The Ultimate Civil War Series - Episode 6 - "The Killing Fields" - LionHeart Original

They were acting as a unit so far as such a thing was possible over such a vast field. Lee, with the capital of the Confederacy, was the main end to which all were working. Johnston, with Atlanta, was an important obstacle in the way of our accomplishing the result aimed at, and was therefore almost an independent objective. It was of less importance only because the capture of Johnston and his army would not produce so immediate and decisive a result in closing the rebellion as would the possession of Richmond, Lee, and his army. All other troops were employed exclusively in the support of these two movements. In the first years of the Civil War, both sides engaged in a limited war, with armies focused primarily on fighting each other. Though there had been exceptions, neither side had made a practice of destroying property belonging to non-combatants. But by 1864, General Ulysses S. Grant, along with his General William Tecumseh Sherman, and President Abraham Lincoln, had come to realize that this strategy was simply prolonging the war. To defeat the Confederacy, they must also target the southern economy, private farms, factories, and the cities of the south. Total war. So in the late spring of 1864, Grant and the Army of the Potomac lay siege to Petersburg, Virginia. Over the next ten months, the armies there constructed a series of forts and trenches, the likes of which would not be seen again until World War I. Grant's goal was both the actual assault on Petersburg, and then on to Richmond, and to capture or destroy General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. At the same time, Grant sent General William Tecumseh Sherman to strike out towards Atlanta and towards General Joseph E. Johnston's Army of Tennessee. He wrote to Sherman, You, I propose to move against Johnston's Army, to break it up and to get into the interior of the enemy's country as far as you can, inflicting all the damage you can against their war resources. The capture of either major Confederate city, or the destruction or surrender of either great Confederate army, would be a major turning point in the war. As Grant said, all other actions would be in support of those two major drives. One of those supporting actions was the Valley Campaign, led by Major General David Hunter. To deal with Hunter's advance into the Valley, Robert E. Lee sent General Jubal Early. Early was to drive Hunter out of the Shenandoah Valley, and then to move north in the Confederacy's third and final invasion into Union territory. Lee hoped Early could threaten Washington, D.C., forcing Grant to send troops to support the capital. This would weaken Grant's force in Petersburg, and give Lee some breathing room. Early was campaigning under the shadow of the late Stonewall Jackson, whose own Valley Campaign in 1862 was already legend. In June, Early defeated Hunter at the Battle of Lynchburg. Hunter's force, now low on supplies, was forced to withdraw to the west. Early pushed through the Valley, crossed the Potomac River, into Maryland. Grant sent two brigades of the Sixth Corps north, under Brigadier General James Ricketts, to help put the capital into that state of preparation. Wallace's 6,000 men needed to delay Early's 14,000 long enough for those reinforcements to arrive. To achieve that delay, they would guard the bridges and fords crossing the Monocacy River. Most of Wallace's soldiers were 100 days men, who had just enlisted for 100 days for the specific purpose of repelling this invasion. They had not yet been in combat, and they faced veteran troops. But at the last minute, the first contingent of Ricketts' brigades from the Sixth Corps reached Baltimore. These veteran units jumped on trains and rushed to join Wallace at the Monocacy. Lieutenant George Davis and 75 of his men from the 10th Vermont Regiment of the Sixth Corps were placed with a portion of a Maryland regiment, commanded by a Captain Charles Brown. Brown and his 200 men were inexperienced, having just recently entered service. Davis later described his experiences on July 9, 1864. Our orders were to hold the two bridges across the river at all hazard and prevent the enemy from crossing. Other Union forces were on the south bank of the river. We were the only Union troops on the north side, confronted with General Ramsey's division of Confederate troops. When the enemy advanced about 3.30 a.m. along the pike from Frederick City, Captain Brown allowed them to come within 15 or 20 rods of our position, thinking they were Union troops because dressed in blue clothing, which they had recently captured at Martinsburg. I stoutly protested, telling him our friends were behind us. He was convinced when one of his men was killed and several wounded. Then he turned to me in disgust and insisted upon my taking command. I assumed command instantly. Brought up my 10th Vermonters to this point, and after a