SHELTON SHENANDOAH VALLEY. 



487 



riflemen from the Watauga settlements, and leading . 

 them across the mountains against the disciplined 

 Tories under Major Patrick Ferguson, whom lie 

 completely defeated at King's Mountain, Oct. 7, i 

 1780. This unexpected blow greatly revived the 

 patriot cause in the Southern States. In the next 

 year Shelby assisted Marion, and led 500 men to the 

 aid of Gen. Greene. He was then elected to the 

 North Carolina legislature, and received from that 

 body a vote of thanks and a sword. In 178S he re- 

 moved to Kentucky, and took part in framing a con- j 

 stitution for that State, on its separation from Vir- j 

 ginia. He was chosen its first governor, 1792-96, j 

 and was again called to this post in 1812, when the 

 second war with Great Britain was declared. He 

 led a force of 4033 to Gen. Harrison's army, and 

 fought at tho battle of the Thames. His terra as 

 governor expired in 181G, and he was invited by 

 Pres. Monroe to become secretary of war, but de- 

 clined on account of his age. Yet in 1818 he was 

 j lined with Gen. Jackson in making a treaty with: 

 the Chickasaw Indians. He died at Traveller's 

 II , f . Lincoln Co., Ky., July 18, 1823. 



SHELTON, FKEDEUIOK \faJUUM, clergyman and 

 author, was born at Jamaica, L. I., in 1814. Tho 

 eon of a physician, ha graduated ai Princeton in j 

 1S34, and employed his pen in writing for the 

 Knickerbocker Magazine. His rhymed satire, The ' 

 Trollopiad ; or. Travelling Gentlemen in America, was 

 published anonymously in 1837. After being or- 

 dained in the Episcopal Church, in 1817, Sholtou 

 ministered to parishes at Huntington, L. I., Fish- 

 kill, N. Y., and Montpelier, Vt. He died at Car- 

 th;vj3 Liuding, N. Y., June 20, 1881. His books, 

 Tlte Rectw of St. Dard,lph'x (1832), Up the River 

 (1853). and Ppi from a lielfry (1855), exhibit Lis 

 experiences and reflections as a rural clergyman. 

 His S tinnier and the Dragon (1850) and Crystalline 

 (18.")t) are fairytales with a moral. 



SHENANDOAH, a borough of Schuylkill Co., Pa., 

 is on the Lahigh Valley, and the Philadelphia and j 

 Heading Riilroads, 13 miles N. of Pottsville. It has 

 a national bank, 12 churches, several schools, 2 daily 

 and 3 wokly newspapers, and a foundry. The busi- 

 ness is almost exclusively mining and shipping ant lira- 

 cite coal. (Sea AsrHB.vcira under COAL ) The col- 

 lieries in the vicinity produce to the value of 82,500,- 

 033 yearly. Slienaudoah was aettleJ in 1852, and 

 incorporate! in 183:5. Th3 inhabitants are chiefly of 

 foreign birth. The borough has gas and water- 

 works. Its property is assessed at $1,600,003; its 

 public debt is $75,003, and its yearly expenses are 

 $10,000. 



SHENANDOAH VALLEY owes its historic inter- 

 est to tha American civil war, and is here described 

 with reference to the campaigns which have rendered 

 it memorable. It takes its name from the Shenan- 

 doah river, which is formed by the junction of two 

 forks the North and South at Front Royal. These 

 forks are separated for 40 miles by the isolated range 

 of the Massanutten. The South Fork, or the Shen- 

 amliah proper, rises by three branches a little south 

 of the parallel of 33' N. lat. From Front Royal the 

 river skirts the western base of the Blue Ridge, till 

 it fulls into the Potomac at Harper's Ferry, after a 

 total course of 170 miles. The valley between the 

 Blue Ridga, on the east, and the North mountain, on 

 the west, has an average breadth of 20 miles, and 

 stretches from the Potomac beyond the sources of 

 tho Shenandoah. ami into North Carolina. Its di- ' 

 rection is from N. E. to S. W. The valley divides 

 itself, by a lino drawn through Lexington, into two 

 parts the southern, mountainous, rugged, and unfit 

 for military movements ; and the northern, rich and 

 fertile, affording an army a natural avenue of com- 

 munication, while furnishing an inexhaustible gran- 

 ary for its commissariat. Besides the Shenandoah, 



the other streams of the region are the North river, 

 an affluent of the James, on which Lexington stands ; 

 the Kanawha, whose main branch, New river, flows 

 N. W. across the valley from its S. E. angle, until it 

 enters West Virginia ; Cedar creek, falling into tho 

 South Fork at Strasburg ; and the Opequan, a small 

 stream, rising in Frederick Co. and flowing N. into 

 the Potomac near Williamsport. 



