I therefore advised that the Valley campaign be terminated north of Staunton, and I be permitted to return, carrying out on the way my original instructions for desolating the Shenandoah country so as to make it untenable for permanent occupation by the Confederates.  I proposed to detach the bulk of my army when this work of destruction was completed, and send it by way of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad through Washington to the Petersburg line, believing that I could move it more rapidly by that route than by any other.  I was confident that if a movement of this character could be made with celerity it would culminate in the capture of Richmond and possibly of General Lee’s army, and I was in hopes that General Grant would take the same view of the matter; but just at this time he was so pressed by the Government and by public-opinion at the North, that he advocated the wholly different conception of driving Early into eastern Virginia, and adhered to this plan with some tenacity.  Considerable correspondence regarding the subject took place between us, throughout which I stoutly maintained that we should not risk, by what I held to be a false move, all that my army had gained.  I being on the ground, General Grant left to me the final decision of the question, and I solved the first step by determining to withdraw down the valley at least as far as Strasburg, which movement was begun on the 6th of October.

The cavalry as it retired was stretched across the country from the Blue Ridge to the eastern slope of the Alleghanies, with orders to drive off all stock and destroy all supplies as it moved northward.  The infantry preceded the cavalry, passing down the Valley pike, and as we marched along the many columns of smoke from burning stacks, and mills filled with grain, indicated that the adjacent country was fast losing the features which hitherto had made it a great magazine of stores for the Confederate armies.

During the 6th and 7th of October, the enemy’s horse followed us up, though at a respectful distance.  This cavalry was now under command of General T. W. Rosser, who on October 5 had joined Early with an additional brigade from Richmond.  As we proceeded the Confederates gained confidence, probably on account of the reputation with which its new commander had been heralded, and on the third day’s march had the temerity to annoy my rear guard considerably.  Tired of these annoyances, I concluded to open the enemy’s eyes in earnest, so that night I told Torbert I expected him either to give Rosser a drubbing next morning or get whipped himself, and that the infantry would be halted until the affair was over; I also informed him that I proposed to ride out to Round Top Mountain to see the fight.  When I decided to have Rosser chastised, Merritt was encamped at the foot of Round Top, an elevation just north of Tom’s Brook, and Custer some six miles farther north and west, near Tumbling Run.  In the night Custer