Existing comment:
1864 -- A Base for Sheridan:
General Philip H. Sheridan made Harpers Ferry his supply depot when he took command here on August 6, 1864.
Sheridan's campaign broke the Confederate control of the Shenandoah Valley. His army made the Valley a wasteland.
To deprive Lee's army of a major source of food, Sheridan followed Gen. U.S. Grant's order to "make all the valleys south of the Baltimore and Ohio road a desert as high up as possible. I do not mean that houses should be burned, but every particle of provisions and stock should be removed, and the people notified to move out."
Sheridan established his first headquarters in the Lockwood House at Harpers Ferry.
The army stored food and supplies in the reroofed armory buildings.
John Singleton Mosby, the Gray Ghost of the Confederacy, persistently harassed Sheridan's supply lines.
Mosby wrote, "The main object of my campaign was to vex and embarrass Sheridan and, if possible, to prevent his advance into the interior of the State."
Mosby's men capture Union wagon trains near Rippon, West Virginia.
Sheridan rode along his lines after the Union victory at Fisher's Hill on September 22, 1864.
Sheridan's army smashed the Confederates at the battles of Winchester (Opequon Creek), Fisher's Hill, and Cedar Creek.
Report of Sheridan to Grant, October 7, 1864:
" ... the whole country from the Blue Ridge to the North Mountain has been made untenable for a rebel army. I have destroyed over 2,000 barns, filled with wheat, hay, and farming implements; over seventy mills filled with flour and wheat; have driven in front of the army over 4,000 head of stock; and have killed and issued to the troops not less than 3,000 sheep." |