General Sheridan was on his way from Winchester to his army headquarters at Cedar Creek when he heard the roar of the cannon which convinced him that a great battle was being fought. He at once made haste to take charge of his army, this being Sheridan's famous ride. He first met stragglers of his army, and then passed through brigade after brigade of his retreating army, which so blocked the highway that he was compelled to leave the same and take to the fields. He at length succeeded in stopping the retreat and turned it into an attacking column. In this retreat were two divisions commanded by two future presidents, viz.: President Hayes and McKinley. This attack on the Confederates completely surprised them, and they were utterly routed and so badly defeated that Early's army was never completely reorganized, this being the last principal engagement in the Shenandoah Valley. Previous to these battles in the valley, Early had dispatched General McCausland with his division of cavalry to go into Pennsylvania to levy large sums of money on the towns in reprisal for Hunter's depredations in the Shenandoah Valley. This cavalry party burned the town of Chambersburg. THE SIEGE AND FALL OF PETERSBURG After the battle of Cold Harbor Grant remained a few days trying to find a weak place in the Confederate lines. This he abandoned and resolved to move his army across the James and to Petersburg, which place is about twenty miles from Richmond, and was defended by General Beauregard with a small division of the Confederate army. Petersburg was at the junction of three railroads, and was a place of great importance to the Confederacy, as all the supplies of Lee's army, as well as to Richmond, came by the way of Petersburg, and for these reasons General Grant resolved to destroy the railroads, and if possible to capture the city, and thus destroy the Confederates' source of supplies. These conditions being well known to Lee, he resolved to defend Petersburg, and to save it from capture if possible, and thus began the greatest struggle of its kind known in modern times. The advance divisions of Grant's army, under Hancock and W. F. Smith, appeared before Petersburg June 15, 1864. Beauregard managed to hold the entrenchments with his small force until Lee's main army arrived, which came by a shorter route than the one which the Federals had taken. Both armies were in full force before Petersburg by the evening of the 18th, and the great struggle had now begun. The Confederate entrenchments extended for thirty miles, and the whole country was a network of fortifications. Grant at once began to extend his lines of entrenchments, and thus the two armies were pitted against each other for their last great struggle, the army of General Grant numbering more than 100,000 men, while that of General Lee was about half that number.