3rd Winchester • Tour the Battlefield • Battle Maps • The Armies
The armies at the Third Battle of Winchester had been through a long and very hard year of campaigning. For many the fighting had started in May in the Battle of the Wilderness and had continued without pause through the bloodbaths of Spotsylvania Court House and Cold Harbor.
Organization of Union Major General Philip Sheridan’s Army of the Shenandoah
Organization of Confederate Lieutenant General Jubal Early’s Army of the Valley
The heart of Jubal Early’s Confederate Army of The Valley were the solid veterans of his Second Corps from the Army of Northern Virginia. Most of these men from Gordon’s, Rodes’ and Ramseur’s Divisions had fought under ‘Stonewall’ Jackson at Second Manassas, Sharpsburg and Chancellorsville. Many called the Valley their home. But their numbers were sadly reduced from the ranks that Jackson had commanded in 1862.
The Second Corps in particular had suffered in the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House in May. Several brigades, including the legendary Stonewall Brigade, had been shattered into fragments and their survivors grouped together into consolidated brigades that were just memories of former organizations.
The Second Corps had joined with former Vice President John Breckinridge’s tiny Army of the Valley. Breckinridge’s men had beaten Union General David Hunter’s army at the Battle of New Market in the spring and had briefly joined Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia at Cold Harbor. They were a very small division with less experience than their comrades from Lee’s main army.
Early also had two divisions of cavalry. Fitzhugh Lee’s Cavalry Division had joined from Lee’s army in August, and were now under the command of Thomas Rosser while Lee acted as commander of the army’s cavalry. Lunsford Lomax commaded the second of the cavalry divisions, who had mostly served in western Virginia throughout the war. Some, Early included, regarded them as “Buttermilk Rangers” and put little trust in them compared to Lee’s veteran troopers.
The Union Army of the Shenandoah under Philip Sheridan was also a mixture of commands brought in from an even more widespread area.
The heart of the army was the Sixth Corps from the Army of the Potomac. They had not suffered the near extinction of some of their Confederate counterparts, but they were badly thinned. Infantry brigades were under the command of senior colonels, and an alarming number of regiments were commanded by captains. Many veteran regiments had consolidated their depleted ranks into fewer companies and been downsized to battalions. But they were solid, capable veterans that could be depended on.
George Crook’s 8th Corps, also known as the Army of West Virginia, were no newcomers to the Shenandoah Valley. Under Hunter they had fought at New Market, and under Crook they had fought at Second Kernstown – although both battles had been defeats. The capable Crook had been Sheridan’s West Point roomate and was – at least at this time – a trusted friend.
William Emory’s 19th Corps had come the farthest to fight in the Valley. Sent to Louisiana in the early part of the war, they had taken part in the siege and capture of Port Hudson. They had just finished with Nathaniel Banks’ failed Red River campaign. Grant had ordered them shipped back east to join the Siege of Petersburg, but instead he sent them to the Shenandoah – an example of Early’s success in drawing Union forces away from Richmond.
Two veteran cavalry divisions from the Army of the Potomac were also sent from the fighting around Richmond. Although Union cavalry in the early days of the war had been somewhat of a joke, those days were long past. The veteran Union troopers, firing repeaters and well-supplied with equipment and remounts, were more than a match for threadbare Confederate troopers on their starving horses. While Early distrusted much of his cavalry Sheridan considered his an elite who were quite capable of taking on Confederate infantry.
The well fed, capable, and much more numerous Federal troops were a serious challenge for Early’s men. Jackson’s old “foot cavalry” had been used to long odds for two and a half years, but now they were growing long indeed.