severe fight of about one hour, the enemy retired. The third and last attack began about 3.30 p.m. The situation was critical. The enemy came upon us with such overwhelming numbers and desperation that it seemed we should be swept into the river. Nevertheless, we fought for over an hour and kept back a much larger force than ours. Lieutenant Davis received the Medal of Honor for his defense of the two bridges against repeated assaults of superior numbers, which materially delayed Early's advance on Washington. Early had won the battle, but it cost him a day's march, a delay so crucial that the battle of Monocacy is called the battle that saved Washington. Early's force reached the outskirts of the capital near Silver Spring, Maryland, around noon on July 11th. He sent out his skirmishers to feel out the fortifications. Those fortifications were strong. But on the 11th, they were undermanned, held by home guards, clerks, and wounded soldiers who were in the capital convalescing. Despite the insufficient lines and the threatening Confederate army, Fort Stevens received a notable visitor that day. President Abraham Lincoln and his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, visited the wounded in the fort's hospital. Jubal Early determined that his men were too weary from their recent battle and march. Add on to that the sweltering heat of that July day and the trenches they faced, and Early decided to wait a day before attacking. That night, the additional reinforcements sent by Grant arrived and added their considerable strength to the city's fortifications. The next day, Early saw that his chance at capturing Washington was gone, though he had been successful in drawing some of Grant's troops away from Petersburg and Richmond. Union and Confederate troops skirmished during the day as Early prepared to leave. Though the actual battle was small, it almost cost the Union dearly. President Lincoln, still at the fort to observe the attack, came under fire from sharpshooters. A surgeon near Lincoln was shot by a marksman. The president himself was ordered to take cover, reportedly with a brusque, Get down, you fool! The Union commanders sent a few veteran brigades out of the fort to push the Confederates back beyond the fortifications. That night, under cover of darkness, Early slipped away. In March, 1864, General Sherman had been made commander of Military Division of the Mississippi, more commonly called the Army of the West, because it controlled all Union military operations in the Western Theater. He replaced Grant when Grant was promoted to command all of the Union armies. Grant trusted Sherman, and the two worked well together. Sherman and Grant worked out an ambitious, aggressive plan to bring the war to an end. Grant would focus on General Robert E. Lee's army, centered around Richmond, Virginia. For Grant to succeed, Sherman would need to keep the Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston's army tied up, unable to reinforce Lee. Sherman's plan to achieve that was breathtaking in its simplicity, and its promise of destruction. He would march his armies across Georgia, and eventually to the Atlantic Ocean, laying waste to all Confederate assets along the way, including the city of Atlanta, the heart of the South. The clock was ticking. In August of 1864, the former Union commander, George McClellan, who had been fired by Lincoln, was nominated as the Democratic Party's candidate for president. His platform called for peace negotiations based on the recognition of the Confederacy's independence. It looked bad for Lincoln. The war had dragged on, there had been too many Union losses, and many in the North just wanted it over. Grant and Sherman needed to give Lincoln a clear and convincing victory to convince the people, the voters, that they would win the war if they held firm. War is politics, and politics is war. Lincoln had made clear that he would accept no peace with the Confederacy that did not both return them to the Union, and require their acceptance of emancipation. Much was riding on Sherman's march on Atlanta. Sherman's forces set out in late April of that year, moving south, out of Tennessee, into Georgia. They stuck with the Western and Atlantic Railroad as much as possible, their supply line back north. At places like Rocky Face Ridge and Resaca, Sherman would repeatedly flank the Rebel Army, sending a portion of his forces around the enemy's extreme left or right, getting behind them, and forcing them to pull back to their next set of defenses. For two months, the march toward Atlanta was hard, but progress was steady. Then Sherman reached Kennesaw Mountain. Kennesaw Mountain, and the smaller Little Kennesaw, and other Rocky Hills, is about fifteen miles north of Atlanta. The battle began at 8 a.m. on June 27th. General McPherson's artillery opened up on Kennesaw, and the Confederates fired right back. Three brigades of the 15th Corps attacked at Pigeon Hill, a small bump on