Grant's campaign from the "Wilderness to Cold Harbor had been disappointing to the North, where there was a feeling that so far the war had been a failure, which, in commenting on, in his Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac, Swinton says, that when the records of the War Department shall be carefully examined they will develop discoveries of the most startling nature. In speaking of public sentiment just prior to the battle of Winchester, Grant says in his Personal Memoirs:
"I had reason to believe that the administration was a little afraid to have a decisive battle fought at that time, for fear it might go against us and have a bad effect on the November elections. The convention which had met and made its nomination of the Democratic candidate for the Presidency had declared the war a failure.
"Treason was talked as boldly in Chicago as ever it had been at Charleston.
"It was a question of whether the government would then have had the power to make arrests and punish those who thus talked treason.
"But this decisive victory was the most effective campaign argument made in the canvass."
In addition to what Grant says there was another motive which made Sheridan timid in encountering our forces, and possibly Grant's presence was necessary to get him up to the fighting point.
In his Memoirs, Sheridan says:
"I had opposing me an army largely composed of troops that had operated in this region hitherto under 'Stonewall' Jackson with marked success, inflicting defeat on the Union forces almost every time the two armies had come in contact.
"These men were now commanded by a veteran officer of the Confederacy, General Jubal A. Early, whose past services had so signalized his ability that General Lee specially selected him to take charge of the valley district, and notwithstanding the misfortunes that befell him later, clung to him to the end of the war. The Confederate army at this date was about twenty thousand strong, and consisted of Early's own corps, with Generals Rodes, Ramseur, and Gordon commanding its divisions; the infantry of Breckinridge, of Southwestern Virginia; three battalions of artillery, and the cavalry brigades of Vaughan, Johnson, McCausland, and Imboden."
Early had marched and countermarched so often in the presence of and around Sheridan's army without bringing him to a test of strength he began to think him no better than Hunter, and entertained more contempt for than fear of him. He separated his divisions at will, and scattered them from Winchester to Martinsburg—twenty-two miles—with no greater motive than that of interrupting railroad traffic, producing a little diversion in Washington, and securing a few commissaries in Martinsburg. His last movement in this direction was on the eve of the battle of Winchester. Of this movement he says: "Having been informed that a force was at work on the railroad near Martinsburg, I moved on the afternoon of the 17th of September with Rodes' and Gordon's Divisions and Braxton's artillery to Bunker Hill; and on the morning of the 18th, with Gordon's Division and a part of the artillery, to Martinsburg, preceded by a part of Lomax's cavalry." It will thus be seen that in the presence of a largely superior force, and a new and untried commander, Early had his troops stretched out and separated like a string of glass beads with a knot between each one. In a previous move of a similar nature on Martinsburg, at Bunker Hill, I had been reliably informed that the next time Early should make the mistake of separating his command Sheridan intended to attack and endeavor to crush his troops in detail. This fact I communicated to General Rodes, who replied: "I know it. I have told Early as much"; and with much irritation of manner, said, "I can't get him to believe it."