The battle of Tom’s Brook, fought on October 9^th, 1864, destroyed the Confederate cavalry in the Shenandoah Valley as an effective fighting force, and cemented the dominance of Union cavalry in the valley.

Background

Following his victories in the Third battle of Winchester, and at Fisher’s Hill, General Philip Sheridan believed that the 1864 Shenandoah valley campaign had been won and that Jubal Early’s Army of the Valley posed no more threat to him. He was more worried about the ability of the Shenandoah valley to continue to supply sustenance to Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, locked in a brutal campaign of trench warfare around Petersburg. So was General Ulysess Grant, who had told Sheridan: “If the war is to last another year, we want the Shenandoah valley to remain a barren waste.” Beginning on September 26^th, at Staunton, and moving southward down the valley, the Army of the Shenandoah conducted a systematic destruction of mills, barns, crops, and stealing livestock, that would become known simply as “the burning.” Over 2,000 barns, filled with wheat, hay and farming implements, and over 70 mills filled with flour and wheat were put to the torch, while the troops herded off no less than 3,000 sheep. Huge clouds of smoke filled the air from the fires.

But the Confederates did not take all this lying down. Bands of partisan rangers harassed his army as it marched down the valley, and their attacks grew in intensity the further down the Yankees penetrated. Lieutenant John R. Meigs, Sheridan’s topographical engineer was shot and killed, and in retaliation for this, Sheridan ordered all houses within five miles of Dayton, the town near which he had been shot, to be burned. However, the officer to whom this unhappy detail fell, managed to get Sheridan to rescind the order. But bands of partisan rangers were not the only thing the Unionists had to contend with. The Army of the Valley had reentered that place from Waynesboro, and by October 1^st, had reached halfway between Harrisonburg and Staunton, ready to attack Sheridan again. Here, Jubal Early halted his army, waiting for the newly arrived cavalry brigade of Thomas L. Rosser. As soon as Rosser arrived, Early prepared to attack him, but Sheridan’s troops were too busy moving south, and Early had to pursue. But the pursuit proved too slow for the Confederate cavalry. Early’s cavalry was organized into two divisions, one commanded by Rosser, his first time commanding a division, and the other by Major General Lunsford L. Lomax, a former staff officer.

Both Confederate cavalry divisions were understrength, and the quality of their mounts had seriously declined by this point in the war. In weapons too, they were ill equipped. Lomax’s troopers had neither sabers nor pistols, but only rifles, and some of his troopers had no weapon of any kind. But despite these disadvantages, they had in the person of Rosser, an experienced veteran officer. Wounded four times in the line of duty, Rosser was known to be an aggressive and able commander, fearless, if not reckless at times.

Following Sheridan’s rear guard, as his army advanced, the Southern troopers got firsthand views of the fresh destruction taking place in the valley at the hands of the Unionists. Many of Rosser’s troopers hailed from the valley and the sight of their burned homesteads, and those of their neighbors, and of the devastation that the Yankees were inflicting upon their beautiful valley filled them with rage and hatred. Indeed, to say that the Rebel troopers were incensed at the scenes of destruction would have been understatement. So great was their rage and the hate that boiled within them that it began to displace good sense.

Driven by vengeance, Rosser and his troopers soon outdistanced their own infantry support, as they pursued the Federal advance, snapping at the heels of Sheridan’s rear guard, and skirmishing with his numerically superior Federal cavalry. For two days this went on, the Rebels, who were not too keen on taking prisoners, driving back Sheridan’s rear guard, commanded by Brigadier General George A. Custer, before them. At Mill Creek, on the 8^th of October, the Confederates pushed back Custer, inflicting fifty casualties upon his force, and enabling the Confederates to recover several hundred head of cattle, sheep and some wagons. Rosser returned the livestock to the valley inhabitants, earning him their affectionate nickname “Savior of the Valley.”

But Rosser would have trouble living up that name, however. Sheridan was getting fed up with the pesky Confederate cavalry by now. Late on October 8^th, an angry Sheridan ordered his cavalry commander to take his divisions and “whip the Rebel cavalry or get whipped.”

Sheridan’s cavalry was under the command of Brigadier General Alfred Torbert, and comprised some 6,000 troopers. He had two divisions too, under the command of Generals Wesley Meritt, and George Armstrong Custer. Both men were youthful and aggressive, and Custer had a well-deserved and accurate reputation as a glory hunter. With his flowing blond locks, the handsome and arrogant Custer, was as proud of himself as Rosser was sure of himself. The two men were good friends in the period before the war, and maintained a spirited rivalry throughout.

