“To Appreciate the Relation…to the Defence of Washington”: Lincoln and the Shenandoah Valley in 1864

“To Appreciate the Relation…to the Defence of Washington”: Lincoln and the Shenandoah Valley in 1864

Jonathan A. Noyalas

As Confederate general Jubal Early’s Army of the Valley withdrew from its position in front of Fort Stevens on Washington, D.C.’s northern outskirts during the night of July 12, 1864, Early’s veterans attempted to assess the impact of their advance to the gates of the national capital. Confederate general Gabriel Wharton, one of Early’s division commanders, boasted to his wife Nannie three days later, as Early’s command marched toward Snickers Gap in the Blue Ridge Mountains, that “this has been the grandest raid on record.” Wharton believed “all Yankeedom very much scared and confused.” Rumors circulated throughout Early’s command, Wharton explained, that news of Early’s approach so disturbed President Abraham Lincoln that he escaped to Pennsylvania. “It is reported old Abe fled to Philadelphia on our approaching Washington,” Wharton wrote from the army’s camp near Leesburg, Virginia. Early too, despite his regret that he “did not succeed in capturing Washington,” believed the presence of his army greatly unnerved Lincoln. On the night of July 12, in a conversation with one of his staff officers, Maj. Henry Kyd Douglas, Early reportedly boasted “in his falsetto drawl: Major we haven’t taken Washington, but we’ve scared Abe Lincoln like h[ell]!”

Early’s operations throughout the previous month achieved much for the Confederate war effort in Virginia. The Army of the Valley drove Union general David Hunter’s command from Lynchburg, a strategically significant transportation and rail hub, cleared Union forces from the Shenandoah Valley, ransomed Hagerstown, Maryland, defeated Maj. Gen. Lew Wallace’s command at the Battle of Monocacy on July 9, and marched to Washington’s northern outskirts. Although evidence indicates Early fell short of frightening “Abe Lincoln like h[ell],” his movements sobered Lincoln to the importance of permanently wresting the Shenandoah Valley, the place from which Early launched his invasion, from the Confederacy’s grasp.

As Early’s army moved through the Shenandoah Valley, drove Brig. Gen. Max Weber’s command from the vitally strategic Harpers Ferry, and marched into Maryland, Lincoln believed the chances of Early capturing Washington unlikely. On July 4, the day Harpers Ferry fell, Lincoln’s secretary John Hay wrote in his diary: “The president thinks with decent management we destroy any enemy who crosses the Potomac.” Those who advised Lincoln seemed less certain. Two days after

Early captured Harpers Ferry, Maj. Gen. Ethan Allen Hitchcock shared his concerns with Lincoln, who sat behind a table “surrounded with papers.” The president at first did not seem bothered by Early’s presence. As Hitchcock pleaded with Lincoln to impress upon Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton or chief of staff Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck the necessity for additional troops to protect Washington, Hitchcock recalled that Lincoln did not “see the need of any assistance” to defend a place encircled by sixty forts, ninety-three batteries, and over 800 cannons. Perturbed, Hitchcock, who believed that “an enterprising general could take the city,” placed his hands on the table behind which Lincoln sat, leaned forward, and informed Lincoln, “If Stonewall Jackson were living, and in command of Early’s troops, in my opinion, sir, he would be in Washington in three days.” Lincoln, Hitchcock believed, appeared “very much struck with the expression of such an opinion.”

In the ensuing days anxieties neared a fevered pitch in the nation’s capital. Following Early’s victory at Monocacy on July 9 streams of refugees poured into Washington, spreading rumors about the strength of Early’s army, depredations committed by it, and where Early’s command might head next. Albert Gallatin Riddle, a former congressman from Ohio who worked as an attorney in Washington, heard rumors that Early’s “force was estimated at not less than 40,000 men.” Some estimates placed Early’s strength at 45,000 troops. Horatio Nelson Taft, an examiner at the patent office, did not believe Early’s army quite that large. Taft recorded in his diary on July 9: “The rebel force is estimated at all numbers from five thousand to twenty thousand. . . . It is supposed that they will make an attempt upon this city or Baltimore next.” In reality, Early’s force consisted of approximately 10,000 troops. Regardless of Early’s numerical strength, Attorney General Edward Bates believed the situation quite serious. “For several days past there has been great excitement here . . . in consequence of a renewed invasion of the rebels,” he wrote in his diary on July 10. “At first it was made light of, as a mere raid, by a light party; but now, it is ascertained to be a formidable army, of some 20,000, or more.”

