the Nineteenth on the right, with Custer's cavalry on the extreme right, and Merritt's cavalry on the extreme left. While the line was forming, Sheridan seemed to be everywhere at once, attending to the work of re-organization, dashing up and down the front and imbuing the men with his own wonderful enthusiasm and courage. "Boys," said he, "If I had been here this never should have happened. I tell you it never should have happened. And now we are going back to our camps. We are going to get a twist on them. We are going to lick them out of their boots." Shouts and cheers followed him, and though they had eaten nothing since the night before, and had been fighting for five hours, the excited soldiers felt a new strength given them by the confidant bearing and language of their heroic commander. The Confederates, meantime, had placed their artillery in range of our new position and then a grand charge was made across the fields, directly on the Nineteenth Corps. Emory had orders to stop the enemy's advance at all hazards, and the terrible repulse which hurled back Early's men showed how well the order was obeyed. When the news of the repulse was despatched to Sheridan, “Thank God for that," said he, "Now then tell General Emory if they attack him again, to go after them and follow them up, and to sock it into them, and to give them the devil!" And with almost every word, bringing his right hand down into the palm of his left, with a sharp blow, he added, "We'll get the tightest twist on them yet, you ever saw,—we'll have all those camps and cannon back again.” And Sheridan kept his word. Early, compelled to relinquish the offensive, retired a short distance and began throwing up breast-works. Their wagon-trains were brought across Cedar Run, with the evident intention of retaining their position during the night. But Sheridan did not propose to stop short of putting the enemy to rout and regaining the lost camps on Cedar Creek. At half-past three o'clock, therefore, the re-organized troops dashed forward in a bold charge, Getty's Second Division having the advance. A murderous fire from artillery and musketry greeted them as they rushed towards the foe, and under its withering blaze the lines broke and fell back. "The sight roused Sheridan almost to frenzy, and galloping amid the broken ranks, he, by his thrilling appeals and almost superhuman efforts, restored order, and although his few remaining cannon could make but a feeble response to the overwhelming batteries of the enemy, he ordered the advance to be resumed. "The next moment came a prolonged roar of musketry, mingled with the long-drawn yell of our charge —then the artillery ceased-the musketry died into spattering bursts, and over all the yell triumphant. "Everything on the first line, the stone walls, the advanced crest, the tangled wood, and the half-finished breast-works had been carried." Where shot and shell crashed thickest, there rode Sheridan, heedless of the storm, dashing along the front and giving his orders in person to the various division and corps commanders. It was a fearful crisis, but Sheridan, with the grandeur of a hero, rose master of the situation, and as our brave boys responded to his appeals, they swept everything before them with resistless valor and sent the panic-stricken enemy flying in utter confusion and rout. On through Middletown and beyond it, the pursuing army of the Shenandoah chased the flying foe. The squadrons of Custer and Merritt charged the flanks of the enemy right and left, "taking prisoners, slashing, killing, driving as they went." The road was strewn with knapsacks, muskets, clothing, and everything that could retard the flight of the panic-stricken foe, the guns they had captured from us and their own artillery falling into our hands. The pursuit did not cease until the Confederates had been driven through Strasburg to Fisher's Hill and beyond to Woodstock, sixteen miles distant. The victorious army that night bivouacked in their old camps along Cedar Creek, and though they had not yet tasted food and though the dead and wounded lay all around them, nothing could repress their enthusiasm over the great victory; as the news of the capture of prisoners and guns from the pursuing cavalry in the advance, came to them, the air was rent with their cheers. Thus ends the record of one of the most wonderful contests of the war, of which Sheridan was pre-eminently the savior. It is a battle scene which stands out like a picture on the page of history, and over the central figure of Sheridan and his black charger, there hovers a cloud of glory whose light outlines the splendid spectacle of the hero on his "eagle flight" and before which all hearts yield willing homage. "Hurrah! hurrah for Sheridan ! Hurrah! hurrah for horse and man! And when their statues are placed on high, CHAPTER XLI. WAYNESBORO. Personal Experiences.-Concealed in a Cypress Swamp.—The Union Guns.-Wheeler at Waynesboro.-The Enemy's Attack on Atkins. Repulse.-Kilpatrick Charges the Barricades, Everything Swept before Them.-Valor of Union Soldiers.-Wheeler in Disordered Flight.-Union Pursuit.-Kilpatrick's Report.-Sherman's Complimentary Letter.-Incidents in the Author's Escape. THE HE name of Waynesboro summons back to remem brance, with all the vivid power attributed to Aladdin's wonderful lamp, the perilous days of my escape from southern prisons. Skirting the Savannah River, within hearing of the railroad trains which rolled heavily by with their loads of yelling Confederate soldiers, we heard, with a thrill of joy, the heavy boom of cannon which told us our friends were near. No voice of welcome, greeting the return of the wanderer from foreign lands, ever sounded sweeter to home-sick hearts than did the roar of Union guns to my companion and myself on that December day. But the Savannah River flowed between us and liberty, and had we ventured from our place of concealment in the daytime, certain capture would have awaited us. We did not then know that Sherman was making his grand march to the sea, and that our own Kilpat |