Little Kennesaw Mountain. They faced Confederate General Loring's Corps. The three Union brigades had about 5,500 men, attacking about 5,000 Rebels, but the Confederates were deeply entrenched, and the Federals were climbing, cutting, and crawling through dense brush and steep, rocky slopes. One brigade managed to overrun the Rebels' rifle pits, but were stopped there. Caught between Confederate General Walker's rifles on their south, and Rebel cannons based on Little Kennesaw, they were being cut to pieces, and had to fall back. The other brigades had similar trouble, eventually hiding behind trees and rocks, and taking shots at the Confederate works, which seemed all but invulnerable. Finally, General Logan himself rode up to survey the scene, saw his men were being butchered for no benefit, and ordered them to withdraw and entrench. General Thomas, charged with carrying the main attack, had to delay an hour to give his infantry time to arrange. His cannons opened up at 8 a.m., but it was another hour before his infantry could move forward. Unfortunately for the Union troops, the Confederate units holding the seminary were the two least likely to fold under pressure. Generals Patrick Claiborne and Benjamin Cheatham were blooded veteran commanders who had seen tough fighting in prior battles, and emerged victorious. They were well entrenched and supported by cannons. Colonels McCook and Mitchell attacked the hill, but they were cut down. Cook himself took a fatal wound. His replacement ordered a retreat, but many of their men were either unable to retreat or unwilling to leave cover to flee. Two thousand Union troops surrendered, while others feigned death to escape in the night. At around 10 a.m., the hot shells and wadding started a fire in the woods, and wounded Union soldiers were trapped, facing a fiery death. Then, Confederate Lieutenant Colonel Will Martin made a makeshift white flag of truce and waved it, shouting to Union troops to, Come and get your wounded. They are burning to death. We won't fire till you get them away. And both sides ceased fighting long enough for Union and some Confederate soldiers to rescue wounded Union troops. Once done, fighting resumed. The only success of the day was General Schofield's. While carrying out his orders to demonstrate on his extreme right, he found a place where Sherman's army could move around the Confederates. Late that night, Sherman finally agreed that this was the best strategy. Once again, he flanked Johnston's army, and once again, Johnston felt forced to withdraw to a new line of defense. Johnston continued to fall back as Union forces continued to move forward, and Sherman gathered willing rebel prisoners, deserters, by the hundreds. Eventually, Jefferson Davis relieved Johnston of his command, replacing him with the more aggressive General John Hood. The Confederate force was unhappy with the change, not liking to see politicians pulling down a commander who had recognized the importance of keeping his army in the field and alive. Johnston's policy of strategic withdrawal had delayed Sherman's army at minimal cost to his own. Hood's strategy, while more aggressive, would be no more successful and considerably more hazardous to his troops. General Hood had lost the use of his left arm during the Battle of Gettysburg, and lost his right leg in the Battle of Chickamauga. He had lost none of his fight, however. As Sherman's armies approached Atlanta, Hood ordered an assault on Thomas' forces at Peachtree Creek. He lost badly, taking around 5,000 casualties to 1,500 on the Union side. On that day, July 20th, the first artillery shells fell on Atlanta. Hood prepared another attack for July 22nd, this time against McPherson's army of the Tennessee. That morning, Sherman heard reports of the Confederates abandoning Atlanta. But this wasn't a withdrawal. General Hardy, who was angry over being passed over for promotion when Hood was placed in command, made a wide swing around McPherson's flank so that he could attack from the south. But he mistimed his march, turning too early and hitting the 16th Corps head on. The 16th held Hardy off, but not without a cost. General McPherson, riding almost alone, came upon a group of Confederate soldiers. They ordered him to surrender, but he just doffed his hat and galloped off. A Confederate sharpshooter shot him off his horse. He made it back to Union lines, but he was mortally wounded. In all, the Confederates took heavier losses, with almost 2,500 killed and 4,000 wounded, to the Union's 500 killed and just over 2,000 wounded. But the loss of McPherson was a personal blow to General Sherman. When the battle was ended, Sherman settled himself in for a siege of Atlanta. As part of the siege, Sherman needed to cut off all railroad lines into the city. Just as rail lines had served to keep him supplied on his march to Atlanta, they now provided supplies to the city and, more importantly, to Hood's army. Sherman tried several raids