As Washingtonians and those seeking refuge in the city speculated about the size of the Confederate force and its next target, little doubt existed as to the ultimate purpose of Early’s mission—to distract Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s campaign to take Richmond. One federal employee correctly surmised on July 9 that “this rebel ‘raid’ is supposed to be intended to draw Grant away from Richmond to defend Washington.”

While many in Washington fretted for the capital’s safety as Early’s army moved closer, Lincoln’s perspective of the threat posed by Early remained unchanged. On the morning of July 10, he sent a telegram to Thomas Swann, a member of a committee appointed by the mayor of Baltimore to tend to the city’s safety in the event of a Confederate advance, urging people to “be vigilant, but keep cool.” Throughout the day, as it became clearer to Lincoln that “the enemy is moving on Washington,” Secretary of War Stanton took measures to ensure the president’s safety. Since 1862 Lincoln and his family had spent the summer months at a cottage on the grounds of the Soldiers’ Home, located three miles north of the White House. Situated on one of the highest elevations in the city, the Soldiers’ Home offered the Lincolns refuge from Washington’s oppressive heat and humidity during the summer months and provided Lincoln a quiet place to gather his thoughts. Although only a thirty-minute carriage ride from the White House, its location north of Washington—the direction from which Early’s command approached the capital city—unnerved Stanton. Noah Brooks, a longtime friend of Lincoln’s who worked as a newspaper correspondent in Washington, thought “the lonely situation of the President’s Summer residence would have afforded a tempting chance for a daring squad of rebel cavalry to run some risks for the chance of carrying off the President.” Recognizing that the nation could “ill afford to spare” Lincoln “just now,” Stanton thought it best for Lincoln to return to the White House. At 10:00 p.m. Stanton sent a message to Lincoln, whose family had already gone to bed, recommending that he “had better come in to town tonight.” Approximately one hour later, Stanton arrived to make certain that the president complied. While Lincoln, according to Private Willard Cutter, a soldier in the 150th Pennsylvania who served on guard duty that night, “didn’t think there was any danger,” he assented to Stanton’s request and “went along.”

The following day, as Early’s troops moved into position north of Fort Stevens, the defensive work which safeguarded the Seventh Street Road, Lincoln left the White House and ventured to Fort Stevens to see for himself what sort of threat Early posed. “The President concluded to desert his tormentors today,” John Hay wrote in his diary on July 11, and “travel around the defenses.” When Lincoln returned to the White House around 3:00 p.m. Hay thought the “President is in very good feather. . . . He seems not in the least concerned about the safety of Washington.” Lincoln’s calm demeanor, undoubtedly fortified by the arrival of reinforcements from Maj. Gen. Horatio Wright’s Sixth Corps, continued throughout the following day. “The President seemed in a pleasant and confident humor today,” Hay reported in his diary on July 12.

While Early and his Confederates undoubtedly raised anxieties among many in Washington, including some of Lincoln’s cabinet members, extant evidence from those closest to Lincoln reveals that Early did not, as the Confederate general boasted, scare “Abe Lincoln like h[ell]!” In fact, if Early’s advance stirred any feeling in Lincoln, it was frustration due to the inability of Union troops to prevent Early’s escape. From the moment Early appeared in front of Fort Stevens, Lincoln’s primary concern, according to John Hay, “seems to be whether we can bag or destroy this force in our front.” After Lincoln received reports on the morning of July 13 “that the enemy is retiring from every point” Lincoln, and for that matter many in Washington, appeared “eager for the pursuit to begin.” Lincoln, as Hay recalled, thought “we should push our whole column up the river road & cut off as many as possible of the retreating soldiers.”

