Here we have a suggestion of the barbarity and brutality and desolation of war! With their barns burned, their wheat and their corn and their flour destroyed, and their stock carried off by the enemy, the farmers of that rich valley were left by the decree of war to stare starvation in the face, and to suffer an extreme of poverty more severe even than that which wastefulness and debauchery bring to men. With jaunty indifference to human suffering war decrees starvation to women and children, the ruin of men's fortunes, the destruction of their means of subsistence, and their sudden reduction from affluence to poverty. In this particular case, in order that no Confederate army might thereafter secure supplies upon which to subsist in the Valley of Virginia, Sheridan decreed that all these farmer folk should be completely deprived of their substance, that their barns should be burned, their cattle slaughtered, their sheep driven off, their wheat stacks reduced to ashes, their smokehouses stripped of the last flitch of bacon that might be hanging there--in brief, that these people, men, women and children, should be deprived of all food supplies and left to starve in wretchedness for the sake of accomplishing a military purpose. How long, oh, Lord, how long will it be before the world shall advance to that point in civilization in which war will be justly regarded as the infamous crime that it is? How long will it be before civilization shall cease to be a mere veneer or varnish and become a matter of substance in human affairs? As Sheridan retired northward down the Valley, Early received some meager reinforcements, and with that energy which characterized all his operations, he instantly set out in pursuit of his adversary. Sheridan had taken a position at Cedar Creek, a little to the north of Strasburg, and there on the night of the eighteenth, Early, with every precaution of silence, moved around the Federal left, and at dawn of the nineteenth fell upon the Federal forces with all the vigor he could command. The rout of the Federals was quick and complete. Sheridan was absent at the time, and on his return he met his army in full flight. He instantly set cavalry to work against his own men, in order to stop the insensate retreat. Thus rallying his men he turned them back, entrenched them hastily, and repulsed Early's assault. Later in the day he took the offensive, and succeeded in breaking the Confederate line, and driving it into retreat, capturing 34 Confederate guns in the operation. On the Confederate side 3,100 men fell in this contest. On the Federal side the loss amounted to 5,764. The result of these operations was to give Sheridan complete command of the Valley of the Shenandoah for the time being, at least, and to wipe that danger spot off the map. CHAPTER LIV THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN OF 1864