Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 3.

1 See page 899, Volume II.

2 Grant directed Hunter, whom Sheridan succeeded, to “take all provisions, forage, and stock,” wanted for *the use of his command, when he should move up the valley, and to destroy what he could not consume; “for,” he said, “it is desirable that nothing should be left to invite the enemy to return.” He enjoined him not to burn, but rather to protect the buildings. He was to inform the people that so long as an army could subsist among them, raids like Early's must be expected, and that the Government was determined to put a stop to them. This order Sheridan executed to the fullest extent, and he reported from Woodstock,

October 7,

thirty miles south of Winchester, saying: “In moving back to this point, 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, and over 70 mills filled with flour and wheat; have driven in front of this army over 4,000 head of stock, and have killed and issued to the troops not less than 8,000 sheep.” He also reported that since he entered the valley from Harper's Ferry, “every train, every small party, and every stragglers had been bushwhacked by the people, many of whom have protection papers.” Lieutenant Meigs, his engineer officer, was thus murdered near Dayton. “For this atrocious act,” says Sheridan, “all the houses within an area of five miles were burned.” w Because of these devastations, a Richmond paper, echoing the sentiments of the chief Conspirators at that capital, proposed an atrocious scheme of retaliation. It was nothing less than the destruction of Northern cities by secret hired incendiaries. It was proposed to pay liberally for the service. “A million of dollars,” said the Richmond Whig, “would lay in ashes New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Pittsburg, Washington, and all their chief cities, and the men to do the business may be picked up by the hundred in the streets of those very cities. If it should be thought unsafe to use them, there are daring men in Canada, of Morgan's and other commands, who have escaped from Yankee dungeons, and would rejoice at an opportunity of doing something that would make all Yankeedom howl with anguish and consternation.” The enterprise was actually undertaken, and on the night of the 25th of November, 1864, an attempt was made to destroy New York City. Barnum's Museum, several hotels, and one or two theaters, were fired in the evening, by a combustible compound left by secret emissaries of the public enemies. Jacob Thompson, one of the conspirators, then in Canada (see page 45, volume I.), appears to have had the incendiary business in charge, and to have been engaged, in connection with those at Richmond, in the iniquitous scheme long before Sheridan's operations. So early as the beginning of August, he wrote to the Confederate “Secretary of War,” saying the work would not probably begin before the middle of August.--[See A Rebel War Clerk's Diary, II., 260.] The Richmond journals, impatient because the work had not been begun sooner, and stirred by Sheridan's operations, spoke out without reserve, as we have seen in the above extract.