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When in 1864, with
Grant and
Meade and
Sheridan in the
East, and
Sherman and
Thomas in the
West, the
National army closed with the
Confederate, it was in a struggle which all regarded as the final one.
In June, after
Grant with all his available force had besieged
Richmond and
Petersburg,
Lee, feeling secure behind fortifications, detached an army of twenty-five thousand picked troops under
General Jubal A. Early, including the flower of his
Virginia cavalry, to invade the
North by way of the Shenandoah Valley, threaten
Washington from the rear, and, if possible, compel
Grant to retreat from the
James, as
McClellan had been forced to do two years before.
Hunter's failure at
Lynchburg, and his painful retreat through the wilderness of
West Virginia, had left a virtually open road for
Early's force to the boundary of
Pennsylvania, if not to
Washington, and this open road
Early was not slow to travel.
The defeat of the
Union provisional force at
Monocacy, the appearance of the rebel infantry before the western defenses of the
National Capital on the 12th of July, and the subsequent burning of
Chambersburg by
Early's cavalry, under
McCausland, had produced a very considerable civilian panic, attracted the anxious attention of the whole country, and convinced
Grant, before
Petersburg, that decisive measures were required in the neighborhood of the
Potomac if he was to retain his grip on the rebel capital.
Accordingly, two small-sized infantry corps (
Wright's Sixth and
Emory's Nineteenth) were dispatched to
Washington via Fortress Monroe, and were soon followed by two divisions (the First and