Dawn found Meritt and Custer’s troopers mounted and in the saddle. Moving out from their camps near Tom’s Brook, they advanced to take on Rosser’s troopers. Custer deployed his men astride the Back Road, while Meritt moved through Tom’s Brook, in preparation to flank the Confederates when they were discovered.

  Battle

Rosser took position at Spiker’s Hill, just south of where the creek crossed the road. The morning was chilly and occasional snowflakes drifted down. The Confederates could see in the meadows north of the creek, the disconcerting sight of “moving masses of bluecoats…covering the hill slopes and blocking the roads with apparently countless squadrons.” Rosser was informed by a subordinate that he had no chance whatsoever of defeating Custer’s division, but Rosser snapped back in reply that he would have driven Custer back by 10 that morning. Rosser was so short on manpower that he lacked the strength to cover both of his flanks, which were exposed.

Lomax’s division, to the east, was deployed with an artillery battery on high ground south of Jordon’s Run, on both sides of the valley turnpike. Facing Meritt’s division, Lomax knew the situation was apparently hopeless. His two small brigades, Bradley P. Johnson’s, east of the road, and Lieutenant Colonel William P. Thompson, west of the road, were too weak to stand against Meritt’s impending attack, and the battery of six pieces of the Washington Light Artillery, in his division’s center, would not be enough help. Meritt divided his force. He threw out Colonel James Lowell’s brigade against Lomax’s front, and shifted a second brigade under Colonel Thomas C. Devin to attack Lomax’s left flank. Lomax could not cover his flanks and he knew it. Devin brushed aside the light resistance in his path, as he advanced west of the turnpike, and on Lomax’s left. His position no longer tenable, Lomax began to withdraw.

On the back road, Rosser’s men were deployed on Spiker’s Hill in a semicircular arc. His left was held by Colonel Munford’s brigade, the right of Munford’s brigade resting on the Back Road. His right was held by the Laurel brigade, a highly decorated brigade in the Confederate service, which had served under Turner Ashby during Jackson’s valley campaign and had ridden rings around the Union army when under the command of Jeb Stuart. In the center was a battery of two artillery pieces under an officer named Carter, supported by a small brigade of 300 men commanded by William Payne.

On the back road, Custer spotted Rosser as he prepared to launch his attack, and spectacularly spurred his horse ahead of his battle line, waving his hat in a spectacular and vain salute.

On the back road, the horse artillery of both sides began to thunder away at one another, as Custer’s men advanced through the creek bottom and moved against the center of Rosser’s line. For two hours, the fighting raged, as…

“…the skirmishers dashed from position to position, the riders attacking batteries, and firing their pistols and slashing at one another with their sabers.”[1]

Charge and countercharge occurred between the cavalry, with Payne’s brigade making three countercharges against the Federals. “In the center, the Confederates maintained their position with much stubbornness.” Sheridan would report, “and for a time seemed to have recovered their fighting spirit.” After an hour of combat, Custer realized that he was making little headway against the Rebels in a frontal assault, and decided to employ a flanking maneuver instead. He decided to distract Rosser with another frontal attack while he sent a force around his left flank. Two regiments were sent on this flanking maneuver, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel William H. Benjamin. Seeing part of Meritt’s division forming on his own left flank, Custer launched a ferocious assault on Spiker’s Hill against the center of the Confederate line. Flanked, and hit in front, Rosser’s troopers could not stand against the onslaught of bluecoats. Rosser’s left flank was enveloped and gave way. Wickham’s brigade withdrew, and the back road swarmed with Yankees. The Federals swarmed Carter’s guns, which blasted their ranks with grapeshot. Payne and Rosser made a desperate and heroic effort to save the guns, leading their men into the onrushing Federals, but it was too late, and Payne had to fall back, while the Laurel brigade held the Yankees at bay. Carter’s two guns were taken, and Rosser had no choice but to fall back.

