The Battle of Cedar Creek

The Valley was Lee’s breadbasket and his road north, a slave economy with Belle Grove at its center. Sheridan (North) burned it, then camped in the ruins.

Early’s (South) army comes out of the fog and routs two Union corps in their tents, then, fatally, stops to plunder the camps.

Away at Winchester, Sheridan (North) gallops south against the flood of his own fleeing men, re-forming a broken army by the force of his arrival.

A general counterattack stalls until Custer’s (North) cavalry curls around the Confederate left toward the Cedar Creek bridge, and Early’s army disintegrates.

Cedar Creek ended the Valley as Lee’s breadbasket and invasion route, and the slave plantation at the center of the field is the proof of what the war was for.