tities of stores for Lee's army, which we might have captured. But spies and traitors in our camp had given timely information; and although we flanked the enemy and drove him away precipitately, the stores were gone. This movement of our cavalry was designed to clear the way for the advance of the grand army by the left flank. Here we shall leave the direct advance for a short time, to consider the collateral parts of the great programme.

CHAPTER XXX.

CO-OPERATING MOVEMENTS.

SHERIDAN'S RAID. THE BATTLE OF YELLOW TAVERN.-J. E. B. STUART KILLED.— THE RAIDERS REACH THE JAMES.-FORTUNES OF SIGEL.-DEFEATED BY BRECKINRIDGE. BUTLER'S MOVEMENTS.-HIS DISPATCH.-BEAUREGARD'S ATTACK.-HERMETICALLY SEALED.-Kautz's RAID.-STANTON'S DISPATCH.-BUTLER'S FAILURE.— How THE WANT OF CO-OPERATION AFFECTED GRANT.

THE Co-operating movements which Grant had, as we have seen, so skilfully and carefully prearranged, claim a place in the history, not only as parts, although subordinate, of the great campaign, but also, and especially, because they display new traits of genius and skill on the part of the great commander. The failure of some of these caused him to alter his plans under the pressure of circumstances, and gave him a thousandfold additional trouble. The first that we shall consider, because it was made by a portion of the Army of the Potomac, and may be considered indeed a part of its movement, is the very successful, well-conducted cavalry raid of General Sheridan, to aid our advance by cutting Lee's communications with Richmond.

SHERIDAN 8 RAID.

This gallant and self-confident general moved from Spottsylvania at daylight on Monday, the 9th of May, with portions of the three divisions of his corps,-General Merrit, with the First Division, leading; General Wilson, with the Third, in the centre; and General Gregg, with the Second, bringing up the rear. His first direction, to deceive the enemy, was

towards Fredericksburg; but when within three miles of that city, he turned southward, passed rapidly along the enemy's right flank, chiefly by the Niggerfoot road, to Child's Ford, and thence to the crossing of the North Anna by Anderson's Bridge. He captured the Beaver Dam Station on the Central Railroad, destroyed two locomotives, three trains of cars, ten miles of the railroad track, and one million five hundred thou-, sand rations. Here also he recaptured four hundred of our men who had been captured in the recent battles, and were being taken to the horrors of the Libby prison at Richmond. With our later knowledge of the atrocities committed in the rebel prisons, this latter alone was a sufficient achievement, had nothing else been done. At the Beaver Dam Station they were violently attacked by the enemy in flank and rear, and met with some inconsiderable losses, but their advance was not long impeded.

On Wednesday morning, the 11th, Sheridan marched to the crossing of the South Anna River at Ground Squirrel Bridge, and sent one brigade, under General Davies, to Ashland Station on the railroad. There Davies burned the depot, destroyed six miles of the track, with the culverts and army bridges, and returned unscathed to the main body, which had been pursuing its march southward.

Hearing that the enemy's cavalry was in force at Yellow Tavern, Sheridan advanced boldly, by the way of Glenallen Station, to meet him. Here he crossed swords with the redoubtable General J. E. B. Stuart, and drove him away with loss. Stuart, no less anxious for battle than Sheridan, opened the fight, by attacking our advanced brigade, under Devens, which might have been overpowered had it not been promptly supported by the brigades of Custer, Gill, and Wilson. The greatest loss to the enemy, and a corresponding advantage to us, was, found in the fact that General Stuart was mortally wounded in this action. This officer was perhaps the best cavalry general in the rebel service. A graduate of West Point in the class of 1854, he had resigned his commission in the United States army to join the rebel cause; and being

constantly engaged in Virginia, had greatly distinguished himself in many battles, and particularly in bold raids on the flanks and rear of our army. He had now met more than his match as a raider, and his death at the hands of a raiding party. A man of such skill and untiring energy should have fallen in a better cause.

Pursuing his advantage gained at Yellow Tavern, Sheridan made a bold dash upon the outer defences of Richmond. Having gained the Brook Pike, which lay west of the Yellow Tavern, he charged across the Brook creek or river against the first line, which he carried, Custer's brigade even capturing a section of artillery and a hundred prisoners. Finding the second line too strong, and thoroughly commanded by redoubts and bastioned works, and the enemy's troops rallying to the defence, Sheridan recrossed his advanced troops, and retired rapidly to the passage of the Chickahominy at Meadow Bridge. To cut off his retreat, he found that the enemy had partially destroyed the bridge, and had commanded the ruins by a force of infantry from Richmond. He rebuilt it hastily under a galling fire, and then detaching a force to watch the enemy on his right flank, he moved rapidly through Mechanicsville, by a slight detour through Cold Harbor, to a second crossing of the Chickahominy at Bottom's Bridge. After crossing he destroyed the bridge, and proceeded to Turkey Bend, where he communicated by messenger with General Butler. His weary troopers reached Haxall's, on the James, on the 14th of May.

As compared with the encounters of large armies, the terrible shocks of battle, in which thousands fall, such exploits as this of Sheridan's bold riders are for the time eclipsed; but this expedition, conducted with rare address and dashing valor, produced moral effects upon the enemy which cannot be ignored. It is, besides, one of the beautiful and logical steps in the progress of Sheridan's reputation, which found its acme of glory in the last days of the great war.

UNIT

THE FORTUNES OF SIGEL

LIT

In accordance with the precise instructions from General Grant, to which we have already referred, Sigel's movements in the Valley and in Western Virginia were commenced on the 1st of May.

He confided the immediate command of the Kanawha expedition to General George Crook, who divided his forces into two columns, one of which was under General W. W. Averill. Both columns, starting from Charleston, on the Kanawha, crossed the mountains by separate routes. Without attempting to present the details of their march, it is sufficient to our purpose to know that the column under Averill struck the Tennessee and Virginia Railroad, near Wytheville, on the 10th, and then moved, not unimpeded by the enemy, to New River and Christianburg. Averill destroyed the New River Bridge, skilfully eluded the gathering forces of the enemy, but did not succeed in destroying the lead-mines. He joined Crook at Union, in Monroe County, on the 15th.

Crook, leaving Charleston on the same day, with three brigades, advanced rapidly, with the purpose of striking the railroad at Dublin Station, between Wytheville and New River. Fighting the enemy, as he marched southward, at Princetown, and near the southwestern base of Lloyd's Mountain, he advanced to the railroad, drove them through Dublin, and destroyed the railroad effectually, southwestward as far as Newberne. A large force of the enemy now appearing, he did not attempt to advance upon Lynchburg, but marched northward to Meadow Bluff, in Greenbrier County. This double expedition, although it had frightened the enemy and drawn oft his troops, had not succeeded as a co-operating column.

Let us now turn to Sigel. This officer, in accordance with his instructions, had moved with a force not far short of eight thousand men, up the Shenandoah Valley, as far as Newmar- ↑ ket, a town near the Manassas Gap Railroad, about fifty miles from Winchester, and midway between Mount Jackson and Harrisonburg. To meet him and contest his advance, the