Again his subordinates had blundered terribly but Grant accepted the responsibility and assumed the blame, waiting patiently for the hour, then near at hand, when he would find commanders he could trust to carry out his plans. Chapter XXVIII. -- The Beginning of the End The right man to conduct the Shenandoah campaign was already in the Army of the Potomac, but it was not until about a week after the failure of the Petersburg mine that circumstances enabled Grant to place General Philip Sheridan in charge of that important task. Sheridan, like Sherman, had served with Grant in the West and had developed into a brilliant cavalry leader. Indeed, he was the only man in the Northern armies whose record could be compared with that of Jeb Stuart and many other great cavalry commanders in the South. But Grant felt that Sheridan could handle an entire army as well as he had handled the cavalry alone and he soon showed himself fully worthy of this confidence, for from the moment he took over the command of the Union forces in the Shenandoah Valley, the Confederates were compelled to fight for it as they had never fought before. Up to this time, the war had been conducted with comparatively little destruction of private property on either side. But the moment had now arrived for harsher measures, for Sherman had occupied Atlanta on September 2, 1864, and was preparing to march to the sea coast and cut the Confederacy in two. If Grant's plan of depriving Lee of the fertile valley to the north was to be put in operation, there was no time to lose. Sheridan, accordingly, at once proceeded to attack the Confederates with the utmost vigor, defeating them in two engagements at Winchester and Fisher's Hill, and following up this success by laying waste the fields and ruthlessly destroying all the stores of grain and provisions which might prove useful to Lee's army. For a month or more he continued to sweep through the country practically unchecked. But on October 19.1864, during his absence, his army was surprised and furiously attacked by General Early's men at Cedar Creek, and before long they had the Union troops in a perilous position which threatened to end in their destruction and the recapture of the entire valley. Sheridan was at Winchester on his way to the front from Washington when the news of this impending disaster reached him and, mounting his horse, he dashed straight across country for the scene of action. He was then, however, fully twenty miles from the field and there seemed but little chance of his reaching it any time to be of any service. Nevertheless, he spurred forward at a breakneck pace and his splendid horse, responding gamely, fairly flew over the ground, racing along mile after mile at killing speed in a lather of foam and sweat, until the battle field was reached just as the Union troops came reeling back, panic-stricken, under cover of a thin line of troops who had at last succeeded in making a stand.