Oct. 15 Sheridan was summoned to Washington for consultation. Early, learning his absence, and having been reinforced by twelve thousand troops, decided at once to give battle at Cedar Creek. His army marched at midnight, canteens being left in camp, lest they make a noise. At daybreak, Oct. 19, with the well-known "rebel yell" the enemy rushed upon the sleeping camps of the Union army. Nearly a thousand of our men were taken prisoners, and eighteen guns. A panic ensued, and in utter confusion, though there was some brave fighting, our troops fell back to the rear. Sheridan, on his way from Washington, had slept at Winchester that night, twenty miles away. At nine o'clock he rode out of the town on his splendid black horse, unconscious of danger to his army. Soon the sound of battle was heard, and not a mile away he met the fugitives. He at once ordered some troops to stop the stragglers, and rushed on to the front as swiftly as his foaming steed could carry him, swinging his hat, and shouting, "Face the other way, boys! face the other way! If I had been here, boys, this never should have happened." Meeting a colonel who said, "The army is whipped," he replied, "You are, but the army isn't!" Rude breastworks of stones, rocks, and trees were thrown up. Then came desperate fighting, and then the triumphant charge. The first line was carried, and then the second, Sheridan leading a brigade in person. Early's army was thoroughly routed. The captured guns were all retaken, besides twenty-four pieces of artillery and sixteen hundred prisoners. Early reported eighteen hundred killed and wounded. Again the whole North rejoiced over this victory. Sheridan was made a major-general in the regular army "for the personal gallantry, military skill and just confidence in the courage and gallantry of your troops displayed by you on the 19th day of October at Cedar Run," said Lincoln, "whereby, under the blessing of Providence, your routed army was reorganized, a great national disaster averted, and a brilliant victory achieved over the rebels for the third time in pitched battle within thirty days." General Grant wrote from City Point, "Turning what bid fair to be a disaster into a glorious victory stamps Sheridan what I always thought him, one of the ablest of generals." Well wrote Thomas Buchanan Read in that immortal poem, "Sheridan's Ride":-- "Hurrah! hurrah for Sheridan! Hurrah! hurrah for horse and man! And when their statues are placed on high, Under the dome of the Union sky, The American soldier's Temple of Fame, There with the glorious General's name, Be it said in letters both bold and bright, 'Here is the steed that saved the day, By carrying Sheridan into the fight From Winchester, twenty miles away!'" The noble animal died in Chicago, October, 1878.