Grover's division of the Union 19th Corps in action at the Opequon — the Battle of Third Winchester — September 19, 1864. Alfred R. Waud, sketched at the battle. Library of Congress.
Grant: a 2022 Battlefield Restoration Grant of $79,429 to the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation.
The battle
On September 19, 1864, three miles northeast of Winchester, in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, more than 50,000 Union and Confederate soldiers clashed across the fields and stream at the edge of town. For hours the two sides traded costly assaults and counterattacks. Confederate artillery tore into the Union flank. "A more murderous fire I never witnessed," one Confederate said; "They walked death in our ranks," a Union soldier recalled.
By day's end 3,000 soldiers would never go home. The Union victory, won at great cost, began a string of Confederate defeats in the valley on the road to surrender. Today the quiet green fields bear witness to that human cost.
Saving Huntsberry Farm
The grant builds on the purchase of Huntsberry Farm in 2009. With help from a Battlefield Land Acquisition Grant, the Foundation joined Virginia's Department of Conservation and Recreation and Department of Historic Resources to buy the 209-acre nineteenth-century farm caught in the crossfire. A conservation easement protects it permanently, including:
- Battery Knoll, from which Confederate artillery rained fire on Union troops;
- the Middle Field, scene of the battle's bitterest fighting.
Restoring the fences
The award pays for period fencing on both parts of the farm. The fences that once ordered the property will help visitors read the landscape: how the family that lived here used it, how soldiers crossed it, and how it can be a place of renewal today.
About the grants
Battlefield Restoration Grants help return nationally significant American Revolution, War of 1812 and Civil War battlefields to their "day-of-battle" condition. They are funded by the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which reinvests revenue from offshore oil and gas leasing in conservation and recreation. The National Park Service's American Battlefield Protection Program also offers Battlefield Land Acquisition, Preservation Planning and Battlefield Interpretation grants, supporting stewardship by Tribal, state and local communities.
Sources
Based on "Third Winchester: Restoring Order in the Landscape of Memory," American Battlefield Protection Program, National Park Service, part of its 2022 Battlefield Restoration Grant highlights; a work of the United States government in the public domain. The soldiers' words are quoted as the article gives them. The article's photograph, credited to the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation, is replaced by Waud's 1864 sketch.
Licence: CC0 1.0 (public domain) · Adapted from www.nps.gov
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