on the rail. The first two were unsuccessful, one resulting in the capture of Union Cavalry General George Stoneman. In mid-August, Sherman tried again, sending the Cavalry Brigadier General Hugh Kilpatrick to tear up the Confederate supply lines. After this and the other failures of the Cavalry to seriously disrupt the rail into Atlanta, Sherman decided that Cavalry simply could not manage this mission. He planned now to send his infantry to do the job. On August 25th, Sherman had held Atlanta under siege for over a month. He ordered six of his seven divisions, over 60,000 men, to begin moving toward the Macon and Western Railroad, the last of the supply lines into Atlanta. The Battle of Jonesboro smashed Hood's men once again to a terrible effect. After the battle, General Hood, who was still in Atlanta, feared that Sherman was about to attack the city. He suspected that the move on Jonesboro was a ruse designed to draw Confederate troops out of Atlanta. The Union forces attacked at about 4 p.m. The 14th Corps delivered the brunt of the attack, striking the Confederate line and capturing Brigadier General Daniel Govan and some 600 others. By nightfall, the Confederate line was pierced in multiple places, completely overrun. General Hardy sent a message to Hood that Jonesboro was lost and the railroad cut. He moved his corps down the railroad to Lovejoy Station, where he entrenched. That night, Hood ordered the evacuation of Atlanta. The next day, September 2nd, the city belonged to General William Tecumseh Sherman. Once taking the city, Sherman ordered the evacuation of all remaining citizens. He corresponded with Hood for help in arranging the details of their removal so this withdrawal may be made with as little discomfort as possible. In late September, General Hood took his army away from Atlanta toward Chattanooga, Tennessee. Sherman sent General George Thomas with a part of his army to follow, harass, and ultimately destroy Hood's force. Meanwhile, the remainder of Sherman's army rested in what was left of the prized city. Sherman kept his army in Atlanta for almost two and a half months while they rested and healed. Then he continued his march to the sea. He finally cut loose from the railroad and his men were forced to live off the land. They cut a path 60 miles wide and 300 miles long, destroying everything of possible military value as they passed. Sherman wrote to Grant after they reached Savannah in mid-December. We started with about 5,000 head of cattle and arrived with over 10,000. Of course, consuming mostly turkeys, chickens, sheep, hogs, and the cattle of the country. The custom was for each brigade to send out daily a foraging party of about 50 men on foot who invariably returned mounted with several wagons loaded with poultry, potatoes, etc. And as the army is composed of about 40 brigades, you can estimate approximately the number of horses collected. Great numbers of these were shot by my order because of the disorganizing effect on our infantry of having too many idlers mounted, although the result aimed at was attained to deprive our enemy of them. Not surprisingly, there were many complaints about the seizures of food, livestock, and other property by the invading Union army, and the people of Georgia would never forget or forgive Sherman for the destruction wrought in the Union's name. One of those people was Mrs. Dolly Lunt Burge, a widow who had inherited about 100 slaves from her husband. Her plantation was about 30 miles east of Atlanta during Sherman's march to the sea. She wrote of the experience of Yankee soldiers seizing food, supplies, and slaves from her and her neighbors. Like demons they rush in to my smokehouse, my dairy, pantry, kitchen, and cellar. Like famished wolves they come, breaking locks and whatever is in their way. The thousand pounds of meat in the smokehouse is gone in a twinkling. My flour, my meat, my lard, butter, eggs, pickles, wine, jars, and jugs are all gone. My 18 fat turkeys, my hens, chickens, and fowls. My young pigs are shot down in my yard and hunted as if they were rebels themselves. Utterly powerless, I ran out and appealed to the guard. I cannot help you, madam, he said. It is orders. My dear old buggy horse, old Mary, my broodmare, my two-year-old mule, and her last little baby colt. There they go. There go my mules, my sheep, and worse than all, my boys. Sherman's army stripped everything it could find as it moved and continued its march to the sea. It finally reached the Atlantic Ocean at Savannah, Georgia in December 1864. He then turned north, marching through South Carolina and North Carolina, adding pressure to Lee's army in Virginia. Trailing behind his army on the way to Savannah were thousands of free slaves. Sherman had been exasperated by these slaves, who had needed to remain near the army to stay free, but they were a drag on resources. His men traded food with the freed slaves in exchange for their work in camp, and at the same