“That’s true, but we go that way, nevertheless.  Although you’re discreet young officers I’m not going to tell you any more.  Now, as you’ve eaten enough food and drunk enough coffee, be off to your blankets.  I want all of you to be fresh and strong in the morning.”

Fresh and strong they were, and promptly General Sheridan rode away, taking with him all the cavalry, his course taking him toward Front Royal.  The news soon spread among the horsemen that from Front Royal the general would go on to Washington for a conference with the War Department, while the cavalry would turn through a gap in the mountains, and then destroy railroads in order to cut off General Early’s communications with Richmond.

“We’re to be an escort and then a fighting and destroying force,” said Dick.  “But it’s quite sure that we’ll meet no enemy until we go through the gap.  Meanwhile we’ll enjoy a saunter along the valley.”

But when they reached Front Royal a courier, riding hard, overtook them.  He demanded to be taken at once to the presence of General Sheridan, and then he presented a copy of a dispatch which read: 

 To Lieutenant-General Early: 

   Be ready to move as soon as my forces join you, and we will
 crush Sheridan. 
                    Longstreet, Lieutenant-General.

Sheridan read the dispatch over and over again, and pondered it gravely.  The courier informed him that it was the copy of a signal made by the Confederate flags on Three Top Mountain, and deciphered by Union officers who had obtained the secret of the Confederate code.  General Wright, whom he had left in command, had sent it to him in all haste for what it was worth.

The young general not only pondered the message gravely, but he pondered it long.  Finally he called his chief officers around him and consulted with them.  If the grim and bearded Longstreet were really coming into the valley with a formidable force, then indeed it would be the dance of death.  Longstreet, although he did not have the genius of Stonewall Jackson, was a fierce and dangerous fighter.  All of them knew how he had come upon the field of Chickamauga with his veterans from Virginia, and had turned the tide of battle.  His presence in the valley might quickly turn all of Sheridan’s great triumphs into withered laurels.

But Sheridan had a great doubt in his mind.  The Confederate signal from Three Top Mountain that his own officers had read might not be real.  It might have been intended to deceive, Early’s signalmen learning that the Union signalmen had deciphered their code, or it might be some sort of a grim joke.  He did not believe that the Army of Northern Virginia could spare Longstreet and a large force, as it would be weakened so greatly that it could no longer stand before Grant, even with the aid of the trenches.

His belief that this dispatch, upon which so much turned, as they were to learn afterward, was false, became a conviction and most of his officers agreed with him.  He decided at last that the coming of Longstreet with an army into the valley was an impossibility, and he would go on to Washington.  But Sheridan made a reservation, and this, too, as the event showed, was highly important.  He ordered all the cavalry back to General Wright, while he proceeded with a small escort to the capital.