Before dawn on October 19, 1864, Confederate troops under Lieutenant General Jubal Early launched a surprise attack against the Union army at Cedar Creek, Virginia. Striking the Federal flank, they overran camps, captured artillery, and drove Union troops back through Middletown. For several hours, Early appeared poised to achieve a remarkable victory that threatened to undo recent Union gains in the Shenandoah Valley.
Major General Philip Sheridan had spent the night in Winchester after returning from a conference in Washington. Alerted to artillery fire to the south, he set out around 9:00 a.m. on his horse, Rienzi. As he encountered retreating soldiers, he urged them to turn back toward the fighting. Reaching the army around 10:30 a.m., Sheridan found that Major General Horatio G. Wright had already begun organizing a defensive line. His arrival helped restore confidence, and he rode among the troops, rejecting retreat and promising that they would recover their camps before nightfall.
At about 4:00 p.m., the reorganized Union army counterattacked. Infantry and cavalry drove Early’s troops from the ground they had captured that morning, recovered the lost Union artillery, and turned the Confederate retreat into a rout. Cedar Creek broke Early’s army as a major offensive force in the Shenandoah Valley. Coming less than three weeks before the presidential election, the victory also lifted Northern morale and strengthened Abraham Lincoln’s prospects for reelection.
