usand
veterans in conjunction with Farragut's fleet against Mobile. But
the Red River Expedition spoilt that combination in the spring
and postponed it till August, when Farragut did nearly all the
fighting, and the cooeperating army was far too late to produce the
distracting effect that Grant had originally planned.

General Franz Sigel was sent to the upper Shenandoah Valley, both
to guard that approach on Washington and to destroy the resources on
which Lee's army so greatly relied. General George Crook was given
a mounted column to operate from southern West Virginia against
the line of rails running toward Tennessee through the lower end
of the Valley.

The most notable new general was Philip H. Sheridan, whom Grant
selected for the cavalry command. Sheridan was thirty-three, two
years older than his Southern rival, Stuart, and, like him, a young
regular officer who rose to well-earned fame the moment his first
great chance occurred.

Sherman we have met from the very beginning of the war and followed
throughout its course. He was continually rising to more and more
responsible command; but it was only now that he became the virtual
Commander-in-Chief of all the river armies and the chosen cooeperator
with Grant on a universal scale. He was of the old original stock,
his first American ancestors having emigrated from England in 1634.
An old regular, with special knowledge of the South, and in the
fullness of his powers at the age of forty-four, he had developed
with the war till there was no position which he could not fill
to the best advantage of the service.

Grant fixed the fourth of May for the combined advance of all the
converging forces of invasion. There were two weak points where
the Union armies failed: one in the farthest south, where, as we
have so often seen, Banks could not attack Mobile owing to his
absence at Red River; the other in the farthest north, where Sigel
was badly beaten and replaced by Hunter. Here, after much disabling
interference at the hands of Stanton, Hunter was succeeded by Sheridan,
whom Grant himself directed with consummate skill. There were also
two Confederate thorns in the Federal side: Forrest's cavalry in
Sherman's rear, Mosby's cavalry in Grant's. Forrest roved about the
river area, snapping up small garrisons, cutting communications,
and doing a good deal of damage right up to the Ohio. Mosby, with
a much smaller but equally efficient force, actually raided to and