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201 The Lottery 14 The Lottery Vehement rhetoric and inhumane acts continued in the ShenandoahValley into November 1864, and eventually Mosby retaliated for the Front Royal killings; but in the meantime Union forces reopened the Manassas Gap Railroad through Mosby’s Confederacy.He interdicted the railroad, diverting cavalry from the picket line on the Potomac River and opening the way for a raid on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal and the B&O Railroad .Mosby’s attacks annoyed Sheridan,but as long as Early’s armythreatened he focused on it, waiting to operate against Mosby’s civilian supporters. Mosby was recovering from his September 14 wound when he hobbled on crutches into Lee’s headquarters near Petersburg for a meeting . Lee stood and walked toward him, extending his hand:“Colonel,”he said, “I have never had but one fault to find with you—you are always getting wounded.”On the return trip to his mother’s house, he learned about the Front Royal hangings; and, even though he was not recovered and had to be lifted onto his horse, on September 29 he returned to duty.1 By then Sheridan’s supply line extended over one hundred miles into the upper Valley, and Mosby was preparing a raid when scouts reported construction on the MGR. Before the war the rail line had extended from Manassas Junction on the O&A, westward into Fauquier County and through Manassas Gap into the Valley, seventy-seven miles, from Manassas Junction to Mount Jackson.It had been used by the Confederate army to transfer men from the Valley to Manassas for the battle of First Bull Run. But when the Confederate army withdrew south in March 1862,the troops burned the trestles on the South and North Forks of the Shenandoah River, and they were never rebuilt during the war. It had been partially restored by the Union for four brief periods but had 202 Gray Ghost been abandoned for fourteen months, since Meade’s army used it for supplies after the Gettysburg campaign in the summer of 1863.2 Mosby claimed after the war that his operations against the reopening of the railroad and in the Valley at the time were his most strategic contributions in the war. He asserted that his men prevented Sheridan from conquering Richmond and preserved the Confederacy for six months.These claims should be evaluated in light of the decisions made by Sheridan and the Union high command regarding the railroad. To begin with, Sheridan did not request the project. He had viewed his Valley campaign from the start as a raid against Early’s army and its civilian supporters; and, now that he had defeated and driven Early out of the Valley, he wanted to finish burning the crops and barns in the upper Valley as Grant ordered and withdraw toward Winchester, sending his infantry to reinforce Grant. He never planned to cross the Blue Ridge Mountains to capture Charlottesville as Grant suggested; Sheridan knew that“a line of communication from 135 to 145 miles in length”was untenable.3 But before Sheridan could communicate his decision—it took two or three days for messages to reach Washington and two or three to receive a reply—he learned on October 1 that Grant still expected him to push forward to Charlottesville and therefore had ordered the opening of the O&A through Culpeper;but if Sheridan decided to withdraw down the Valley, the O&A would be re-built only to Manassas Junction and the MGR opened for his supply line.4 Sheridan replied that he was not going to Charlottesville and therefore did not need the O&A, and he attempted to discourage the rebuilding of the MGR by estimating that,given the threat of Mosby’s guerrillas, it would take a corps of infantry to defend the O&A and another corps to defend the MGR. This was a great exaggeration, but he was attempting to discourage the idea; opening railroads implied extended operations, and his plan was to terminate the campaign. Before receiving this message from Sheridan,Grant had responded to a letter from Sheridan a few days earlier, before he had fully stated his plans, in which Sheridan indicated that he would withdraw to near Front Royal. Assuming that Sheridan would cancel the advance on Charlottesville but would need the MGR for supplies in Front Royal, on October 2 Grant ordered work stopped on the O&A south of Manassas Junction and the crew transferred to the MGR.Then,when Stanton and Halleck learned that Sheridan did not...

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