[117]
Sheridan's orders and conduct.
But whilst no one will dispute the fact that Sherman has a clear title to the distinction we have accorded him in this report, yet, unfortunately for the people of the South, he has other willing and efficient aids in his work of devastation, destruction and vandalism; and we must now take up, for a time, the work of his ‘close second,’ General Philip H. Sheridan. This officer is reputed to have said that the true principles for conducting war are—First. Deal as hard blows to the enemy's soldiers as possible, and then cause so much suffering to the inhabitants of the country that they will long for peace and press their government to make it.‘Nothing ’ (he says) ‘should be left to the people but eyes to lament the war.’ He certainly acted on the last of these principles in his dealings with the people of the beautiful Valley of Virginia, which, by his vandalism, was converted from one of the most fertile and beautiful portions of our land into a veritable ‘valley of the shadow of death.’ He actually boasted that he had so desolated it, that ‘a crow flying over would have to carry his own rations.’ In Sheridan's letter to Grant, dated Woodstock, October 7, 1864, he says of his work:
In moving back to this point the whole country, from the Blue Ridge to the North Mountain, has been made untenable for the rebel army. I have destroyed over 2,000 barns filled with wheat and hay and farming implements; over 70 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. This destruction embraces the Luray Valley and Little Fort Valley, as well as the main valley. A large number of horses have been obtained, a proper estimate of which I cannot now make. Lieutenant John R. Meigs, my engineer officer, was murdered beyond Harrisonburg, near Dayton. For this atrocious act all the houses within an area of five miles were burned.It is not generally known, we believe, that this policy of devastation on the part of Sheridan was directly inspired and ordered by General Grant, who, in his Memoirs, writes with great satisfaction [118] and levity of the outrages committed by Sherman, before referred to, and which he, of course, understood would be committed, from the terms of Sherman's telegram to him, and which he, at the least, acquiesced in. On the 5th of August, 1864, he (Grant) wrote to General David Hunter, who preceded Sheridan in command of the Valley, as follows, viz: ‘In pushing up the Shenandoah Valley, where it is expected you will have to go first or last, it is desirable that nothing should be left to invite the enemy to return. Take all provisions, forage and stock wanted for the use of your command; such as cannot be consumed destroy.’* * * And, says Mr. Horace Greeley: ‘This order Sheridan, in returning down the Valley, executed to the letter. Whatever of grain and forage had escaped appropriation by one or another of the armies which had so frequently chased each other up and down this narrow but fertile and productive vale, was now given to the torch.’ （2 Am. Conflict, 610-11. 2 Grant's Memoirs, 581, 364-5.) The facts about the alleged murder of Lieutenant Meigs, for which Sheridan says he burned all the houses in an area of five miles, are these: Three of our cavalry scouts, in uniform, and with their arms, got within Sheridan's lines, and encountered Lieutenant Meigs, with two Federal soldiers. These parties came on each other suddenly. Meigs was ordered to surrender by one of our men, and he replied by shooting and wounding this man, who, in turn, fired and killed Meigs. One of the men with Meigs was captured and the other escaped. It it was for this perfectly justifiable conduct in war that Sheridan says he ordered all the houses of private citizens within an area of five miles to be burned. (See proof of facts of this occurrence, to the satisfaction of Lieutenant Meigs' father, 9th South. His. Society Papers, page 77.)
