A combination of hardball politics and equally toughminded military strategy brought these two men together. Lincoln faced a tough reelection campaign in 1864. The American people were tired of the long war, and there were growing indications they might take out their frustrations on election day. Lincoln sorely needed a battlefield victory to enhance his fortunes at the polls.

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So far, Northern troops had been stymied in the Southern-leaning Shenandoah Valley, where a Confederate force under Lt. Gen. Jubal Early pushed to the outskirts of Washington near the end of July 1864. No matter which commander Lincoln and his new General-in-Chief, Ulysses S. Grant, sent to the Shenandoah, Union troops seemed unable to check the Confederates.

Grant realized a victorious campaign in the Valley would eliminate a major military headache. The Valley posed a constant threat to Washington because its axis ran straight at the Northern capital. Southern troops, continuously replenished by the Valley’s abundant crops, could easily be shifted into the Valley from farther south through the Blue Ridge Mountains’ numerous gaps. In effect, the Valley formed a Confederate highway aimed at the Northern nerve center.

On the other hand, the Valley could not be similarly used by the North, for the Valley led away from the Confederate capital at Richmond. The farther a Northern army marched up the Valley, the farther it moved from its bases of supplies, and it would always be subject to a Confederate flank or rear attack through the gaps. Grant concluded that since the fertile Valley was useless for Northern operations while being invaluable to his adversary, he must eliminate the Valley as a factor for both sides.

This would not be easy, as Confederate armies were running short of supplies and could ill-afford to lose the Valley’s cattle, flour, corn, fruits, poultry and dairy products. Grant also recognized that a potent Northern force in the Shenandoah would open Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s left flank to attack and also threaten important Southern railroad lines. The man he needed to accomplish such daunting objectives had to be a skilled fighter, someone who could spur his men into action and put an end to the seesaw type of battles that epitomized Valley warfare. The man Grant turned to was Maj. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan, then commander of cavalry for the Army of the Potomac.

Sheridan was then only 33 years old, but he had become one of Grant’s favorite officers. Sheridan was an energetic leader who possessed the rare ability to gain others’ respect without apparent effort. His troops quickly rallied around him; an officer compared Sheridan to ‘an electric shock… The only commander I ever met whose personal appearance in the field was an immediate and positive stimulus to battle.’

Grant left no doubt as to how Sheridan was to proceed. He ordered Sheridan to ‘Put himself south of the enemy and follow him to the death.’ Grant wanted Sheridan to rely on cavalry rather than infantry, telling him, ‘Let your headquarers be in the saddle.’ Sheridan was to ‘eat out Virginia clear and clean as far as they [soldiers] go, so that crows flying over it for the balance of the season will have to carry their provender with them. ‘

Harsh orders, indeed, and quite different from the relatively more genteel times in the early part of the war. But war breeds destruction, and the Civil War in 1864 was a changed conflict. It had become a war of attrition, and civilians and their homes were now considered fair targets.

In early August, Sheridan moved south with 36,000 men toward the section of Virginia known as ‘Mosby’s Confederacy,’ prepared to lay waste to the green Valley that had caused so many problems for the North. Advancing with Sheridan was one of his close friends, the commander of the Michigan Brigade, Brig. Gen. ‘Autie’ Custer.

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