by name. A second version of this document in 1617 is actually signed by him, but all reference to his share in the matter is omitted. Lady Suffolk, the wife of his patron, received yearly £1000 in secret service money from the Spanish king, and Shelton may have been her accomplice. If the “ many affairs ” of his preface were official he would not wish to call attention to his antecedents by owning friendship with Verstegan.
The 1612 edition is available in Mr Fitzmaurice Kelly's reprint for the Tudor Translations (1892); that of 1620 is reproduced in Macmillan's “ Library of English Classics " with an introduction by Mr A. W. Pollard, who incorporates the suggestions made by Mr A. T. Wright in his Thomas Shelton, Translator.
SHEM (Hebrew for “ name, renown, posterity ”), in the
Bible, the eldest of the three sons of Noah, whose superiority
over Canaan is reflected in the tradition that Noah pronounced
a curse upon the latter (Gen. ix. 20–27). In the genealogies
(x. 2X sqq.), Shem numbers among his descendants Assyrian,
Arabian, Aramaean and Hebrew populations, whence the ethnic
Semitic (strictly speaking, Shemitic) has been coined as a convenient
term for these peoples. It is not altogether scientific,
since the Lydians (Lud) and Elamites are included among
Shem's “ sons,” apparently on account of their geographical
position or because of their indebtedness to Assyrian culture.
On the traditions of Shem, see E. Meyer, Israeliten u. Nachbarstämme
(Halle, 1906), pp. 219 sqq.
SHEMAKHA, a town of Russian Transcaucasia, in the government
of Baku, 70 m. W. of the town of Baku, and in 40° 38' N.
and 48° 40' E. It has some 20,000 inhabitants, consisting of
Tatars (75%), Armenians and Russians. Shemakha was the
capital of the khanate of Shirvan, and was known to the
Roman geographer Ptolemy as Kamachia. About the middle
of the 16th century it was the seat of an English commercial
factory, under the traveller Jenkinson, afterwards envoy extraordinary
of the khan of Shirvan to Ivan the Terrible of Russia.
In 1742 Shemakha was taken and destroyed by Nadir Shah of
Persia, who, to punish the inhabitants for their creed (Sunnite
Mahommedanism), built a new town under the same name about
16 m. to the W., at the foot of the main chain of the Caucasus.
The new Shemakha was at different times a residence of the
khan of Shirvan, but it was finally abandoned, and the old town
rebuilt. The Russians first entered Shirvan in 1723, but soon
retired. In 1795 they captured Shemakha as well as Baku;
but the conquest was once more abandoned, and Shirvan was
not finally annexed to Russia until 1805.
SHENANDOAH, a borough of Schuylkill county, Pennsylvania,
U.S.A., about 40 m. N.N.W. of Reading. Pop. (1910,
census), 25,774. Among the foreign-born the Lithuanians
and Poles predominate—in 1910 a Lithuanian and a Polish
paper were published here. Shenandoah is served by the
Pennsylvania, the Lehigh Valley and the Philadelphia & Reading
railways. The borough has a public library. The United Greek
Catholic Church (Ruthenian Rite) here is said to be the first of
this sect in the United States; it was organized as St Michael's
Parish in 1885, the first building was erected in 1886, and a new
building was completed in 1909. Shenandoah is situated in
the eastern part of the middle basin of the great anthracite coal
region of Pennsylvania, and the mining and shipping of coal
are its chief industries. A log house was built on the site of
the present Shenandoah as early as 1835, but there was no
further development until 1862, when the first colliery was
opened. The borough was incorporated in 1866.
