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The '''Battle of Cedar Creek''' was the last great battle of the [[American Civil War]] in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, taking place on October 19, 1864 along Cedar Creek between the towns of Strasburg and Middletown. It marked the end of Confederate power in the Valley, and its timing three weeks before the national elections unquestionably influenced the magnitude of President [[Abraham Lincoln]]'s reelection. Despite this significance, the battle has been buried in the legend of Major General [[Philip H. Sheridan]]'s famous ride from Winchester and the controversy over Confederate General [[Jubal Early]]'s lost victory.

The XIX Corps was entrenched on the west side of the Valley Pike. Its eastern flank was anchored on the Pike overlooking Cedar Creek Bridge beginning where the 128th New York monument now stands. This position was occupied by the corps' Second Division and was further supported by a large portion of the corps artillery. An artillery strong point was set up on the corps' west flank in the First Division area on the high ground immediately southeast of where the Meadow Mills railway trestle now is. This position dominated Cedar Creek and Meadow Brook, a stream flowing parallel to the Pike from north of Middletown and emptying into Cedar Creek. The corps' camps occupied an open, rolling area north of its positions extending almost to Belle Grove Plantation.

The Federals were secure in these positions, feeling that Early was too outnumbered to do anything other than harass them. However, evidence that the Confederate commander may have been considering something major continued to accumulate. On 16 October, Sheridan left for Washington and the conference with Stanton, taking the Cavalry Corps with him as far as Front Royal. He intended to send it on a raid to destroy railroads around Charlottesville. But at Front Royal he received information from the acting army commander, General Horatio G. Wright, that a Confederate wigwag message had been intercepted indicating the arrival of reinforcements for Early, led by General James Longstreet. Sheridan suspected a ruse. But true or not, he reasoned that the sending of the message in itself behooved return of the Cavalry Corps to the Cedar Creek camp. The message was actually false, sent by Early in the hopes that it would cause Sheridan to pull farther north. Instead it had the opposite effect. The cavalry returned to be placed entirely on the west side of the Valley by Wright, who was most concerned about a likely attack there. This left one cavalry brigade at Buckton's Ford about two miles east of the VIII Corps and another even farther east near Front Royal. In keeping with Sheridan's concept, the cavalry was concentrated to be used en masse. Divisions and corps were expected to provide their own local security and to send out distant pickets. This had not been the custom in Crook's corps, and the requirement for distant security posts was largely ignored. As a result, it was particularly vulnerable to attack.

===Stiffened resistance===

General James B. Ricketts' VI Corps units were able to break camp and to get into line of battle before they became seriously engaged. The Third Division, under General Joseph W. Keifer, established a line oriented toward Cedar Creek. Its easternmost brigade actually advanced farther southeastward to the right flank positions of the XIX Corps. However, the flow of the XIX Corps troops withdrawing made it impossible to hold a line and the brigade withdrew to its original position just west of Meadow Brook. The XIX Corps elements, mostly First Division, reorganized on Red Hill and extended the Third Division lines westward in conjunction with Merritt's cavalry which had come forward to help. It was well they did, as by about 0715 this whole line was engaged in fierce fighting with Kershaw's Division. Contact was lost with the rest of the corps but the Third Division retained its integrity in a swirling struggle which gradually forced it back.

The Second Division had been in the northernmost bivouac site when the fighting in the VIII and XIX Corps areas was heard. The division commander, General George W. Getty, marched his units toward the sound of battle intending to link his right with the left of the First Division. He then planned to pivot on the First Division onto the plain between Meadow Brook and the Pike, north of Belle Grove. He was in the act of doing so when the First Division was forced to withdraw, leaving him unsupported on the plain. Undismayed, he delayed briefly on a rise on the southern edge of Middletown, and then about 0800 he pulled his force onto a hill west of Middletown where the town cemetery is located. There, for about an hour, the Second Division, VI Corps aggressively repelled successive assaults from each of four Confederate divisions. The defense was so ferocious that Early assumed he was fighting the whole VI Corps.

===Sheridan's ride===

*[http://www.cedarcreekbattlefield.org/ Cedar Creek Battlefield]

*[http://www.bartleby.com/102/150.html ''Sheridan's Ride'', by Thomas Buchanan Read (1822–1872), from Bartleby.com]