Not only in retaliation for this one act, but for scores of other acts of a like or worse character, of which they were cognizant, and with a view to strike terror into the minds of such men as had been, and still were, harboring and encouraging these guerillas--men who were farmers by day and robbers by night--both General Grant and General Sheridan determined to inaugurate a wholesale system of devastation in the localities where these outrages had been mostly carried on--especially in the Virginia counties of Shenandoah, Rockingham, Loudon, and Fauquier. As a result of this policy--or, more properly speaking, _as a result of the outrages which had been perpetrated by Moseby's guerillas_ (for the policy would never have been thought of but for these outrages)--the following destruction of property is reported to have occurred in the four counties named, between the 1st of October, when the policy was inaugurated, and the forepart of December (1864), when Merritt's cavalry division crossed the Blue Ridge, and made a grand raid through the upper part of Loudon and Fauquier counties: In Shenandoah and Rockingham counties--according to the official report of a commissioner of the revenue to the Richmond authorities--"there were burned 18 dwelling-houses, 215 barns, 11 grist-mills, 9 water saw-mills, 2 steam saw-mills, 1 furnace, 2 forges, 1 fulling-mill, besides a number of smaller buildings, such as stables, etc. The quantity of grain destroyed is immense. I cannot give you any idea of the amount of grain, hay, fodder, etc., destroyed, but the quantity is very large." In Loudon and Fauquier counties--according to the official report made by General Sheridan to General Grant at the time--the property burned and captured was as follows: Burned--barns, 1168; mills, 49; tanneries, 1; factories, 2; distilleries, 6; tons of hay, 27,620; bushels of wheat, 51,500; bushels of corn, 62,900; bushels of oats, 2000; haystacks, 1121; wheatstacks, 57; stacks of other grains, 104. Captured--horses, 388; mules, 8; cattle, 5520; sheep, 5837; swine, 1141. Total estimated value of property destroyed and captured in these two counties, $2,508,756. It should be added, as a further reason for the destruction of wheat, corn, hay, etc., that General Lee had been drawing his supplies largely from these four counties, and it was therefore for the purpose of crippling Lee's army, as well as to punish these farmers for harboring and aiding Moseby's guerillas, that this wholesale destruction of property was planned and executed.