However, as much as the commander in chief might have wanted an immediate pursuit, Lincoln refused to order it out of respect for his general in chief. When Lincoln entrusted Grant with command of all United States forces in March 1864, he vowed that he would not confuse his role as commander in chief with that of the general in chief so long as Grant did not procrastinate. The president’s secretaries, John Nicolay and John Hay, explained that “the President, true to the position he had taken when Grant was made general-in-chief, would not interfere.” The next day proved excruciating for Lincoln. Nicolay and Hay later noted that the president felt much “anguish” as he “observed . . . the undisturbed retreat of Early.”

Lincoln understood that before any pursuit of Early could begin the various forces in Washington needed to be placed under a single commander. Charles A. Dana, Lincoln’s assistant secretary of war, wrote pointedly to Grant on July 12 that “nothing can be done here toward pursuing or cutting off the enemy for want of a commander . . . there is no head to the whole.” Grant addressed the problem later that day when he ordered General Wright “to supreme command of all troops moving out against the enemy.” Wright’s command, which initially consisted of 10,000 troops—the approximate size of Early’s command—departed Washington around 3:00 p.m. on July 13. (Within days it would grow to 30,000 men.)

Five days later, along the banks of the Shenandoah River near Snickers Gap in eastern Clarke County, Virginia, a portion of Early’s command and a contingent of Wright’s force clashed at the Battle of Cool Spring. The battle, which resulted in yet another tactical victory for Confederate troops in the Shenandoah Valley, proved problematic for Lincoln, who possessed increasing uncertainty about his chances to win reelection in November.

Three days after Cool Spring the Washington National Intelligencer berated the Lincoln administration for failing to recognize the important role the Shenandoah Valley played as a diversionary theater of war for Confederate forces. In addition to its value as a source of provender for Confederate soldiers in the Old Dominion and a point from which Rebel armies could invade the North, the Valley proved a point from which Confederates could threaten Washington, as Early had done, and therefore create a strategic diversion to alleviate pressure on the Confederate capital. “The Valley of the Shenandoah has more than once been the valley of our national humiliation,” the Intelligencer rightfully groaned. The paper charged that Lincoln and his “military administration” had “not learned to appreciate the relation of this valley to the defence of Washington, and the enemy . . . has learned to practice in this quarter a wearisome monotony of movement which only serves to show that he deems it safe at any time to hope for success by counting on our official stolidity as a standing substitute for his poverty of invention.” In addition to pointing out the administration’s ostensible lack of awareness of the Shenandoah Valley’s strategic significance, the Intelligencer posed a question to its readers: “And now we ask, the whole nation will ask, who is responsible for such humiliations? Is it the President, the Secretary of War, the Chief of Staff, or can it be that our military affairs are still left at such loose ends. . . ?” While the Intelligencer did not directly assign the blame to Lincoln it warned “that if the President cannot discover and correct the source of these blunders, the people in the approaching election will not be slow to discover one method by which they can put an end to this reign of military incompetence.”

Criticism of Lincoln, exacerbated by clashes with members of his own party about plans for reconstruction, increased over the next week-and-a-half as newspapers throughout the nation berated Lincoln and asserted, as did an Ohio newspaper on July 28, that “Mr. Lincoln’s Re-election is now considered an impossibility.” This reproach, coupled with General Wright’s inability to destroy Early, fueled the Democratic Party’s accusation that the war effort under Lincoln’s leadership proved an epic failure. Grant, aware that the Shenandoah Valley “had been a source of a great deal of [political and military] trouble,” determined to consolidate the four departments that shared some responsibility for Washington’s protection—Susquehanna, Middle, West Virginia, and Washington. On July 25, Grant “recommended” to Lincoln that “the four departments” should be “merged into one”—the Middle Military Division (popularly referred to as the Army of the Shenandoah)—and placed under the command of “one general officer, in whom I and yourself have confidence.” Lincoln approved of Grant’s plan, but possessed some misgivings as to who should lead it. Initially, Grant believed Maj. Gen. William B. Franklin “a suitable person to command the whole.” Despite Grant’s belief that Franklin was “capable and . . . trustworthy” Lincoln balked at the suggestion since Franklin was a Democrat who had criticized the president. Next, Grant recommended Maj. Gen. George G. Meade, commander of the Army of the Potomac, an excellent choice. Meade, Grant explained to Lincoln, would use “the troops within the [new] military division . . . to the very best advantage.” However, Lincoln disapproved of Meade. While Lincoln might have believed Meade equal to the task, the president thought moving Meade from Petersburg to the Shenandoah Valley might make him appear weak politically. The president reminded Grant that various individuals pressured Lincoln to remove Meade from command of the Army of the Potomac. With the presidential election slightly more than three months away Lincoln worried that his detractors might interpret any change in Meade’s status as a sign that Lincoln caved to pressure and was growing feebler politically. Finally, when the two met at Fort Monroe on July 31—the day after cavalry from Early’s army rode into Pennsylvania and burned Chambersburg—Lincoln and his general in chief decided that Maj. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan was best suited to command the Army of the Shenandoah.

