Page:A memoir of the last year of the War of Independence, in the Confederate States of America.djvu/128

124 cape into the mountains of Western Virginia, with a loss of ten pieces of artillery, and subsequent terrible suffering to his troops. Maryland and Pennyslvania had been invaded, Washington threatened and thrown into a stale of frantic alarm, and Grant had been compelled to detach two corps of infantry and two divisions of cavalry from his army. Five or six thousand prisoners had been captured from the enemy and sent to Richmond, and, according to a published statement by Sheridan, his army had lost 13,831, in killed and wounded, after he took command of it. Heavy losses had been inflicted on that army by my command, before Sheridan went to the Valley, and the whole loss could not have been far from double ray entire force. The enemy moreover had been deprived of the use of the Baltimore and Ohio rail-road, and the Chesapeake and Ohio canal, for three months. It is true that I had lost many valuable officers and men, and about 60 pieces of artillery, counting those lost by Ramseur and McCausland, and not deducting the 19 pieces captured from the enemy; but I think I may safely state that the fall of Lynchburg with its foundries and factories, and the consequent destruction of General Lee's communications, would have rendered necessary the evacuation of Richmond, and that, therefore, the fall of the latter place had been prevented; and, by my subsequent operations. Grant's operations against General Lee's army had been materially impeded, and for some time substantially suspended.

My loss in killed, wounded, and prisoners, at Winchester and Fisher's Hill, had been less than 4,000, and, at Cedar Creek, about 3,000, but the enemy has attempted to magnify it to a much larger figure, claiming as prisoners several thousand more than my entire loss. How he makes out his estimate is not for me to explain. He was never scrupulous as to the kinds of persons of whom he made prisoners, and the statements of the Federal officers were not always confined to the truth, as the world has probably learned. I know that a number of prisoners fell into the enemy's hands, who did not belong to my command: such as cavalry men on details to get fresh