confederacy.
A division of his army under General Crooks fought a desperate battle on the 9th day of May, 1864, with the Confederates, commanded by General Jenkins, at Cloyd's farm, near Dublin depot, in southwestern Virginia. This was one of the most severe short engagements of the entire war, in which General Jenkins was killed and the total loss to the Confederates in killed and wounded and missing was about 900, and that of the Federals somewhat less. During this short engagement the grim monster Death was on every side, and whose threatening shrieks howled in the air around them.
Hunter's main army finally reached the vicinity of Lynchburg on the 17th day of June, after fighting a battle with Imboden and McCausland a few miles away from Lynchburg, the Confederates falling back within the breastworks which they had hastily thrown up. The city was defended by a portion of Breckinridge's division, but their numbers were far inferior to that of the Federals, who had by this time arrived before the city. Hunter halted his army and brought up his artillery and did some cannonading, but went into camp with the expectation of taking the city without much opposition the next morning. It is thought that he could have easily taken the city on the evening of his arrival, but during the night General Gordon arrived with his division and the Confederates were reënforced by other arrivals next morning from the army of General Early, then on its way to the Shenandoah Valley. On the morning of the 18th General Hunter found Lynchburg full of Confederate soldiers, and more arriving on every train, which on the arrival the bands playing could plainly be heard by the Federal soldiers as they came upon the field. Hunter soon found, in his opinion, the capture of Lynchburg an impossibility, and his raid was to terminate in a dismal failure. During the 18th there was some cannonading and several skirmishes between the cavalry of the two contending armies.
On the night of the 19th he broke camp and marched away to the westward. Why he retreated without giving battle was not understood. General Gordon said that in his opinion that conscience was harrowing General Hunter and causing him to see an avenger wrapped in every gray jacket before him. The Confederates took up the pursuit of Hunter's retreating army, but Hunter succeeded in getting back across the mountains into western Virginia, after hard marches over mountain roads with little or no supplies for his army, and with a large amount of straggling.
General Lee dispatched General Early with an army of 20,000 men to threaten Washington, in the hope of drawing part of Grant's army away from before Richmond. Early was to go by the way of Shenandoah Valley. This route was given him partly in order to help defend Lynchburg and to get supplies for his army in the valley. He reached Winchester on the 3d of July, and moved rapidly down the valley and crossed into Maryland, and was at Hagerstown on the 6th. He turned about and moved boldly upon Washington. He met and defeated General Wallace on the Monocacy on July 9th, and on the next day he was within six miles of the capitol at Washington. An immediate assault might have given him possession of the city, which was weakly defended, but he delayed for a day, and in the meantime two divisions under General Wright from Grant's army from before Petersburg arrived and Early was forced to retreat, after spending the 12th in threatening the city. This was considered one of the boldest raids of the entire war.
This attack on Washington by General Early created considerable excitement in the city, for no other Confederate army had ever been so near to the capital before. The government employees of all kinds, the sailors from the navy yard, and the convalescents from the hospitals, were all rushed out to the forts around the city. Even President Lincoln himself went out to the defenses of the city.
Early recrossed the Potomac at Snickers' Ferry on the 18th. Here he was overtaken by the pursuing Federals, at which place a battle was fought in which Early was the victor. He fought another battle at Winchester with General Averell's cavalry.