Maj. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan had spent the night before the battle of Cedar Creek in Winchester, Va., resting after a war strategy meeting with Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in Washington.
When he awoke that morning to the sound of cannon and guns, he quickly saddled his horse and headed for his troops, expecting to witness little more than a skirmish.
As he galloped through town, however, he saw something much more dreadful: His men had been routed and were staggering through the town, dazed by a Confederate surprise attack.
Sheridan would reorganize his troops and eventually claim victory from the initial setback - but he had Confederate Lt. Gen. Jubal A. Early to thank for the opportunity.
Confederate Maj. Gen. John B. Gordon had devised the plan to attack the firmly entrenched Union troops at Cedar Creek. His plan, which called for movement through the trees under cover of night and attack before daybreak, was so successful that it caught many Union soldiers still in camp, and some not even dressed.
The Union army, which had almost a 5-to-2 manpower advantage over the Confederates, had been completely dislodged from its positions, and was entangled in a hasty, disorganized retreat.
For Early and Gordon, the 19th of October began as a great and total victory. Before long, however, Early and his troops would be the ones on the run, never again to fully recover from the Union counterattack.
'Completely Broken'
About 10:30 a.m., Sheridan could take stock of his routed forces. Maj. Gen. Horatio G. Wright, who had been left in command during Sheridan's absence, appeared in position to restore order and re-organize his men.
Wright's Report on the Battle of Cedar Creek recounts the story:
"About this time Major-General Sheridan came up and assumed command and I returned to the command of the Sixth Corps.
"Soon after the lines had been fully formed the enemy made a sharp attack on the Sixth Corps, but was rudely repulsed, falling back several hundred yards to a stone wall behind which a part of this line took shelter.
"Everything having been prepared and the men somewhat rested from the fatigue of the morning, an advance was ordered by General Sheridan of the entire line.
"The Second and First Divisions moved forward steadily, but the Third was for a time seriously checked by the fire from behind the stone wall before alluded to.
"A movement made by the Nineteenth Corps toward flanking this wall (in which a regiment of the Third Division, Sixth Corps, detached for the purpose, took part) shook the enemy, and a gallant charge of the line started him into full flight, pursued by our victorious forces.
"But little further resistance was experienced in the advance to Cedar Creek, where our infantry was halted in its old camp, while the pursuit was continued by the cavalry. The enemy being entirely demoralized and his ranks completely broken, he retreated without regard to order.
"The battle, which in its earlier stages looked anything but favorable for our success and occasioned a fear of defeat to many a brave hearted soldier, resulted through the admirable courage of our troops, the bravery and good conduct of their officers and the persistence of the commander of the army, in a complete victory."
A Fatal Pause
Early, who had accepted Gordon's plan for the surprise attack on Cedar Creek, was presented with a wonderful opportunity: Gordon's advance had not only been a successful attack, it had turned into a rout.
But instead of pursuing the fleeing Northerners, Early decided to hold his ground.
Early offered this explanation in his Autobiographical Sketch and Narrative of the War Between the States, written in his later years:
"It was now apparent that it would not do to press my troops much further. They had been up all night and were much jaded. In passing over rough ground to attack the enemy in the early morning, their ranks had been much disordered, and the men scattered, and it had required time to re-form them.
"Their ranks, moreover, were much thinned by the advance of the men engaged in plundering the enemy's camps.
"The delay which had unavoidably occurred had enabled the enemy to rally a portion of his routed troops, and his immense force of cavalry, which remained intact, was threatening both of our flanks in an open country, which of itself rendered an advance extremely hazardous.
"I determined, therefore, to try and hold what had been gained, and orders were given for carrying off the captured and abandoned artillery, small arms and wagons."
Early's critical pause at Cedar Creek seemed to suggest that the general was satisfied with the gains he had made, and decided to give his battle-weary troops a rest. The troops involved in the advance had gone all night without sleep, and many hadn't had anything to eat or drink in close to 15 hours, including the almost six hours of battle.
The ill-fed, poorly-clothed Confederates had just overrun well-stocked enemy camps. Sheridan had been given orders by Grant to leave the Shenandoah a "barren waste" - and the Union garrisons were brimming with supplies taken from the bountiful Virginia farmland.
