No more men could be sent to Lee.  Sooner or later his line would become so weak that Grant could break through.  Then Petersburg and Richmond must be abandoned.  Two years before, when Richmond was threatened by McClellan, Lee had secured the removal of the Army of the Potomac by a sudden movement toward Washington (p. 321).  He now detached Jubal Early with a formidable force and sent him through the Shenandoah Valley to Washington.

[Illustration:  GENERAL SHERIDAN.]

[Sidenote:  Confederate attack on Washington, 1864.]

[Sidenote:  Sheridan in the Valley. Hero Tales, 263-290.]

[Sidenote:  Confederate disaster, October, 1864.]

[Sidenote:  Lincoln reelected, November, 1864. McMaster, 425-426.]

432.  Sheridan’s Valley Campaigns, 1864.—­The conditions now were very unlike the conditions of 1862.  Now, Grant was in command instead of McClellan or Pope.  He controlled the movements of all the armies without interference from Washington, and he had many more men than Lee.  Without letting go his hold on Petersburg, Grant sent two army corps by water to Washington.  Early was an able and active soldier, but he delayed his attack on Washington until soldiers came from the James.  He then withdrew to the Shenandoah Valley.  Grant now gave Sheridan forty thousand infantry and fifteen thousand cavalry, and sent him to the Valley with orders to drive Early out and to destroy all supplies in the Valley which could be used by another Southern army.  Splendidly Sheridan did his work.  At one time, when he was away, the Confederates surprised the Union army.  But, hearing the roar of the battle, Sheridan rode rapidly to the front.  As he rode along, the fugitives turned back.  The Confederates, surprised in their turn, were swept from the field and sent whirling up the Valley in wild confusion (October 19, 1864).  Then Sheridan destroyed everything that could be of service to another invading army and rejoined Grant at Petersburg.  In the November following this great feat of arms, Lincoln was reelected President.

[Sidenote:  Mobile Bay, 1864. Hero Tales, 303-322.]

[Sidenote:  Kearsarge and Alabama.]

433.  The Blockade and the Cruisers, 1863-64.—­The blockade had now become stricter than ever.  For by August, 1864, Farragut had carried his fleet into Mobile Bay and had closed it to commerce.  Sherman had taken Savannah.  Early in 1865 Charleston was abandoned, for Sherman had it at his mercy, and Terry captured Wilmington.  The South was now absolutely dependent on its own resources, and the end could not be far off.  On the open sea, with England’s aid a few vessels flew the Confederate flag.  The best known of these vessels was the Alabama. She was built in England, armed with English guns, and largely manned by Englishmen.  On June 19, 1864, the United States ship Kearsarge sank her off Cherbourg, France.  Englishmen were also building two ironclad battleships for the Confederates.  But the American minister at London, Mr. Charles Francis Adams, said that if they were allowed to sail, it would be “war.”  The English government thereupon bought the vessels.