On the valley pike, events had played out very similarly for the Confederates, except that Lomax made even less of a stand. He fell back immediately, his rear-guard fighting from every ridge along his line of retreat. But the Confederates could not keep the retreat from descending into a rout, and the Yankees took many prisoners. The Rebels of his command were jittery, and panic stricken when it came to flanking maneuvers, as they had proved at Fisher’s Hill. They needed no encouragement to stream down the valley pike in disorder, chased by Meritt’s Federals. Lomax himself was captured, but he escaped by knocking his captor down and joining the Yankees in a charge upon his own men. Meritt chased Lomax’s troopers twenty miles up the pike to Mount Jackson. There was no tactical reason for the retreat to be chased this far, but the troops were simply scared to death of Yankee flanking attacks.

Rosser’s troopers too, were in retreat. One private recalled seeing:

“…the whole country to my left rear covered with the flying regiments of other brigades, the enemy pressing them close.”[2]

Rosser attempted to make a stand two miles from Tom’s Brook, but the Federals forced him back. Southwestward down the Back Road, Rosser’s troopers fled, not stopping until they reached Columbia Furnace, nineteen miles from Spiker’s Hill. The Federals scooped up prisoners and baggage as the Rebels fled.

Aftermath

The battle of Tom’s Brook established the dominance of the Federal mounted arm in the Shenandoah valley. Rosser and Lomax lost 330 men, while Meritt seized 43 wagons full of ammunition and supplies, five artillery pieces, three ambulances, and many caissons, horses and mules. Custer captured six pieces of artillery, the headquarters wagons of both Confederate generals, and the ambulance and wagon trains, a total of 47 wagons. This was nearly everything on wheels in Rosser’s divisions, and was an enormous blow to the Confederate cavalry. Union losses were about sixty men.

Smarting at his defeat, Rosser jumped at the opportunity on October 11^th, to capture Custer’s command, an opportunity that was providentially denied him. Yet he went on to lead highly successful and fruitful raids on New Creek and Beverly during the winter, yielding hundreds of prisoners, and proving that he was still a force to be reckoned with. But by that time, the Shenandoah valley campaign had largely wound down. The Army of the Valley had been defeated at the battle of Cedar Creek, an action in which the Confederate cavalry played little part. Early had a low opinion of cavalry, and this battle did nothing to change his opinion. He wrote to Lee of the battle:

“This is very distressing to me…but the fact is that the enemy’s cavalry is so much superior to ours, both in numbers and equipment, and the country is so favorable to the operations of cavalry that is impossible for ours to compete with his. Lomax’s cavalry is armed with entirely with rifles, and has no sabers, and the consequence is that they cannot fight on horseback, and in this open country, they cannot successfully fight on foot against large bodies of cavalry; besides the command is and has been demoralized all the time. It would be better if they could all be put into the infantry; but if that were tried, I am afraid they would all run off.”

Of the Laurel brigade, he remarked sarcastically, “The Laurel is a running vine.”

Writing of the effects of the battle of Tom’s Brook, George A. Pond recorded:

The moral effect of Sheridan’s victory at Tom’s Brook was very great. The Confederate cavalry in the Shenandoah valley had been feeble, compared with the infantry, and Sheridan, while at Charlestown, had remarked that it was “in poor condition” and was kept so close to the infantry that his own large and well-appointed corps of horsemen could not get at it.” Fitz Lee’s contingent had strengthened it, but the battle at Winchester, and the subsequent defeat at Fisher’s Hill, in both of which the cavalry held the flank that was turned by Crook, had again greatly dispirited it. The arrival of Rosser had revived the hope of restoring the cavalry to possible efficiency…The assurance with which Rosser challenged Custer all the way down from Harrisonburg, showed that he had no conception of Sheridan’s mounted strength, though his fatal zeal was probably due in part to the excitement of his men at seeing their farms and houses in flames; for many of Early’s cavalrymen were from this region. Their eagerness to exact retribution brought upon them double mortification and suffering, and the disaster of Tom’s Brook crushed all hope of effecting anything with the Confederate cavalry, and almost dazed Rosser’s immediate command. The chief value of Sheridan’s victory was not made evident until ten days later, at Cedar Creek, where the Union cavalry, flushed with success, developed great staunchness, while Early’s horsemen proved fatally weak.[3]

[1] Thomas A. Lewis And the Editors of Time Life Books The Shenandoah In Flames: The Valley Campaign of 1864 (Alexandria, Virginia: Time Life Books, 1987) p. 139

[2]Quoted from William J. Miller, “The Cavalry  Engagement at Tom’s Brook.  https://www.shenandoahatwar.org/toms-brook-article-1

[3] George E. Pond The Shenandoah Valley In 1864 (New York, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1883) p. 204