Sheridan, a West Point graduate whose star was born earlier in the conflict as a division commander in the Army of the Cumberland and who continued to gain recognition as the chief of the Army of the Potomac’s cavalry corps during the spring and summer of 1864, arrived in Washington on August 4. Sheridan thought he possessed a clear understanding of what Grant expected him to do. Grant, Sheridan wrote, “wanted” the Army of the Shenandoah “to push the enemy . . . and if Early retired up [i.e., moved south] the Shenandoah Valley I was to pursue, but if he crossed the Potomac I was to put myself south of him and try to compass his destruction.” Conversations Sheridan had with Lincoln and Secretary of War Stanton on August 5 complicated things a bit for Sheridan. After Lincoln “candidly” informed Sheridan that he and Stanton possessed doubt about entrusting such an important command to someone they “thought . . . too young,” Stanton explained the impact another Union defeat in the Valley could have on Lincoln’s bid for reelection. As Stanton and Sheridan departed the White House, Stanton conversed with Sheridan “freely in regard to the campaign I was expected to make, seeking to impress on me the necessity for success from the political as well as from the military point of view.”

This conversation crystallized Sheridan’s objective in the Shenandoah. While clear that Sheridan needed to defeat Early’s Army of the Valley and “destroy” what “cannot be consumed” by Union troops so as to leave “nothing . . . to invite the enemy to return,” Sheridan also realized that he ought not to strike Early unless he could be assured of success. Cognizant of the consequences Union defeat in the Shenandoah Valley would have on Lincoln’s reelection campaign, Sheridan thought a pragmatic approach best. Aware that the defeat of the Army of the Shenandoah “might be followed by the overthrow of the party in power” Sheridan “deemed it necessary to be very cautious” and “not . . . risk a disaster.”

During Sheridan’s first month in command he and Early maneuvered in a forty-five-mile swath of territory between Harpers Ferry and Fisher’s Hill, located south of Strasburg, Virginia. While encounters with portions of Early’s command occurred, perhaps most notably at Berryville, Virginia, on September 3–4, the incessant marching and countermarching—what one of Sheridan’s infantrymen branded a “mimic war”—confounded some of Sheridan’s troops. Lieut. John Sturtevant of the 14th New Hampshire Infantry found the movements “curious and inexplicable . . . mysterious and unaccountable.” So too did Lincoln. While Lincoln might have appreciated Sheridan’s desire not to invite another disaster in the Shenandoah, Lincoln also understood that continued inactivity in the Valley might likewise prove politically injurious. Northern newspapers began to question why the person Lincoln approved to command the Army of the Shenandoah had taken no significant steps to crush Early. “Mutterings of discontent broke out . . . in the Northern papers,” recalled Henry Greiner, one of Sheridan’s longtime friends. By the second week of September Lincoln’s impatience with Sheridan’s pragmatism, fueled further by Union general William T. Sherman’s capture of Atlanta on September 2, crescendoed into a “suggestion” to Grant on September 12. Cognizant that Sherman’s success silenced that plank of the Democratic Party’s platform that asserted that Lincoln’s handling of the war had been a “failure,” Lincoln understood the political benefits victory in the Shenandoah offered. “Sheridan and Early are facing each other at a dead lock. Could we not pick up a regiment here and there, to the number of say ten thousand men, and quietly, but suddenly concentrate them at Sheridan’s camp and enable him to make a strike?” Grant agreed.