time, Sherman discouraged them from following his army. Sherman and some of his generals were accused of treating the freed men poorly. Sherman later explained that certain hard decisions had to be made in war. Whatever the reason or excuse with regard to individual incidents, these accusations, combined with Sherman's own derisive comments about black soldiers in the Union Army, served to make Sherman look more like the plundering invader described by Georgians, like Dolly Burge, and less like the liberator of Georgia's slaves. But as Sherman himself would later say, war is hell. Sherman's record with regard to treatment of freed slaves and black soldiers shows that racist attitudes were not limited to the South, but it does not compare with the official policy of the Confederacy. On January 12, 1863, less than two weeks after the Emancipation Proclamation, the Confederate Congress gave its response. All white officers leading black troops would be deemed as inciting servile insurrection and sentenced to death. Slaves captured in arms against the Confederacy would be turned over to the civil authorities of the state to be handled as slaves in rebellion. The Confederacy's policy did not change. Former slaves captured in war would be returned to their masters, where they would face horrific punishment. Their white officers faced execution. No black soldiers suspected of being fugitive slaves would be exchanged for other prisoners. Lincoln's administration was outraged at the Confederacy's refusal to include black troops in its prisoner exchanges. In response, Lincoln halted all prisoner exchanges. The population of the POW camps on both sides grew far beyond the government's capacities to manage them safely and humanely. But Lincoln's administration refused to, as General Butler put it, barter away the honor and faith of the government of the United States, which has so solemnly been pledged to the colored soldiers in its ranks. Many black soldiers, even after surrendering to Confederate troops, would neither suffer in rebel prisoner camps nor be re-enslaved. Instead, they faced summary execution on the field of battle. The most notorious such incident was at Fort Pillow, where, on April 12, 1864, rebel forces under the command of Major General Nathan Bedford Forrest killed dozens of black soldiers and their white officer after their surrender. An African-American cook at Fort Pillow described the scene. They just called them out like dogs and shot them down. I reckon they shot about 50, white and black, right there. They nailed some black sergeants to the logs and set the logs on fire. A Confederate soldier, Achilles Clark, offered a similar description in a letter to his sister. The slaughter was awful. Words cannot describe the scene. The poor, deluded Negroes would run up to our men, fall down upon their knees, and, with uplifted hands, scream for mercy. But they were ordered to their feet and then shot down. I, with several others, tried to stop the butchery. And at one time, it partially succeeded, but General Forrest ordered them shot down like dogs, and the carnage continued. Finally, our men became sick of blood, and the firing ceased. The war slaughter grew in the West and in the Eastern theater of the war. By June, Grant and his generals were in the Richmond-Petersburg area and were digging trenches. Throughout June and July 1864, the Union and Confederate armies battled each other in the trenches around Petersburg. Grant didn't want to siege after his experience at Vicksburg. It sapped the sieging army's morale and cost it dearly. At the end of July, the Union army undertook an ambitious operation that they hoped would lead to the fall of Petersburg and a quicker end to the war. Coal miners in a Pennsylvania regiment had dug a long mine shaft under Confederate lines, ending under a Confederate battery. The plan was to pack gunpowder under the battery and then blow it open. In the resulting confusion, Union troops would rush into the gap that the explosion would create in the Confederate lines. Major General Burnside's plan was to send in two brigades of the United States Colored Troops under Brigadier General Ferrero to lead the assault. Those brigades trained specifically for this task, to be ready to handle the confusion that would surely result from the explosion. One would go around the crater on the right and one on the left. They would seize key strategic positions while Burnside followed behind with troops to head to Petersburg. But at the last moment, Major General Meade ordered that the black brigades not be used to lead the assault, claiming that if the assault failed and the black troops were killed, there would be too much political fallout. The white troops who were given the task were weary from manning the front lines for weeks. Their commander was undistinguished and there were rumors that he was a drunk. The massive explosion in the mine killed hundreds of Confederate troops and so stunned