killed and issued to the troops not less than 3,000 sheep. This destruction embraces the Luray Valley and Little Fort Valley, as well as the main valley.
"A large number of horses have been obtained, a proper estimate of which I cannot now make.
"Lieutenant John R. Meigs, my engineer officer, was murdered beyond Harrisonburg, near Dayton. For this atrocious act all the houses within an area of five miles were burned."
It is not generally known, we believe, that this policy of devastation on the part of Sheridan was directly inspired and ordered by General Grant, who, in his Memoirs, writes with great satisfaction and levity of the outrages committed by Sherman, before referred to, and which he, of course, understood would be committed, from the terms of Sherman's telegram to him, and which he, at the least, asquiesced in.
On the 5th of August, 1864, he (Grant) wrote to General David Hunter, who preceded Sheridan in command of the Valley, as follows, viz.:
"In pushing up the Shenandoah Valley, where it is expected you will have to go first or last, it is desirable that nothing should he left to invite the enemy to return. Take all provisions, forage and stock wanted for the use of your command; such as cannot be consumed destroy." * *
And says Mr. Horace Greely:
"This order, Sheridan, in returning down the Valley, executed to the letter. Whatever of grain and forage had escaped appropriation by one or another of the armies which had so frequently chased each other up and down this narrow but fertile and productive vale, was now given to the torch."
2 Am. Conflict, 610-11. 2 Grant's Memoirs, 581, 364-5.
The facts about the alleged murder of Lieutenant Meigs, for which Sheridan says he burned all the houses in an area of five miles, are these: Three of our cavalry scouts, in uniform, and with their arms, got within Sheridan's lines, and encountered Lieutenant Meigs, with two Federal soldiers. These parties came on each other suddenly. Meigs was ordered to surrender by one of
