3rd Battle of Winchester Battle Maps – Union Attack

3rd Winchester • Tour the Battlefield • Battle Maps • Battle Facts • The Armies
The Battlefield • Dawn • 10 a.m. • Attack • Counterattack • Early p.m. • Late p.m. • Dusk

At 11:40 a.m. a single gun fired to signal the Union attack. In the north Grover’s Division of Emory’s Nineteenth Corps moved out of the First Woods and immediately came under a flanking fire from Breathed’s horse artillery on the other side of Red Bud Run. They pushed forward into the Second Woods, breaking Atkinson’s Georgia Brigade in hand-to-hand fighting. But Gordon rallied the Georgians and, adding two more brigades, counterattacked Grover’s badly thinned and disorganized division.

Battle map for the 3rd Battle of Winchester - 11:40 a.m.

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To the south Ricketts’ and Getty’s divisions of Wright’s Sixth Corps were ordered to guide on the Berryville Road, which headed somewhat south as it reached the Confederate lines. Showered by rifle fire and canister from Confederate Colonel William Nelson’s artillery, the Sixth Corps men charged relentlessly forward and broke Ramseur’s line at the Dinkle farmhouse. Nelson limbered up his cannon and withdrew to safety as Ramseur’s infantry were pushed back in chaotic fighting.

Rickett’s and Getty’s battered divisions reorganized to try to hold the ground around the Dinkel farm buildings. But their success led to potential disaster. By guiding on the Berryville Road as ordered a gap had opened in the center of the Union line between Ricketts’ and Emory’s men. Facing the gap was the division of Confederate General Robert Rodes, and he knew exactly what to do with it.