ce sank to thirty-nine
cents. To make matters worse, there was a good deal of well-founded
discontent among the self-sacrificing loyalists, both at the home
and fighting fronts, because the Government apparently allowed
disloyal and evasive citizens to live as parasites on the Union's
body politic. The blood tax and money tax alike fell far too heavily
on the patriots; while many a parasite grew rich in unshamed safety.

Mobile was won in August. But the people's eyes were mostly fixed
upon the land. So a much greater effect was produced by Sherman's
laconic dispatch of the second of September announcing the fall of
Atlanta. The Confederates, despairing of holding it to any good
purpose, had blown up everything they could not move and then retreated.
This thrilling news heartened the whole loyal North, and, as Lincoln
at once sent word to Sherman, "entitled those who had participated
to the applause and thanks of the nation." Grant fired a salute
of shotted guns from every battery bearing on the enemy, who were
correspondingly depressed. For every one could now see that if
the Union put forth its full strength the shrunken forces of the
South could not prevent the Northern vice from crushing them to
death.

September also saw the turning of the tide on the still more conspicuous
scene of action in Virginia. Grant had sent Sheridan to the Valley,
and had just completed a tour of personal inspection there, when
Sheridan, finding Early's Confederates divided, swooped down on
the exposed main body at Opequan Creek and won a brilliant victory
which raised the hopes of the loyal North a good deal higher still.

Exactly a month later, on the nineteenth of October, Early made a
desperate attempt to turn the tables on the Federals in the Valley
by attacking them suddenly, on their exposed left flank, while
Sheridan was absent at Washington. (We must remember that Grant
had to concert action personally with his sub-commanders, as his
orders were so often "queered" when seen at Washington by autocratic
Stanton and bureaucratic Halleck.) The troops attacked broke up
and were driven in on their supports in wild confusion. Then the
supports gave way; and a Confederate victory seemed to be assured.

But Sheridan was on his way. He had left the scene of his previous
victory at Opequan Creek, near Winchester, and was now riding to the
rescue of his army at Cedar Creek, twenty miles south. "Sheridan's
Ride," so widely known in song