the others that they did not direct concentrated fire on the enemy for 15 minutes. Unfortunately, the Union troops newly assigned to lead attack were unprepared for the explosion and waited 10 minutes before leaving their own trenches. And when they reached the site of the explosion, rather than go around it, they went into the crater and used it as a rifle pit. By this time, the Confederates had regrouped and began firing down into the pit. It was, to quote Confederate Brigadier General William Mahone, a turkey shoot. Although the plan had failed, Burnside did not recall the white troops. Instead, he sent in the USCT brigades to help. But now, it was impossible to go around the crater as the flanking fire from the enemy was too great. The black troops were driven into the pit as well, trapped. For the next few hours, the men in the pit, black and white, were slaughtered by a Confederate rifle and artillery fire. Panicked soldiers trampled their own men in a desperate effort to escape. Eventually, Union troops were able to draw Confederate forces away so that survivors could escape the pit. But the Union lost 5,300 men in that battle, about half from the USCT. Grant would later testify. General Burnside wanted to put his color division in front, and I believe if he had done so, it would have been a success. Still, I agreed with General Meade as to his objections to the plan. General Meade said that if we put the colored troops in front, we only had one division, and it should prove a failure. It would then be said, and very properly, that we were shoving these people ahead to get killed because we did not care anything about them. While Grant, Meade, and Butler maneuvered against Lee in central Virginia, and Sherman marched against Johnston on his way to Atlanta, Grant still needed someone to deal with Jubal Early in the Shenandoah Valley. After turning from Washington in mid-July, Early defeated a Union force outside of Winchester, Virginia. He pushed Brigadier General George Crook out of the valley and back across the Potomac. He sent a cavalry raid up into Pennsylvania, burning Chambersburg. Grant needed a new commander in the valley who could take on Early and fight. He selected General Philip Sheridan. Sheridan and Early maneuvered around each other for a month before Sheridan struck on September 19th near Winchester, Virginia. Early's forces were dispersed, but Sheridan brought his full 40,000-man force. The Yankees pushed the rebels back, marking a turning point in the war in the valley. Sheridan, still commanding a force three times the size of Early's, defeated the Confederates again at Fisher's Hill a few days later. Early withdrew his troops to Waynesboro. With Early's forces withdrawn, Sheridan's began a march down the valley that seemed a prelude to Sherman's march to the sea that would take place two months later. His army burned crops, mills, barns, and factories, which locals would long after call the burning. It was important for the Union to make sure Early's forces were not reinforced. Not only did Grant seek to pin Lee's forces to Richmond, he was also hoping Lee would move some of the troops defending Petersburg up to defend the Confederate capital. The 10th and 18th Corps were both part of the Army of the James, commanded by Benjamin Butler. Butler recommended that Brigadier General Charles Payne's USCTs lead the attacks, wanting to give the troops a chance to show their worth. On September 29th, 1864, three brigades of USCTs crossed the James River at Deep Bottom and soon took heavy fire from Confederate defenders. The rifle and artillery fire was intense, and the Confederates were protected by marshy land and thick breastworks. The brigades made multiple attempts to break through the lines, only to be repulsed or pinned down. But they kept hammering, and eventually the defenders fell back. In a little over an hour of fighting, Payne's USCTs took 800 casualties. As their white officers fell, black sergeants and corporals took command and led their companies forward. Their determination and valor earned the Medal of Honor for 14 of the African American soldiers. Meanwhile, west of New Market Heights, the 18th Corps was assaulting Fort Harrison. They were able to take the fort, but go no further. Lee shifted his forces, reinforcing his lines north of the James. A Confederate counterattack on September 30th failed, and the army settled into the trench warfare on this new line, closer to Richmond. But as Grant had hoped, Lee shifted troops from Petersburg to defend this threat to the Confederate capital. But Grant's hope that the actions would keep Early from being reinforced in the valley proved false. The valley was so very important, however, to the Confederate army that, contrary to our expectations, they determined to make one more strike, and save it if possible, before the supply should be all destroyed. Reinforcements were sent, therefore, to Early. While Sheridan was in Washington, meeting