The first intention of the government was that he should take advantage of the Manassas Gap railway, which was again being restored under the protection of Augur's troops; but this work was not yet completed, and while Wright waited at Front Royal, Grant once more fell back on his first and favorite plan of a movement on Charlottesville and Gordonsville. To effect this he wished Sheridan to take up an advanced position toward the head of the valley, and to this the government added its favorite notion of rebuilding the railways in the rear. Halleck even went so far as to instruct Sheridan to fortify and provision heavily the position Grant had directed him to occupy. All these ideas Sheridan combated with such earnestness that he was summoned to Washington for consultation. Grant at the same time reduced his call on Sheridan for troops for service on the James to the Sixth Corps, and Sheridan, having on his own motion stopped the work on the Manassas Gap railway, ordered Wright to march on Alexandria by Ashby's Gap. Wright set out on the 12th. Sheridan having lost touch with the main body of the Confederates in returning down the valley, he, in common with Grant and with the government, now thought that Early had quitted the region for good. Sheridan's information placed Early variously at Gordonsville, Charlottesville, and in the neighborhood of Brown's Gap; but in truth, though nothing had been seen of Early's troops for some days, they had never gone out of the valley, but had slowly and at a long and safe interval been following Sheridan's footsteps, so that on the 13th, while Wright was well on his way towards Alexandria, and Sheridan himself was getting ready to go to Washington, Early once more took post at Fisher's Hill, and sent his advance guard directly on to Hupp's Hill to look down into the Union camps on the farther bank of Cedar Creek and see what was going on there. The first news of Early's presence, within two miles of the Union camp, at the very moment when he was thought to be sixty miles away on the line of the Virginia Central railway, was brought by the shells his artillery suddenly dropped among the tents of Crook. Thoburn at once moved out to capture the battery whose missiles had presented themselves as uninvited guests at his dinner-table, but was met by Kershaw and driven back after a sharp fight. Custer, who was covering the right flank of the army, was assailed at the same time by the Confederate cavalry, but easily threw off the attack. At the first sound Torbert sent Merritt from the left to the support of Custer, and afterward Sheridan kept him there.