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about the future of the freedman than when he started. Day-to-day relations between blacks and whites had the feel of an awkward jig to him. He had visited a school in Boston where a “quadroon” pupil was made to sit by herself, as though separated from the other girls by a cordon sanitaire.33.7 The sight convinced him that the racial integration of the U.S. Army was vital to reforming American society. He knew this would not happen overnight, but he had been encouraged by the number of white soldiers willing to join colored regiments, especially among the foreign volunteers who wanted to become officers.

Private James Horrocks was among the whites applying to transfer to a colored regiment. “What do you think about it?” he asked his parents, as he weighed the army’s unequal treatment of colored regiments against the possible improvement of his prospects:

Chances of being shot greater; accommodations and comforts generally smaller, but pay much larger than what I have now. No horse to ride but a uniform to wear. And above all—an Officer’s real shoulder straps and the right of being addressed and treated as a gentleman, with the advantage of better society, and if I like it, this is a position I can hold for life, being United States troops, while Volunteers will undoubtedly be disbanded when the war is over.33.8 40

Horrocks’s confidence that peace could not be far away received a boost on October 19 at the Battle of Cedar Creek in the Shenandoah Valley. The Confederates under Jubal Early surprised the Federals in a dawn attack, routing two of Sheridan’s corps and destroying their camps. But in the afternoon, Sheridan led a crushing counterattack, capturing hundreds of prisoners and most of Early’s artillery. It was the Confederate general’s third and final battle against Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley. Every battle had been a Federal victory, and Early could not afford to risk another encounter. “We have only pistols, sabers and old fashioned rifles,” wrote a Confederate cavalryman. “Above all, we have not enough food to keep the horses up.”41 Sheridan had achieved his purpose; the verdant Shenandoah Valley was now a wasteland of burned fields and ruined homesteads.

Sheridan’s success in Virginia made some newspapers uneasy. “The laying waste of the Shenandoah Valley will undoubtedly call out acts in retaliation equally terrible,” predicted the Detroit Free Press as reports began to filter through to the North of a Southern movement to exact revenge.42 On October 15 the Richmond Whig urged Davis

to burn one of the chief cities of the enemy, say Boston, Philadelphia, or Cincinnati. If we are asked how such a thing can be done, we answer, nothing would be easier. A million of dollars would lay the proudest city of the enemy in ashes. The men to execute the work are already there. There would be no difficulty in finding there, here, or in Canada, suitable persons to take charge of the enterprise and arrange its details.… New York is worth twenty Richmonds. They have a dozen towns to our one; and in their towns is centered nearly all their wealth. It would not be immoral and barbarous. It is not immoral nor barbarous to defend yourself by any means or with any weapon the enemy may employ for your destruction.43

The Confederacy’s mood of despair and outrage would soon be reflected in its new cipher key, which would be altered from “Complete Victory” to the more ominous-sounding “Come Retribution.”

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33.1 The fourth Viscount Monck exceeded all expectations when he took up the governorship. He had only accepted the post because his Irish estates were so encumbered with debt that it was either Canada or bankruptcy. He had never displayed the least talent for politics or administration before; yet Palmerston had seen something in Monck that he liked, and his perspicacity was rewarded. Monck was a diligent, discreet, and scrupulously honest public servant who led the way to the British North American provinces’ becoming the Canadian Confederation in 1867.

33.2 The vessel was the Night Hawk, which had