the sinews almost broken in the effort. To divert reinforcements from General Grant was a matter of vital importance-a thing of life and death-and Jackson's Valley campaign in 1862 had shown how this could be most effectually done. To menace the Federal capital was evidently the great secret: a moderate force would not probably be able to do more than divert troops from Grant; but this was an object of the first importance, and much might be accomplished by a soldier of decision, energy, and rapidity of movement. Early had been selected for the work, with orders when he left the lowland to "move to the Valley through Swift Run Gap or Brown's Gap, attack Hunter, and then cross the Potomac and threaten Washington." This critical task he now undertook with alacrity, and he accomplished it with very great skill and success.

Not a moment was lost in pushing his column toward Maryland; and such was the rapidity of the march upon Washington, that the capital was placed in imminent danger. In spite of the prostrating heat, the troops made twenty miles a day, and the rumour of this determined advance came to the Federal authorities at the moment when Grant was supposed to be carrying everything before him. To meet the attack of their formidable adversary, the authorities at Washington sent to hurry forward the forces of General Hunter from the Ohio, and a considerable force from General Grant's army was dispatched up the bay to man the fortifications. Early had pressed on, crossed the Potomac, advanced to Frederick City, defeated General Wallace at the Monocacy, and was now in sight of the defences of Washington; the crack of his skirmishers was heard at the "White House" and in the department buildings of the capital. The enormous march, however, had broken down and decimated his army. The five hundred miles of incessant advance, at twenty miles a day, left him only eight thousand infantry, about forty field-pieces, and two thousand badly mounted cavalry-at the moment detached against the railroads northward-with which to assault the powerful works, bristling with cannon, in his front. His position at this moment was certainly critical, and calculated to try the nerves of any but

a resolute and daring soldier. He was in the heart of the enemy's country, or at least in sight of their capital city; in his front, according to Mr. Stanton, the Federal Secretary of War, was the Sixth and part of the Eighth and Nineteenth Corps, and General Hunter was hastening from the West to strike his rear and cut him off from his only avenue of retreat across the Potomac. It behoved the Confederate commander under these circumstances to look to his safety; and he was reluctantly compelled to give up his intended assault upon the capital-to abandon the attempt to seize the rich prize apparently in his very grasp. Early, accordingly, broke up his camp, retreated, and, with little molestation, recrossed the Potomac, and stood at bay on the Opequon in the Shenandoah Valley.

Such had been the result of the daring advance upon the Federal capital. The extent of the danger to which Washington was then exposed, still remains a matter of doubt and difference of opinion among the most intelligent persons. It will, no doubt, be accurately defined when the events of the recent struggle come to be closely investigated by the impartial historian of the future, and the truth is sifted from the error. To the world at large, the Federal capital seemed in no little danger on that July morning, when Early's lines were seen advancing to the attack. Northern writers state that, if the assault had been made on the day before, it would have resulted in the capture of the city. But however well or ill-founded this may be, it is safe to say that the primary object of the march had been accomplished when Early retreated and posted himself in the Shenandoah Valley-a standing threat to repeat his audacious enterprise. It was no longer a mere detached column that opposed him, but an army of about 50,000 men. To that extent General Grant had been weakened, and the heavy weight upon General Lee's shoulders lightened.

II.

These events took place in the summer of 1864, and in the autumn of that year General Early fought his famous battles,

and the world said-sustained his ignominious defeats in the Shenandoah Valley. "Ignominious" was the adjective which expressed the views of nine-tenths of the citizens outside of the immediate region, and probably of one-half the army of Northern Virginia. In the eyes of the world there is a crime for which there is no palliation, and that is failure. There is a criminal to whom all defence is denied-it is the man who fails. No matter what the failure results from, there it is, and no explanations are "in order." Early was defeated in a pitched battle near Winchester, on the 19th of September, and the country, gloomy, despondent, embittered, and clamouring for a victory, broke out into curses almost at the man who had sustained this reverse. It was his bad generalship, they cried; "the troops had no confidence in him;" he was the poorest of soldiers, the veriest sham general-else why, with his splendid army, did he allow a second or third-rate general like Sheridan to defeat him? When the defeat at Fisher's Hill followed, and the fiasco at Waynesboro' terminated the Valley campaign, people were convinced that General Jubal A. Early was a very great dunce in military matters, had been outgeneralled and outfought by an opponent little, if any, stronger than himself, and the whole campaign was stigmatized as a disgraceful series of blunders, ending in well-merited defeat and disaster.