When Virginia seceded, in May, 1861, the civil war 

 had already begun. From its proximity to the na- 

 tional capital, this State was plainly indicated as tho 

 field of the struggle for the nation's life. The cap- 

 ital of the Southern Confederacy was promptly trans- 

 ferred to Richmond, and the ground between tha 

 two capitals became, for four years, the scene of tho 

 most momentous American conflicts. The valleys of 

 Virginia, as grand military avenues, wore the favor- 

 ite field of strategy for both parties, and their rail- 

 roads were a main object of attack and defence. Tho 

 main Union line was the Baltimore and Ohio, trav- 

 ersing the north of the valley. The Confederate 

 lines were the Virginia Central, whose chief valley 

 station was Staunton, and the East Tennessee, which 

 connected Lynchburg and Knoxville. Military op- 

 erations were facilitated by the fine roads connecting 

 the towns, while the gaps of the Blue Ridge gave ac- 

 cess to East Virginia. Through one of these gaps 

 Manassas there was a railroad, but it was broken 

 up early in tho war. The valley was the scene of 

 the operations of tho Confederate generals, Jackson, 

 Ewell, Stuart, and Early, on a large scale ; and of 

 tho romantic enterprises of Ashby, Mosby, Imboden, 

 and Gilmor. 



The initial campaign of the war in 1861 turned on 

 the effective nse made of tho military advantages of 

 the valley by the Confederate general, J. E. John- 

 ston. Gen. Robert Patterson had crossed the Poto- 

 mac to watch his movements and prevent his joining 

 Beanregard, whose army was threatened by McDow- 

 ell's advance from Washington. But Johnston, with 

 the main body of his "Army of the Shenandoah," 

 slipped through Ashby's Gap and took the railroad 

 to Manassas. This re-enforcement caused the defeat 

 of the Union army on July 21. (See BULL RON.) 



At the beginning of the campaign of 1862 Gen. 

 Johnston, still in command, sustained a check from 

 Gen. James Shields ; but for this he indemnified 

 himself a few months later when he fell on Shields 

 at Port Republic, defeated Fremont at Cross Keys, 

 captured the garrison of Front Royal, drove Gen. 

 N. P. Banks across the Potomac, and, by alarming 

 Washington, prevented the intended junction of 

 McDowell's army with McClellan's, and thus, in the 

 judgment of some military critics, averted the capt- 

 ure of Richmond at that time. It was there in tho 

 Shenandoah Valley that Gen. "Stonewall " Jackson 

 began to practise in his unique and masterly way 

 the game of war. From it he hastened to turn 

 McClellan's right in his Peninsular campaign. At 

 tho close of that campaign the command of the Con- 

 federate army had devolved on" Gen. Robert E. 

 Lee. 



When the safety of Richmond was assured by the 

 withdrawal of tho Union army from its vicinity 

 and the defeat of Gen. Pope at the second battle of 

 Bull Run (q. P.), Gen. Lee determined in the autumn 

 of 1862 on a counter movement the invasion of tho 

 North, and transfer of the conflict to Maryland and 

 Pennsylvania. The Shenandoah Valley was his line 

 of communication, and at Harper's Ferry he captured 

 11,000 men, 73 guns, and 13,000 stands of arms. 

 He was repulsed, however, at Antietam (see SOUTH 

 MOUNTAIN) and was obliged to seek rest again in the 

 valley. 



In the next year, after defeating Hooker at Chan- 

 cellorsville (q. v.), Lee nsed the valley again as his 

 route for the invasion of Pennsylvania. In it Gen. 