Five days later Grant met with Sheridan in Charles Town, West Virginia, to “arrange what was necessary to enable him to start Early out of the Valley.” By the time the two met in the home of Thomas and Mary Rutherford, Sheridan had developed a plan to strike Early. Based on information Sheridan received from Rebecca Wright, a Quaker Unionist in Winchester, coupled with reports from cavalry scouts, Sheridan possessed a clear understanding of the strength and whereabouts of the elements of Early’s army. After Sheridan laid out his plan Grant directed Sheridan simply to “Go in!”

On September 19 Sheridan launched his campaign against Early with victory at the Third Battle of Winchester, a triumph Secretary Stanton regarded as “the turning point!” Three days later Sheridan bested Early at Fisher’s Hill. Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles recognized that Sheridan’s victories had “a party-political influence” and “strengthens the Administration.” A correspondent for the Philadelphia Press labeled Sheridan’s victories “a new endorsement of Abraham Lincoln.” Grant thought Sheridan’s victory at Fisher’s Hill “the most effective campaign argument in the canvass.” While Sheridan’s initial successes pleased many, they arguably brought the greatest joy to Lincoln. The day after Sheridan bested Early at Winchester, Lincoln wrote Sheridan: “Have just heard of your great victory. God bless you all, officers and men. Strongly inclined to come up and see you.”

One month after Sheridan began his campaign against Early, the Army of the Shenandoah gained another victory at the Battle of Cedar Creek. Although Sheridan and his command did not fully comprehend it at the time, the success achieved at Cedar Creek on October 19 effectively stripped the Confederates of their hold on the Shenandoah Valley. Three days later Lincoln expressed his gratitude: “With great pleasure I tender to you and your brave army, the thanks of the Nation, and my own personal admiration and gratitude, for the month’s operations in the Shenandoah Valley; and especially for the splendid work of October 19, 1864.” Lincoln wrote.

Lincoln’s supporters, recognizing the political benefits of Sheridan’s victories in the Shenandoah Valley, held a torch-light parade in Washington. Those who participated cheered for Lincoln and Sheridan. A group from New Jersey toted an image of Democratic candidate George B. McClellan with the phrase “Great Failure of the War” emblazoned across it. When the parade ended at the White House Lincoln’s devotees pleaded with the president to make a few remarks. Lincoln, aware that the parade would happen, but not inclined to make a speech, stood under the White House portico with his son Tad by his side and utilized the moment to praise Sheridan. After urging those in attendance to “give three hearty cheers for Sheridan” Lincoln joked with “the large crowd” how Early should count his blessings that Sheridan “was a very little man.” “While we are at it we may as well consider how fortunate it was for the Secesh that Sheridan was a very little man. If he had been a large man, there is no knowing what he would have done with them,” Lincoln quipped.

Following Sheridan’s successes in the Shenandoah Lincoln’s supporters attempted to discern what control of the Valley might mean for Lincoln’s political future. Benjamin Brown French, commissioner of public buildings in Washington, thought “the reelection of Lincoln . . . seems, now, to be a foregone conclusion.” Newspapers across the globe attempted to assess the impact, too. A correspondent for the London Times thought the “victory gained by Gen. Sheridan . . . rendered” Lincoln’s reelection “almost certain.” Although Lincoln could not know with any certainty how he would fare at the polls until the states tabulated the ballots cast on November 8, Union victory in the Shenandoah Valley, something that eluded United States forces until the autumn of 1864, removed Lincoln’s “anxiety” about Confederates utilizing the Valley to threaten Washington. Victory in the Valley redeemed the president’s reputation for the “national humiliations” suffered as a result of the Confederate control of the Shenandoah, a place the National Intelligencer rightfully concluded produced incessant “panic cries of alarm . . . terrors . . . [and] blunders.” Additionally, Union control of the Shenandoah showed that Lincoln indeed deserved, as a newspaper correspondent wrote, to “receive” the votes “of fellow citizens . . . at the next election.”

Jonathan A. Noyalas is director of Shenandoah University’s McCormick Civil War Institute. He is the author or editor of sixteen books including a new study of the Battle of Cool Spring, The Blood-tinted Waters of the Shenandoah.