The Second Battle of Winchester: Clearing the Road to Gettysburg

"They sent the shot after me, but I would not halt… My clothes were pierced with bullets, but my skin was not cut. I did not want to serve my time in a Confederate prison."
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— Pvt. Lorenzo Barnhart, 110th Ohio

After his flank attack won the day at Chancellorsville, General Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia felt they could beat any Union force. Lee resolved to carry the war out of Virginia again, crossing the Potomac to invade the North and threaten both Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. To protect that crossing, his army first had to deal with the Union garrison at Winchester.

The remains of West Fort. Credit: National Park Service.

Why Lee marched north

• to relieve the war-ravaged towns, farms and people of northern Virginia;
• because his army was near its peak, while the Union Army of the Potomac was at a low point and poorly led;
• to frighten the North and win a decisive battle on its soil;
• for the slim chance that another great victory would bring Britain or France to recognize the Confederacy and send help.

But Chancellorsville had cost Lee his most dependable lieutenant, Stonewall Jackson, shot by his own men. Lee reorganized his two corps into three: James Longstreet kept the First, Richard S. "Dick" Ewell took Jackson's Second, and A. P. Hill got the new Third.

By June 7, 1863, about 70,000 men were gathered near Culpeper, Virginia. A Union cavalry attack at nearby Brandy Station on June 9 was driven off by J.E.B. Stuart's cavalry and some infantry — but it showed Union horsemen were now equal, or nearly so, to the famed Confederate riders.

Ewell heads for the Valley

On June 10, Ewell's corps set out for the Shenandoah Valley with two jobs: march north behind the screen of the Blue Ridge, and destroy the roughly 8,000 Federals holding the crossroads town of Winchester under Major General Robert Milroy. The rest of Lee's army would follow through the Valley, with Stuart screening east of the mountains.

The whole corps, nearly 20,000 men, entered the Valley near Front Royal on June 12. Robert Rodes' division turned toward Berryville and the Potomac crossings; Jubal Early's and Edward "Allegheny" Johnson's divisions went for Winchester.

Milroy digs in

Milroy's scouts had warned of an attack as early as June 10, but he brushed it off. Rather than evacuate pro-Confederate Winchester, he chose to hold, apparently unaware that Early and Johnson brought about 14,000 men against his 8,000 — almost two to one.

His position looked strong. A ring of earthen forts, first built by Confederates and improved by both sides, covered the approaches. Over the previous six months Milroy had strengthened them all, especially the largest, Star Fort, guarding the Martinsburg Pike from the north. Star Fort, West Fort and Fort Milroy each had a six-gun battery. But the forts stood far enough apart for an attacker to isolate and take them one at a time.

June 13: closing in

A cavalry skirmish at Middletown, twelve miles south, on June 12 finally roused Milroy; he sent Brigadier General Washington Elliott's infantry and two guns to Pritchard's Hill, two miles south of town. Before dawn on June 13, Ewell advanced — Early up the Valley Turnpike, Johnson up the Front Royal Pike and around to the north and east, cutting off escape routes.

Early flanked Pritchard's Hill with Harry Hays' Louisiana Tigers and John Brown Gordon's brigade, pushing Elliott's men back to Bowers Hill and Milltown Heights on the town's southern edge. There Union artillery and a fierce counterattack held the Confederates for the night — but Ewell now controlled every road south and southeast of town. Surrounded, outnumbered and with his telegraph cut, Milroy pulled his units in toward the forts.

June 14: West Fort falls

On Sunday morning the Confederates took Bowers Hill, which the Federals had abandoned. Ewell and Early then chose to strike West Fort, northwest of town. Leaving Gordon and plenty of guns at Bowers Hill, Early took the rest of his division and about 20 cannon on a looping 10-mile march west.

Around 5 p.m. his guns opened a bombardment that lasted nearly an hour. At about 7 p.m. the infantry went in. Hays recalled:

"The order to charge was given, and so rapidly did this brigade push forward that the enemy had time to give us but a few volleys of musketry and only four or five rounds of canister from their field pieces before the position was reached and carried."

After a short, savage fight, the defenders — some with lever-action Henry rifles — fell back less than a mile to Fort Milroy. An artillery duel raged into the night; Captain Frederick Alexander's guns in Star Fort kept the Confederates pinned until after dark. "We had to work our guns on our knees," one Union gunner said, "the shell killing our horses and wounding our men." A Confederate attack on Fort Milroy around 9 p.m. was beaten back.

Retreat and ambush

Johnson was now moving to block the Martinsburg Pike, Milroy's last real way out, while Rodes, having cleared Berryville, headed for Martinsburg. Down to one day's rations and little artillery ammunition, Milroy's council of war decided at about 9 p.m. to leave.

At about 1 a.m. on June 15, the Federals slipped out. Wagons and guns were left behind to keep quiet, the cannon spiked; Captains Alexander and John Carlin asked to save their guns and were refused.

But Johnson's men had marched about seven miles through the night to Stephenson's Depot, four miles north of town. From a railroad cut beside the Pike, his Virginians opened fire around 3:30 a.m. In the confused darkness Milroy sent the 110th, 122nd and 123rd Ohio against the Confederate right, but the line held. After more than two hours, he tried both flanks — the Louisiana Pelican Brigade held one, the Stonewall Brigade blocked the Pike, and Lieutenant Colonel R. Snowden Andrews' artillery broke up every attempt to fight or flee.

A rout

Some Federals escaped, among them Colonel J. Warren Keifer and many of his 110th Ohio, fleeing to Harpers Ferry, Hancock, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. Many more surrendered. Milroy himself fled across the fields toward Harpers Ferry, heard shouting, "Men, save yourselves!" and "Every man fight your way through to Harpers Ferry."

It was a striking Confederate victory, and Ewell had made the right moves to win it. The discredited Milroy was relieved and sent west. Winchester's citizens celebrated the end of his occupation — but only briefly. Three weeks later, many of the same Confederates came back through town in agony after their bloody defeat at Gettysburg.

Part of the battlefield, in Old Town Winchester and west of the city, is preserved in part by the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation.

Sources

Based on "Second Battle of Winchester," Cedar Creek & Belle Grove National Historical Park, National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain.