ight, on the
Back road beyond a range of hills and near the foot of Little North
Mountain. The whole course of the Back road is through a rough
country not adapted to cavalry operations. Powell's cavalry division
was near Front Royal. Army headquarters were at the Belle Grove
House on the heights west of the pike, immediately in rear of the
right of the Nineteenth Corps. Wright's headquarters were a short
distance to the rear of Sheridan's.

The supply and baggage trains of our army were about one mile behind
its right centre and about the same distance from Middletown, a
village twelve miles south of Winchester, and about two miles north
of the Cedar Creek bridge. Getty and Merritt's camps were, in
general, westward of Middletown. The front of our army covered
about two miles; Custer's and Thoburn's divisions, on the right
and left, being outside of this limit.

The Union Army was not intrenched, save a portion of the Nineteenth
and Eighth Corps. Owing to reports that Early had withdrawn
southward, Wright ordered a brigade of the Nineteenth Corps to
start at daylight of the 19th to make a strong reconnoissance.
The Union troops, except only the usual guards and pickets, quietly
slept in their tents the night of the 18th of October.

The Confederate Army was encamped on Fisher's Hill, two miles south
of Strasburg and about six miles from the centre of the Union Army,
measured by the pike. Three Top Mountain was east and south of a
bend of the Shenandoah; its north end abutting close up to the
river. General J. B. Gordon and Captain Hotchkiss, from the
Confederate signal station of Three Top, on the 18th, with field-
glasses, marked the location of all the Union camps, and on their
report Early decided to attack the next morning.( 3) Accordingly,
Gordon, Ramseur, and Pegram's divisions and Payne's cavalry brigade
were moved in the night across the river, thence along the foot of
Three Top Mountain, and along its north end eastward to and again
across the river at Bowman and McIntorf's Fords below the mouth of
Cedar Creek, and thence, by 4 A.M., to a position east of the main
camp of Crook's corps. These divisions were under Gordon. Kershaw
and Wharton's divisions marched by the pike to the north of Strasburg,
and there separated; the former moving to the eastward, accompanied
by Early. Kershaw crossed Cedar Creek at Robert's Ford, about one
and a half miles above its mouth, which brought him in front of