The Real Custer (22 page)

A
s Grant pushed Lee toward Richmond in the spring, Union forces pressed south in the western part of the state. In May 1864, Major General Franz Sigel moved into the Shenandoah Valley, intending to cut the supply and rail head at Lynchburg to strain communications between Lee's forces, Richmond, and the rest of the Confederacy. Sigel was defeated at the Battle of New Market on May 15, but the campaign continued under sixty-one-year-old Major General David “Black Dave” Hunter, who reached Lynchburg on June 17. On the same day, Confederate forces under the command of Lieutenant General Jubal Anderson Early arrived from Petersburg and dug in. After a series of probing attacks, Hunter concluded erroneously that he was outnumbered and withdrew through West Virginia.

Seizing the opportunity, Early swept north unopposed, crossed the Potomac near Harper's Ferry, and by July was fighting inside the District
of Columbia, on the outskirts of the City of Washington. He failed to enter the capital, but the movement had the desired effect: Early bragged that his men “didn't take Washington but we scared Abe Lincoln like hell.”

Early's campaign convinced Grant that he needed a permanent solution to the Shenandoah Valley problem. In August, he chose Phil Sheridan to command the newly organized Army of the Shenandoah. His objective was to end the threat posed by Early and destroy the valley as a base of Confederate operations and supply. Grant ordered Sheridan to “do all the damage you can to railroad and crops, carry off stock of all descriptions and negroes, so as to prevent further planting. If the war is to last another year let the Shenandoah valley remain a barren waste.”
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He wanted the valley so stripped of supplies that “the crows flying over it will have to carry their provender with them.”
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Sheridan put Torbert in command of his Cavalry Corps, with the 1st and 3rd Cavalry Divisions, commanded by Merritt and Wilson, along with Duffie's and Averell's cavalry divisions of the Army of West Virginia. Custer's Michigan Brigade was part of Merritt's command.

The rebels lost no time in giving Sheridan's men a baptism by fire. Confederate infantry under Brigadier General William T. Wofford met the Yankees as Devin's Brigade moved into the valley, and a spirited fight ensued along the Front Royal Pike. Rebel infantry and artillery was pushing Devin back, and Custer's brigade rushed through Chester Gap toward Front Royal to help in the repulse.

The enemy retreated back over the Shenandoah and rushed downstream to re-cross, seeking to mount a flank attack from Guard Hill, a commanding promontory between the Shenandoah's north fork and a creek called Crooked Run. Custer intuited their move and sent the dismounted 5th Michigan under Colonel Alger up the hill first, concealed by the rolling terrain. As the Confederates launched their attack with a spirited yell, Alger's men dashed up to the crest of the hill and began
“pouring down upon the enemy a storm of bullets from their seven-shooters,” as one report described, “before which the enemy again broke and fled towards the ford.”
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Custer had anticipated the retreat as well, and he sent the 1st Michigan to capture the crossing. Seeing their way blocked, many rebels threw away their weapons and swam for it, some drowning in the attempt. Over 250 simply surrendered. Confederate cavalry charged the ford to try to open it and free the prisoners, but Custer countered this with the 7th Michigan, and by evening “the enemy, foiled and whipped at every point, made no further attempt to cross the river.”
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“The cavalry made some handsome saber charges,” Sheridan reported, “in which most of the prisoners were captured. Colonel Devin was slightly wounded, but continued in the saddle. General Custer made a very narrow escape.”
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Merritt praised Custer for the “masterly manner” in which he conducted the battle. The
New York Tribune
ran a glowing description of Custer:

            
Future writers of fiction will find in Brig Gen Custer most of the qualities which go to make up a first-class hero and stories of his daring will be told around many a hearth stone long after the old flag again kisses the breeze from Maine to the Gulf. With a small little figure, blue eyes and golden hair which will persist in curling loosely around his head; dressed in a navy blue shirt and dark blue pants, and wearing a black slouched hat ventilated by holes cut in the side, Gen. Custer is as gallant a cavalier as one would wish to see. No officer in the ranks of the Union Army entertains for his rebel enemy a more sincere contempt than Gen. C. and probably no cavalry officer in our army is better known or more feared by the foe than he. Always circumspect, never rash, and viewing the circumstances under which he is placed as coolly as a
chess player observes his game, Gen. Custer always sees “the 'vantage of the ground” at a glance, and like the eagle watching his prey from some mountain crag, sweeps down upon his adversary and seldom fails in achieving a signal success. Frank and independent in his demeanor, Gen. C. unites the qualities of the true gentleman with that of the accomplished and fearless soldier.
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A trooper who fought in the Front Royal battle summed it up more succinctly: “By G—d Custer is a brick!”
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Sparring continued between Sheridan's and Early's forces in the weeks that followed, with skirmishes and other engagements almost daily until mid-September. Each side sought advantage. Early raided in Sheridan's rear and disrupted the B&O Railroad at Martinsburg, while Sheridan probed Early's defenses and looked for an opening for a thrust down the valley. With increasing pressure from Grant and Washington to move south, Sheridan planned a major attack on Early at Winchester.

On September 19, Sheridan launched an infantry assault on the town from the east, moving VI and XIX Corps up the Berryville Pike. Sheridan hoped to exploit the dispersion of Early's regiments in the surrounding area, but the Union column was slowed crossing Opequon Creek five miles from Winchester town center, then blocked passing through a narrow gorge fronting the rebel positions. The slow advance gave Early time to establish lines east and north of town. The rebels were heavily outnumbered but mounted a spirited defense. Early's troops slowly withdrew and consolidated their lines, fighting among earthworks leftover from the battle fought there in 1862. The grinding fight continued into the afternoon with heavy casualties on both sides.

