“ [598] again in 1689, there was a general outcry throughout Europe against such a mode of carrying on war; and when the French minister Louvois alleged that the object in view was to cover the French frontier against the invasion of the enemy, the advantage which France derived from the act was universally held to be inadequate to the suffering inflicted, and the act itself to be therefore unjustifiable.”
Battle of Cedar Creek.
Having received reinforcements, Gen. Early returned to the Valley in October. These reinforcements consisted of one division of infantry (Kershaw's), numbering twenty-seven hundred muskets, one small battalion of artillery, and about six hundred cavalry, which about made up the Confederate losses at Winchester and Fisher's Hill. On the 9th October, Rosser's cavalry, which had hung on Sheridan's rear, was attacked on the Strasburg pike, while a division of cavalry, moving by a back road, took him in flank. In this affair the enemy took eleven pieces of artillery and several hundred prisoners. On the 18th October, Early was again at Cedar Creek, between Strasburg and Winchester. He had less than ten thousand men, and about forty pieces of artillery. His force was inadequate for open attack, and his only opportunity was to make a surprise. The enemy was posted on a line of low hills, the Eighth corps on the left, the Nineteenth corps in the centre, and the Sixth corps on the right, somewhat in rear and in reserve. Early's dispositions for attack were to make a feint with light artillery and cavalry against the enemy's right, while the bulk of his forces marched towards the left where the Sixth corps was posted.The movement commenced a little past midnight. Whilst demonstrations were made against the Federal right, whence the sounds of musketry already announced a fight on the picket line, the flanking columns of the Confederates toiled along seven miles of rugged country, crossing the north fork of the Shenandoah by a ford about a mile to the east of the junction of Cedar Creek with that stream. The march was performed in profound silence. Many places had to be traversed by the men in single file, who occasionally had to cling to bushes on the precipitous sides of the mountain to assist their foothold. At dawn the flanking column was across the ford: Gordon's division in front, next Ramseur's, and Pegram's in reserve. A heavy fog yet favoured them. The enemy's pickets had not yet taken the alarm; some of them had reported that they heard a heavy, muffled tramp and rustling through the underbrush, but no attention was paid to a supposed fancy, and no reconnaissance was sent out. Early had brought his column, unperceived, to the rear of the left flank of the Federal
