Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 24.djvu/188

 180 Southern Historical Society Papers.

three corps on the ist of May previous, to-wit: the 2d, 5th, and 6th, and that its effective strength then was, according to Mr. Stanton's statement, 120,386. The same statement shows that the available strength of the forces in the "Department of West Vir- ginia," on the ist of May, 30,782, and most of the troops in this department were concentrated in the Valley. Documents subse- quently captured showed the strength of the iQth Corps to have at the battle of Winchester, not less than 12,000 effective men. Official reports captured at Cedar creek showed that Sheridan's Cavalry, on the lyth of September, two days before the fight, numbered 10,100 present for duty. His artillery was vastly superior to mine in num- ber of men and guns. The 6th Corps alone must have exceeded my entire strength, unless it had met with such tremendous losses as to reduce its strength at least three-fourths. From all the informa- tion received and from documents captured at Cedar creek, I am satisfied that Sheridan's effective infantry strength at Winchester could not have been less than 35,000 muskets, and it was probably more. The odds against me, therefore, were fully four to one, and probably more. His very great superiority in cavalry was very dis- advantageous to me, as the country was very open and admirably adopted to cavalry operations, and my cavalry, being mostly armed with Enfield rifles without pistols or sabers, could not fight his, whose equipment and arms were complete. At the fight at Cedar creek I had been re-enforced by one division of infantry (Kershaw's) num- bering 2,700 muskets, one small battalion of artillery and about 600 cavalry; which about made up my losses at Winchester and Fisher's Hill. I went into this fight with 8,500 muskets, about forty pieces of artillery and about 1,200 cavalry, as the rest of my cavalry, which was guarding the Luray Valley, did not get up in time, though ordered to move at the same time I moved to the attack. Sheridan's infantry had been recruited fully up to its strength at Winchester, and his cavalry numbered 8,700, as shown by the official reports captured. The main cause why the route of his army in the morn- ing was not complete was the fact that my cavalry could not compete with his ahd the latter, therefore, remained intact. He claimed all his own guns that had been captured in the morning and afterward recaptured, as so many guns captured from me, whereas I lost only twenty-three guns, and the loss of these and the wagons which were taken was mainly owing to the fact that a bridge, on a narrow part of the road between Cedar creek and Fisher's Hill, broke down, and the guns and wagons, which latter were not numerous, could not be