That was the popular clamour; but it is safe to say that popular clamour is essentially falsehood, because it is based upon passion and ignorance. The truth of that campaign is that Early was "leading a forlorn hope," and that he never fought less than four to one. At Fisher's Hill and Waynesboro', he fought about eight to one. It is not upon General Early's statements in his recent letter from Havana, that the present writer makes the above allegation, but upon the testimony of officers and citizens of the highest character who are unanimous in their statement to the above effect. From the date

of the battle of Winchester, or the Opequon, to the present time, it has been persistently declared by the fairest and best informed gentlemen of the surrounding region, who had excellent opportunities to discover the truth, that Early's force in

that fight was about eight or ten thousand, and Sheridan's about forty or fifty thousand. General Early states upon his honour—and the world is apt to believe him-that his effective strength in this action was eight thousand five hundred muskets, three battalions of artillery, and less than three thousand cavalry. General Sheridan's force he makes, upon a close calculation, about thirty-five thousand muskets, one of his corps alone numbering, as captured documents showed, twelve thousand men--more than the whole Southern force, infantry, cavalry, and artillery. In the number of guns Sheridan, he says, was, "vastly superior" to him; and official reports captured showed the Federal cavalry "present for duty" two days before the battle, to have numbered ten thousand men.* There

* An interesting discussion has taken place in the journals of the day, in reference to the forces of Early and Sheridan at the battle of the Opequon. The latter replied to Early's statement by charging him with falsifying history; and this reply drew forth in turn statements from Southern officers-some sentences from which are quoted:

"I know of my own personal knowledge," wrote an officer in the New Orleans Picayune, January 13, 1866, "that General Early's statement is correct, when he states that he had about eight thousand five hundred muskets in the second engagement with General Sheridan. I was a staff officer for four years in the army of Northern Virginia. I was a division staff officer, Second Army Corps, under General Early's command, from the time the Second Corps was detached from the Army of Northern Virginia, June 1864, to the time it was ordered to Petersburg, December, 1864. I was present at the battles of Winchester, Fisher's Hill, and Cedar Creek. I know from the official reports that I myself made, and from actual observation at reviews, drills, inspections in camp, and on the march, the effective strength of every brigade and division of infantry under General Early's command (of the cavalry and artillery I cannot speak so authoritatively), and I can therefore assert that in neither one of these actions above mentioned, did General Early carry nine thousand men (infantry) into the fight."

"One who served on Early's staff," writes in the New York News of February 10, 1866:

"The writer of this has in his possession the highest and most conclusive evidence of the truth of Early's statement of his infantry force; and in fact without this proof, it could have been substantially established by the evidence here in Lynchburg of these facts, that fifteen trains of the Virginia and Alexandria Railroad (no one train of a capacity of carrying five hundred men) brought the whole of the Second Corps of the Confederate Army under division commanders Gordon, Rodes, and Ramseur to this place: that Breckenridge's division, then here, was only about two thousand men: and that these were all of the infantry car

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was thus a terrible disproportion between the Federal and Confederate forces. Greatly outnumbered in artillery; with thirty-five thousand muskets opposed to his eight thousand five

ried from this place by Early down the Valley after his chase of Hunter. It will thus be perceived that Early's estimate (eight thousand five hundred) was quite full so far; and after the Winchester and Fisher's Hill engagements, his statement that Kershaw's division of two thousand seven hundred then added, did not exceed his previous losses, ought certainly not to be objected to by Sheridan who assails Early's veracity with the assertion that he inflicted on him a loss of twenty-six thousand eight hundred and thirty-one men!"

The Richmond Times says: "Of General Early's actual force on the 19th of Sep tember, 1864, the day of the battle of Winchester, his first defeat, we can give statistics nearly official, procured from an officer of rank who held a high com mand during the campaign, and who had every opportunity of knowing. Early's infantry consisted of

"This recapitulation embraces all the forces of Early's command. General Sheridan, according to official statements, had under his command over thirty-five thousand muskets, eight thousand sabres, and a proportionate quantity of artil lery."

The force of Sheridan is not a matter of dispute: that of Early is defined with sufficient accuracy by the above statements from honourable officers.