Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 16.djvu/458

 452 Southern Historical Society Paper*.

gave him the task of reorganizing it and raising its efficiency. He had worked some time when General Meade sent him over the Rap- pahannock on a reconnoissance. Sheridan came back and, in making his verbal report, alluded to a brush he had with Stuart's cavalry. ' Never mind Stuart,' said Meade, interrupting, ' he will do about as he pleases anyhow. Go on and tell what you discovered about Lee's forces. '

" That made Sheridan mad and he retorted : ' Damn Stuart, I can thrash hell out of him any day.' Those were times, you know, when men's utterances, like their deeds, were not fashioned upon the models of these days of peace. Meade repeated the remark to Grant, who asked, ' Why didn't you tell him to do it? '

"Not long after, Sheridan got an order to cross the river, engage Stuart and clean him out. ' I knew I could whip him,' said Sheri- dan, ' if I could only get him where he could not fall back on Lee's infantry, so I thought the matter over, and to draw him on, started straight for Richmond. We moved fast and Stuart dogged us right at our heels. We kept on a second day straight for Richmond, and the next morning found Stuart in front of us, just where we wanted him. He had marched all night and got around us. Then I rode him down; I smashed his command and broke up his divisions and regiments and brigades; and the poor fellow himself was killed there. Right there, Senator, I resisted the greatest temptation of my life. There lay Richmond before us and there was nothing to keep us from going in. It would have cost five hundred or six hundred lives and I could not have held the place, of course. But I knew the moment it was learned at the North that a Union army was in Rich- mond, then every bell would ring, and I should have been the hero of the hour. I could have gone in and burned and killed right and left. But I had learned this thing that our men knew what they were about. I had seen them come out of a fight in which only a handful were killed, discontented, mad clear through, because they knew an opportunity had been lost or a sacrifice, small as it was, had been needlessly made, and I have seen them come out good- natured, enthusiastic and spoiling for more when they had left the ground so thickly covered with dead that you could have crossed portions of the field on the bodies alone. They realized that not- withstanding the terrible sacrifice, the object gained had been worth it. They would have followed me, but they would have known as well as I that the sacrifice was for no permanent advantage.' '

Senator Plumb was not an eye-witness of the battle of Yellow