3rd Winchester • Tour the Battlefield • Battle Maps • Battle Facts • The Armies
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Red Bud Run • Star Fort • Fort Collier • Rutherford’s Farm
Stephenson Depot • National Cemetery • Confederate Cemetery
The “Confederate Defense” wayside marker is about 0.7 mile from the Redbud Road trailhead on the walking tour of the Civil War Trust’s Third Winchester battlefield site. (see map below)
Looking southeast toward the line of trees that line both sides of Hackwood Lane
From the marker:
Third Battle of Winchester
Confederate Defense
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In the mid-morning of September 19, Confederate Gen. John B. Gordon’s infantry, veteran troops from Georgia, Louisiana, and Virginia, took position to your right on the other side of Hackwood Lane. At 11:40 a.m., at the sound of artillery fire, infantry of the Union Nineteenth Corps advanced upon the Confederates. During the assault, Confederate Col. Carter M. Braxton brought seven guns to the hill on which you are standing.
Braxton positioned his guns wheel to wheel, loaded with double canister – two cans each filled with dozens of iron balls – and waited. When the Union troops were within 60 yards, recalled one Confederate, “the guns fired as one, when the front line of the enemy was almost close enough to feel the flame of the powder.” These cannon, along with Confederate horse artillery firing from the other side of Red Bud Run, devastated the Union line. An Iowa soldier called it, “one of the most withering fires of shot, shell, and canister I have ever witnessed.” Another soldier wondered how “so many of us got off alive.”
From the caption to the drawing:
This sketch by J.E. Taylor shows Braxton’s position after the battle. (Image courtesy of the Western Reserve Historical Society)
The Confederate Defense wayside marker is on the walking tour on the Civil War Trust’s 3rd Winchester battlefield site about 0.7 mile from the Redbud Road trailhead. The trailhead can be reached from the Interstate 81 interchange with U.S. 11 north of Winchester. At the light immediately to the east of the interchange take Redbud Road (County Road 661) south 0.85 mile. Parking for the trailhead is on the south side of Redbud Road. (39°12’03.1″N 78°07’45.1″W)