with the War Department in mid-October, Early positioned himself to attack Sheridan's forces at Cedar Creek, about 20 miles south of Winchester. Grant writes, Sheridan, having left Washington on the 18th, reached Winchester that night. The following morning, he started to join his command. He had scarcely gotten out of town when he met his men returning in a panic from the front. Jubal Early's Army of the Valley had launched a brilliantly successful surprise attack before dawn on October 19th. Seven Union infantry divisions had been pushed back as the Confederate forces swept up prisoners and seized artillery. Sheridan was now running into the panic-stricken, routed troops, who were now in full retreat. The Battle of Cedar Creek was an overwhelming Confederate victory, or so it seemed. The road was thickly lined with unhurt men, who, having got far enough to the rear to be out of danger, had halted, without any organization, and began cooking coffee. But when they saw me, they abandoned their coffee, threw up their hats, shouldered their muskets, and, as I passed along, turned to follow with enthusiasm and cheers. Early, having seemingly won the day by 10 a.m., had called a halt to the advance. His men plundered the Union camp and moved no further. By 4 p.m., Sheridan had whipped his own army back into shape and smashed into Early's line. As Early's left flank faltered, Union General George Armstrong Custer – yes, that Custer – drove his cavalry around and into the rear of the Confederate forces, threatening their escape route across Cedar Creek. As they withdrew, a bridge collapsed, preventing the rebels from carrying either the captured Union guns or even most of their own. Early blamed the defeat on his men, but his officers blamed the decision to call a halt after their initial success in the morning. Regardless, the battle had turned from a humiliating rout of the Union forces into a crushing blow to the Confederate war effort. They would never again command the Shenandoah Valley in the same way, nor threaten the North with invasion. Sheridan's success in the Valley and the capture of Atlanta turned the tide in the election of 1864. He had faced both the Democratic candidate, the former commander of the Army of the Potomac, General George McClellan, and a challenger within his own party, General John Fremont. Fremont was supported by Radical Republicans, who were impatient with his actions so far against slavery. Fremont eventually saw that the Democratic Party's willingness to pursue peace at almost any cost meant that dividing the anti-slavery vote could mean disaster for the abolitionist cause. He withdrew his nomination and endorsed Lincoln in September as part of a backroom political deal and, not coincidentally, after Sherman had captured Atlanta. Dolly Lunt-Burge, the widow who wrote of Sherman's soldiers plundering her plantation on their march to the sea, wrote on the day of the election. Today we'll probably decide the fate of the Confederacy. If Lincoln is re-elected, I think our fate will be a hard one. But we are in the hands of a merciful God, and if he sees that we are in the wrong, I trust that he will show it unto us. Lincoln and his running mate, Andrew Johnson, won 55% of the popular vote and 91% of the electoral vote. With Lincoln's re-election, the trajectory of the war would not abate. The vice would continue to close, and an end was fast approaching for the Confederacy. Actions around Petersburg and Richmond continued through the fall and even into winter. A series of skirmishes and smaller battles were occasionally producing victories for the Confederacy, but were wearing away at Lee's resources. September through December 1864 brought the campaign and battles of Franklin and Nashville, also known as Hood's Tennessee Campaign. Hood hoped to be able to finally defeat and turn back north the two Union armies under the command of Majors General John Schofield and George H. Thomas before they could converge and join forces. At the Battle of Spring Hill on November 29th, confusingly coordinated Confederate attacks did little to slow the Union advance, and the next day Hood's Confederates mimicked Longstreet's assault at the Battle of Gettysburg more than a year earlier with a series of futile frontal assaults against entrenched Union troops in the sad, destructive Battle of Franklin. Hood's men bled and battered and suffered, but General Schofield still advanced and successfully linked with General Thomas' army in Nashville, Tennessee. December 15th and 16th brought another bloody conflict, the Battle of Nashville, where this combined Union army attacked Hood's depleted ranks and routed and drove these Confederates into a retreat into Mississippi and effectively out of the war. Winter in Virginia, Grant and Lee locking horns in a siege of Richmond and Petersburg, passed slowly. By March of 1865, the Army of Northern Virginia had been seriously weakened. After four years of war, Rebel soldiers