month of August and the opening days of autumn. Towards the last of the siege, all our light mortars had been brought to the front and placed in battery, and powerful calcium lights were used by night to blind the enemy and "assist the operations of our cannoneers and sharpshooters."

On September fifth, at daybreak, our batteries, after a temporary check, re-opened on the enemy's works, aided by the "New Ironsides," which dropped its exploding shells into the fort, from a broadside of eight guns. The calcium lights "turned night into day, blinding the garrison, and rendering visible to the besiegers everything connected with the fort." Under this terrible attack, the enemy were compelled to remain under the shelter of their bomb-proofs, thus leaving our sappers free to push forward their work under the very wall of the fort. On the evening of September sixth, everything was ready for another grand assault, and General Terry was ordered to lead the attack in three columns, at nine o'clock on the morning of the seventh. But at midnight on the sixth the garrison were discovered to be escaping, and so quickly did they move, that only seventy-five prisoners were captured. Eighteen guns were left in Fort Wagner and seven in Battery Gregg. The bomb-proof shelter of Fort Wagner was found to be not seriously injured, thus proving that sand-of which it was constructed-is possessed of far greater power of resistance than stone or brick.

In a dispatch from Gilmore to Halleck, dated September seventh, he says:-"About ten o'clock last night the enemy commenced evacuating the island and

all but seventy-five of them made their escape from Cumming's Point, in small boats.

"Captured dispatches show that Fort Wagner was commanded by Colonel Keitt of South Carolina, and garrisoned by one thousand four hundred effective men, and Battery Gregg by between one hundred and two hundred men.

"Fort Wagner is a work of the most formidable kind. Its bomb-proof shelter, capable of containing one thousand eight hundred men, remains intact after the most terrific bombardment to which any work was ever subjected.

"We have captured nineteen pieces of artillery, and a large supply of excellent ammunition."

New batteries were erected upon Morris Island after its capture, with the design of commanding Fort Sumter and aiding any naval attack which might storm Charleston. The city which recklessly, and without counting the cost, had sown the seeds of disunion, was yet doomed to reap the fruits thereof in war's merciless desolation. Her ocean defences were now forced and the guns of Liberty thundered at her gates. Soon, the shriek of exploding shells resounded through her streets and her people abandoned their dwellings, seeking places of safety. The "cradle of secession " was violently rocked, and the progeny which, fathered by injustice, had been nursed therein, was soon to struggle in death's fatal throes.

CHAPTER XL.

CEDAR CREEK.

Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley.-Pursuit of Early.-Cedar Creek Encampment.—The Enemy Re-enforced.—The Determined Attack. -The Silent March.-The Slumbering Army Surprised.-The Wild Yell through the Fog.-The Union Army a Mass of Fugitives.-The Nineteenth Corps Forced Back by the Wave of Retreat.-Efforts of the Brave Sixth-The Fight Near Middletown.-Sheridan at Winchester. His Wild Ride.-The Stream of Fugitives Arrested. The Union Battle-line Re-formed.-Our Victorious Charge.-The Enemy Routed in Confusion.-Honor to Sheridan.

T

HE renown with which the battle of Cedar Creek

covered the name of Sheridan, will live while history is written or has power to survive the wreck of time. No more eloquent theme could be furnished the pen of the historian or the inspiration of the poct than the battle of Cedar Creek, with Sheridan's ride from Winchester and its glorious sequel. No single event of the late war presents stronger claims for our hero-worship than this. None more clearly evidences the wonderful power of a magnetic will force, to control circumstances and subdue even the reverses of battle.

After the complete surprise that Early had given our army at Cedar Creek, and its consequent terrible rout and defeat, it seems little less than a miracle that the presence of one man should stem the retreat,

turn the tide of battle, and lead a shattered army back to conquest and glory.

When Sheridan had returned from his pursuit of Early up the Shenandoah Valley in the autumn of 1864, he retired to the north bank of Cedar Creek, near Strasburg. Supposing the enemy too severely crippled by defeat and by the wholesale destruction of property in the valley, to attempt an attack at that time, Sheridan left his army and went up to Washington for a little visit.

General Early, having been re-enforced by twelve thousand men, and hearing that Sheridan had gone to Washington, determined to attack the Army of the Shenandoah, before its general could have a chance. to return.

His own army was short of supplies, and the rich spoils which he knew were in possession of the Union troops was too tempting a prize to be lightly passed by. "Our force at this time, was posted on three moderate hills extending for three miles across the country, each one a little back of the other."

The Army of West Virginia, under Crook, held the first hill; the second was occupied by the Nineteenth Corps under Emory, and the Sixth Corps, with Torbet's cavalry covering its right flank, held the third eminence. Early crossed the mountains between the two forks of the Shenandoah River on the night of October eighteenth, 1864, and forded the north branch, —marching in five columns. His design was to surprise the Union camp, and that the march might be noiseless, he ordered the canteens of the soldiers to be left behind, to prevent any alarm from being given to

onets.

the Union pickets, by their clanking against the bayHis march was towards our left, and notwithstanding the fact that at about two o'clock in the morning, the heavy muffled tramp of Early's army of between twenty and thirty thousand was heard by some of our pickets, few precautions were taken and no reconnoisance was sent out. Not dreaming of the contemplated attack, on the eve of a great surprise, our army, unconscious of its danger, slumbered peacefully on. Meantime, the enemy pushing on through the gray gloom of the early morning and marching on the borders of our position for miles, halted at last when they were within six hundred yards of our camps.

A reconnoitering force from Crook's army was just preparing to go out, when suddenly a wild yell burst through the fog which hid from their view the Confederate army, which was quickly followed by a withering musketry fire and the clash of arms. Before our surprised and panic-stricken troops could be formed in battle array, the enemy were upon them, and after a short and sharp encounter, the Army of Western Virginia was thrown in utter rout-a mass of fugitives flying before the pursuing foe back towards the second hill where the Nineteenth Corps was encamped.

The few regiments of Crook's force which endeav ored to make a stand, were swept back before the swelling tide of fugitives in full and disordered retreat.

The Nineteenth Corps attempted to arrest the Confederate advance, but the enemy getting in our rear and enfilading us with our captured batteries, the troops broke rank and fell back in confusion towards the encampment of the Sixth Corps on the third hill in the rear.