So it was understandable that Confederate troops might scramble to pick up needed supplies that the Union had left behind.
Sheridan attacked Early's Confederates with the entire re-formed Union battle line. Whether Early even expected the beaten North to counterattack remains debated to this day.
The Confederates, who had entrenched themselves in the former Union positions and turned the Blue's artillery pieces against them, put up a fight but could not hold out.
A Union soldier would later recall, "Where the Mississippi brigade stood, the fighting was at close quarters, and on the field in our front the dead and wounded lay thick."
Maj. Gen. George Armstrong Custer, in charge of the Union 3rd Cavalry Division, was ordered into the fray by Sheridan, and began a flanking maneuver that would break the back of the Confederate resistance.
Custer's attack
In his official report, Custer wrote:
"The Fifth New York was moving on the left and near the pike, the First Vermont on a parallel line and to the right. As soon as the nature of the ground was favorable both regiments quickened the gait to a trot, and when within short pistol range of the enemy's line charged simultaneously upon his front and left flank.
"Hearing the charge sounded through our bugles the enemy only stood long enough to deliver one volley; then, casting away his arms, attempted to escape under cover of the darkness.
"This was the last attempt the enemy made to offer organized resistance. That which hitherto, on our part, had been a pursuit after a broken and routed army now resolved itself into an exciting chase after a panic-stricken, uncontrollable mob.
"It was no longer a question to be decided by force of arms, by skill, or by courage; it was simply a question of speed between pursuers and pursued; prisoners were taken by hundreds, entire companies threw down their arms, and appeared glad when summoned to surrender.
Custer directed two regiments to vigorously continue the assault, while organizing his trailing units.
"This fact alone, while it disheartened the enemy, increased the ardor and zeal of our troops, who, encouraged by the unparalleled success of their efforts, continued to urge forward their horses at the top of their speed, capturing colors, guns, caissons, wagons, ambulances, and immense numbers of prisoners. Among the latter were a great number of officers of all grades, including one major general.
"The pursuit was not slackened until the advance, composed of parts of both regiments, passing through and beyond Strasburg crossed the bridge over the Shenandoah and had neared the crest of' Fisher's Hill, at which point they completed their immense captures by securing a piece of artillery, which, with the other pieces captured since the pursuit began, made forty-five pieces of artillery taken by the First Vermont and Fifth New York Cavalry."
'Bad conduct'
In his later memoirs, Early would record:
"I attacked Sheridan's camp on Cedar Creek before day yesterday morning, and surprised and routed the Eighth and Nineteenth Corps, and then drove the Sixth Corps beyond Middletown, capturing 18 pieces of artillery and 1,300 prisoners. ...
"But the enemy subsequently made a stand on the pike, and, in turn, attacked my line, and my left gave way, and the rest of the troops took a panic and could not be rallied, retreating in confusion.
"But for their bad conduct I should have defeated Sheridan's whole force."
In the years after the war, Early would never accept blame for the Confederate defeat, choosing instead to deflect blame on his subordinate officers and the unprofessional attitude of his troops.
Gordon took strong exception to this excuse. In his Reminiscences of the Civil War, the general passionately quotes at length numerous reputable observers who refuted Early's contention.
"[T]he Confederate commander at Cedar Creek was misled and induced to place on the record his belief as to the bad conduct of his men - a belief, I repeat, fixed in his mind by misinformation and grounded on total misapprehension," Gordon wrote in those memoirs, published in 1904.
Gordon strongly suggests that it was Early's misplaced contentment with the initial victory that led to the sweeping reversal for the Southern army.
According to Gordon, that morning Early "announced that we had had 'glory enough for one day.'"
Further, the architect of the Confederate surprise attack claimed that Early did not follow through with the agreed-upon plan:
"The disastrous Confederate defeat in the evening made clear the mistake of hesitating and halting, which were a fatal abandonment of an essential part of the plan."
For whatever reason, Early's decision to halt the Southern advance, rather than pursuing the surprised Union troops or consolidating a strong defensive position, created the "critical pause" that left the door open for Sheridan and the North to turn the tide and ultimately win the day at Cedar Creek.
Kevin Canberg is a senior majoring in political science at Loyola College in Baltimore. The article was written as part of a practicum at The Sun.