were worn down. Food shortages and disease had taken their toll, and more men were disappearing in the night, leaving behind a shrunken army. Lee now had about 50,000 men in Petersburg. Grant had more than twice that number. And things were about to get worse for Lee. Sheridan's force had just beaten early for good at the Battle of Waynesboro, which meant that Sheridan and 50,000 more Union soldiers were likely on the march to support Grant. And while Sheridan was coming from the Valley, Sherman was coming up from the Carolinas. Should all these Union forces converge on Petersburg, Lee would be outnumbered four to one. Lee ordered what would be the last real attempt to break the siege. On March 25th, Major General John Gordon led about 12,000 men in a surprise pre-dawn assault against the Union right flank at Fort Steadman. The initial assault was successful, the men capturing the fort. Many of his hungry soldiers took the opportunity to eat Union rations that were left behind. But once nearby Union artillery realized that their men were clear of Fort Steadman, they turned all their fire upon it. The Confederates were driven out, taking heavy casualties. The fort was retaken. Despite its initial success, the assault on Fort Steadman cost Lee's army another 4,000 casualties, four times the number on the Union side. And Lee simply could not afford these losses. More losses were to come. Sheridan was now less than 20 miles southwest of Petersburg, trying to flank Lee's defensive line. On a rainy, muddy March 31st, Confederate Major General George Pickett's infantry and Major General Fitzhugh Lee's cavalry divisions drove Sheridan's cavalry corps back off of its advance. Fighting elsewhere and muddy conditions prevented infantry support being sent to Sheridan. But Pickett didn't follow his successful assault with another strike. He pulled back to the intersection called Five Forks and received a dispatch from Robert E. Lee that he was to hold Five Forks at all hazards. General Grant directed me to go to Sheridan and explain what was taking place. I found Sheridan a little north of Dinwiddie Courthouse and gave him an account of matters on the left of the Army of the Potomac. He said he had one of the liveliest days in his experience fighting infantry and cavalry with cavalry only, that he was concentrating his command on the high ground just north of Dinwiddie and would hold the position at all hazards. He did not stop here but becoming more and more animated in describing the situation and stating his views and intentions. He declared his belief that with the Corps of Infantry he expected to be put under his command he could take the initiative the next morning and cut off the whole of the force that Lee had detached. He said, The force is cut off from Lee's army and not a man in it should ever be allowed to get back to Lee. We at last have drawn the enemy's infantry out of its fortifications and this is our chance to attack it. At 4 p.m. the Union assault began. But faulty intelligence led to one infantry division missing the Confederate line entirely and the other, under Major General Ayers, was exposed to flanking fire. Sheridan now began to exhibit those traits that always made him such a tower of strength in the presence of the enemy. He put his spurs to his horse and dashed along in front from left to right shouting words of encouragement. The battle, soon known as the Waterloo of the Confederacy, was a tragic defeat for Lee's men and General Pickett's loss in prisoners was untenable. The General, as was expected, asked his usual question. How many prisoners have been taken? This was always his first inquiry when an engagement was reported. No man ever had such a fondness for taking prisoners. Much better to win in this way than by the destruction of human life. I was happy to report that the prisoners this time were estimated at over 5,000. And this was only part of my recital that seemed to call forth a responsive expression from his usually impassive features. The jubilant Union command guessed correctly that Sheridan's success at Five Forks was the beginning of the end. The next day, Union troops would break through the Petersburg line and both Petersburg and Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy, would be abandoned. In less than ten days' time, Grant and Lee would face each other at Appomattox Courthouse, a meeting that would lead to joyful celebrations all across the North, celebrations that would end with a bullet, joy that would turn to mournful rage and a desire for retribution as the nation moved from Civil War to Reconstruction. With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan. To do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. Thanks for watching. If you'd like to help us produce more compelling historical content like this, please like, comment below, and share this video with fellow history buffs. And of course, be sure to subscribe to help keep history happening!