SHENANDOAH VALLEY CAMPAIGNS. During the American
Civil War the Shenandoah Valley was frequently the scene of
military operations, and at two points in the war these operations
rose to the height of separate campaigns possessing great
significance in the general development of the war. From a
military point of view the Shenandoah Valley was valuable
to the army which controlled it as a requisitioning area, for in
this fertile region crops and cattle were plentiful. There were,
moreover, numerous mills and factories. For the Confederates
the Valley was also a recruiting area. A macadamized road
from Lexington via Staunton and Winchester to Martinsburg
gave them easy access to Maryland and enabled them to cover
Lynchburg from the north. By a system of railways which
united at Gordonsville and Charlottesville troops from Richmond
and Lynchburg were detained within easy distance of five good
passes over Blue Ridge, and as Strasburg in the valley lies almost
due west of Washington it was believed in the North that a
Confederate army thereabouts menaced a city the protection
of which was a constant factor in the Federal plan of campaign.
The Valley was 60 m. wide at Martinsburg and had been cleared
of timber, so that the movements of troops were not restricted
to the roads: the creeks and rivers were fordable at most places
in summer by levelling the approaches: the terrain was
specially suitable for mounted troops. The existence of the
parallel obstacle between Strasburg and Newmarket, the two
forks of the Shenandoah river enclosing the Massanutton range,
afforded opportunities for strategic manoeuvres.
In the spring of 1862 the immense army organized by General McClellan advanced and threatened to sweep all before it. The Confederates, based on Richmond, were compelled to show a front westward to the Alleghanies, northward to the Potomac and eastwards to the Atlantic. The main armies were engaged on the Yorktown peninsula and the other operations were secondary. Yet in one instance a Confederate detachment that varied in strength between 5000 and 17,000 contrived to make some stir in the world and won renown for its commander. General Thomas J. Jackson with small means achieved great results, if we look at the importance which politics played in the affairs of the belligerents; and even in a military sense he was admirable for skilfully utilizing his experiences, so that his discomfiture's of the winter of 1861, when Rosecrans and Lander and Kelley were opposed to him, taught him how to deal with such Federal leaders as Shields and Banks, Milroy and Frémont, fettered as they all were by the Lincoln administration. The Valley operations in 1862 began by a retrograde movement on the part of the Confederates, for Jackson on their 12th of March retired from Winchester, and Banks at the head of 20,000 men took possession. Banks pushed a strong detachment under General Shields on to Strasburg a week later, and Jackson then withdrew his small division (5000) to Mount Jackson, so yielding the Shenandoah Valley for 40 m. south of Winchester. He was now acting under instructions to employ the invaders in the Valley and prevent any large body being sent eastward to reinforce their main army; but he was not to expose himself to the danger of defeat. He was to keep near the enemy, but not so near as to be compelled to fight Banks's superior forces. Such instructions, however, were difficult to carry out. When, on the 21st of March, Banks recalled Shields in accordance with orders from Washington, Jackson conceived that he was bound to follow Shields, and, when Shields stood at bay at Kernstown on the 23rd of March with 7000 men, Jackson at the head of 3500 attacked and was badly beaten.
For such excess of zeal two years later Sigel was removed from his command. But in 1862 apparently such audacity was true wisdom, for the proof thus afforded by Jackson of his inability to contend with Shields seems to have been regarded by the Federal authorities as an excuse for reversing their plans: Shields was reinforced by Williams's division, and with this force Banks undertook to drive Jackson from the Valley. A week after the battle of Kernstown, Banks moved to Strasburg with 16,000 men, and a month later (April 29) is found at Newmarket, after much skirmishing with Jackson's rear-guard which burnt the bridges in retiring. Meanwhile Jackson had taken refuge in the passes of Blue Ridge, where he too was reinforced. Ewell's division joined him at Swift Run Gap, and at the beginning of May he decided to watch Banks with Ewell's division and to proceed himself with the remainder of his command to join Edward Johnson's division, then beset by General Milroy west of Staunton. Secretly moving by rail through Rockfish Gap, Jackson united with Johnson and in a few days located Milroy at the village of McDowell. After reconnaissance Jackson concentrated his forces on Setlington Hill and proposed to attack on the morrow (May 8th), but on this occasion the Federals (Milroy having just been joined by Schenck) took the initiative, and after a four