“Just at this critical period,” a reporter noted, “above the roar of artillery and musketry, and the cheers and fierce yells of the contending armies, could be distantly heard the shrill notes of cavalry bugles sounding
a charge.”
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Torbert's cavalry had arrived from the north, six thousand troopers in two divisions under Merritt and Averell, with Custer's brigade in the center. They moved quickly through the open fields on both sides of Martinsburg Pike, heading straight to Winchester. Chaplain Charles A. Humphreys of the 2nd Massachusetts Cavalry recalled that a “continuous and heavy line of skirmishers covered the advance, using only the carbine, while the line of brigades as they advanced across the open country, the bands playing the national airs, presented in the sunlight one moving mass of glittering sabres intermingled here and there with bright-colored banners and battle-flags. It was one of the most inspiring and imposing scenes of martial grandeur ever witnessed.”
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Ahead of them were three brigades of Fitzhugh Lee's cavalry, and an infantry brigade commanded by Colonel George S. Patton, grandfather of the famous general who later bore his name. A Confederate soldier seeing the advance said, “I never saw such a sight in my life as that of the tremendous force, the flying banners, sparkling bayonets and flashing sabers moving from the north and east upon the left flank and rear of our army.”
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The rebel cavalry, which had been driven back, regrouped to attack the Union horsemen. “As this column approached we prepared to meet it,” one report read. “Sabres were drawn and all was got ready. On came the rebels with their sabres flashing and their hideous yells, scattering themselves so as to make their line of attack fierce as possible. Just as they got within pistol range of Custer, his brigade went forward recklessly upon the foe.” Averell's division also charged ahead, overlapping the rebel flank. The Confederates pulled back, and “on went our chargers cutting and slashing through their ranks.”
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“Both divisions advanced rapidly,” Torbert wrote, “driving the enemy's cavalry pell-mell before them, on and behind their infantry.”
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The Union cavalry drove the rebels back toward their main defensive line, with the infantry anchored at a redoubt called Fort Collier. “Boot to boot
these brave horsemen rode in,” Merritt recalled.
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The Confederate troops formed a square and prepared to make a stand. Their momentum up the left side of the Federal cavalry was ordered to charge the emplacement, with Custer at the front.

“Officers and men seemed to vie with each other as to who should lead,” Custer wrote. “The enemy upon our approach turned and delivered a well-directed volley of musketry, but before a second discharge could be given my command was in their midst, sabering right and left.”

The rebel left flank broke under the shock of Custer's attack. “Many of them threw down their arms and cried for mercy,” Merritt wrote, “others hung tenaciously to their muskets, using them with their muzzles against our soldiers' breasts; a number took refuge in a house and fought through the doors and windows.” But as the cavalry broke up the Confederate defenses on the left flank north of Winchester, a successful infantry attack by Crook's VIII Corps turned the left end of the line east of the town. Then, as Merritt put it, “the miserable remnant of Early's army fled madly through the streets of Winchester.”

“The broken and demoralized divisions comprising Early's command now fled in confusion,” a reporter wrote, “throwing away everything which could in any way impede their flight, and strewing the ground with their arms.”
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Early's controlled withdrawal had turned into a rout. Confederate Generals Robert E. Rodes and Archibald C. Goodwin were killed in the retreat, and Colonel Patton was mortally wounded trying to rally his broken brigade as his men dashed through the town. Other senior officers, including Fitzhugh Lee, were wounded. Sheridan took over 5,000 casualties killed, wounded, and missing, compared with Early's approximately 3,600. But Union losses were an eighth of their total force, compared with a quarter of Early's. “We have just sent the enemy whirling through Winchester,” Sheridan reported to headquarters, “and shall be after them to-morrow.”

Early pulled back twenty miles to Fisher's Hill, where he was routed again three days later, opening the valley to Sheridan. Custer played no direct role in the battle, but it would have an important impact on his career. Fisher's Hill was mainly an infantry fight, but Averell's 2nd Cavalry Division was on the Union right to shield against possible rebel cavalry movements and exploit the expected Confederate retreat. Averell failed to pursue the retreating rebels with vigor, however, causing Sheridan to relieve him of command on September 26. Custer was given command of his division. Sheridan explained in his memoir that Custer had been made a general officer in 1863 “with the object of giving life to the Cavalry Corps,” and “though as yet commanding a brigade under Merritt, his gallant fight at Trevillian Station, as well as a dozen others during the summer, indicated that he would be equal to the work” of division command.

Four days later, Custer was shifted to command the 3rd Division. James H. Wilson—described by Custer as a “court favorite,” who was promoted from the engineers solely because of his personal relationship with Grant and not because of any particular aptitude for cavalry operations—was promoted to brevet major general of volunteers and transferred West.
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Custer had a dim view of Wilson, an “imbecile” who “nearly ruined the corps by his blunders,” he wrote after a botched raid in May 1864. At the time, the 1st Vermont, then under Wilson's command, “asked if they could not obtain ‘a pair of Custer's old boots' to command them.”
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With Wilson gone and Custer back with his old brigade as part of his command, he looked forward to having “the best Division in the Army.”
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Custer took over his division in the midst of the scouring of the valley. The victories at Winchester and Fisher's Hill had opened the way to
the upper Shenandoah and Luray Valleys, and Sheridan pushed his troops eighty-five miles to Staunton to commence the scorched-earth campaign. Union forces burned barns and foodstuffs, destroyed infrastructure, razed fields, and reduced one of the breadbaskets of the South to a charred, smoking ruin. The London
Guardian
reported on Grant's “characteristically cruel and ruthless” order to “do all possible damage to the railroads and the crops, to carry off the farming stock and the negroes, to take all available measures for preventing the cultivation of the soil, and, in view of the probability that the war would last for another year, to convert it into a ‘barren waste,' where not even a blade of grass should be permitted to grow.”
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