Volume XXIV Issue #1 • An Excerpt From:

By Scott C. Patchan

In October of 1864, Confederate Lt. Gen. Jubal A. Early found his Army of the Valley District in a dire situation. This came upon the heels of a successful summer campaign that saw Early win important victories at Lynchburg, Monocacy and Kernstown, march to the very gates of Washington, and burn Chambersburg, Pennsylvania to the ground. He had continually disrupted the critical Baltimore & Ohio Railroad at Martinsburg and forced Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant to detach nearly 30,000 troops from his operations at Petersburg to the Shenandoah Valley.

After Early defeated three different Union commanders, Grant placed the combative Maj. Gen. Philip Henry Sheridan in command of the 40,000-man Army of the Shenandoah. Still, Jubal Early remained in the lower (or northern) Shenandoah Valley for six weeks, holding Sheridan in check and preventing Union troops from joining Grant at Petersburg. Greatly outnumbered, Early had kept his troops in constant motion throughout the summer of 1864, feigning several crossings of the Potomac River, which prompted the Federal civilian and military authorities in Washington to cast a wary eye toward the Shenandoah Valley. “We are keeping the Yankee nation in a perpetual ferment,” declared Maj. Jedediah Hotchkiss, Early’s topographical engineer. Another Confederate officer deemed the Federals “completely mystified and kept in perpetual apprehension of a renewal of invasion.”1

Early’s luck ran out on September 19 when Sheridan learned that Maj. Gen. Joseph B. Kershaw’s division had left the Valley for Richmond, leaving Early with only 15,000 men to square off against Sheridan’s 40,000. He determined to attack Early at once. Although Early fought Sheridan to a standstill in the Third Battle of Winchester (or Opequon Creek), by mid-afternoon of the 19th Sheridan’s cavalry and infantry reserves had launched a devastating attack against Early’s left flank that sent his force “whirling through Winchester.” By nightfall Early had lost nearly 4,000 irreplaceable veterans, including Maj. Gens. Robert Rodes, killed, and Fitz Lee, wounded. Three days later, Sheridan routed Early at Fisher’s Hill and inflicted another 1,200 casualties upon the Confederate army. These two battles cost Early 35% of his effective strength and 21 pieces of artillery.

The setbacks caused many Southerners, both in and out of the army, to question Early’s judgment. He had become overconfident, perhaps reckless, in his game of bluff by the late summer of 1864. Early admitted, “The events of the last month had satisfied me that the commander opposed to me was without enterprise, and possessed an excessive caution which amounted to timidity.” Although Sheridan might aptly be called many things, “timid” does not normally come to mind.2

Early’s twin defeats spawned questions about his fitness for command. Rumors circulated that “Old Jube” had been intoxicated at Winchester and Fisher’s Hill. The Charleston Mercury reported, “We have two enemies to contend with in the Valley — one of whom has never been beaten since Noah drank too much wine and lay in his tent. . . .” Major Hotchkiss, who was not present at Winchester but knew Early and those around him intimately, told his brother:

There is not one word of truth in it. A baser slander was never circulated. It is true that Gen. Early is a drinker of spirits, is too fond of it, but I have never seen him under the influence of liquor since we started on this campaign. He is sober enough to know his duty and attend to it at all times....3