This Monocacy campaign, as it is called in history, involved no great battle, but as a strategic influence it was an achievement of the utmost importance to General Lee. Before that campaign was begun Hunter's presence in the Valley and his mastery there served not only to cut off from Lee the rich supplies which it was his custom to draw from that quarter of the country, but also to threaten him dangerously in the rear. If Hunter had been let alone, he must presently have forced his way to Lynchburg, cutting Lee's chief line of communication with the south and west, and opening the way to a junction between his own force and the forces which were pushing forward by Grant's order from Tennessee toward that point. By the detachment of Early with 8,000 men Lee had succeeded in preventing all this; in driving Hunter beyond the mountains into West Virginia, where his force could render no assistance whatever to Grant's campaign; in clearing the valley of all Federal forces; and in compelling Grant to keep at Washington a strong force which he might otherwise have utilized in his operations at Petersburg. For several months after the Monocacy campaign this continued to be the situation. It grew at last so intolerable to Grant that he sent Sheridan to the Valley to drive Early out, and possess that fair region. In the meanwhile the results of Early's brilliant campaign with a handful of men, and his still more important success in holding the Valley of Virginia with that same handful of men, had its influence upon operations at the principal seat of hostilities. CHAPTER LIII OPERATIONS AT PETERSBURG AND SHERIDAN'S VALLEY CAMPAIGN In the mine operation General Grant had been baffled even more conspicuously than at the Wilderness or at Spottsylvania or at Cold Harbor. All his efforts to break through Lee's lines had completely failed. All his efforts to crush Lee and destroy his resisting power had come to naught. There remained to him--notwithstanding his enormous superiority of force and of the materials of war--only the resource of continuing the regular siege operations already in progress.