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
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The Confederate Horse Artillery wayside marker is about 0.4 mile from the Redbud Road trailhead on the walking tour of the Civil War Trust’s 3rd Battle of Winchester battlefield site.
The view looks south from the walking trail toward the treeline that follows Red Bud Run. Confederate Major James Breathed’s Horse Artillery deployed here on the flank of the Union army in the early part of the battle to harrass its advance. Horse artillery was attached to the cavalry, using lighter artillery pieces and mounting its crews for high mobility.
From the marker:
The Third Battle of Winchester
Confederate Horse Artillery
“A more murderous fire I never witnessed…”
Col. Thomas Munford, C.S.A.
In an effort to protect the Confederate left flank, Gen. Fitzhugh Lee placed a detachment of cavalry and six pieces of horse artillery, lighter cannons made specifically for horse soldiers, along this rise. These guns, under the command of Major James Breathed, poured a devastating fire into the ranks of the Union Nineteenth Army Corps as it advanced and retreated across the fields on the other side of Red Bud Run. According to one Confederate officer: “Our cannoneers made their battery roar, sending their death-dealing messengers with a precision and consistency that made the earth around them seem to tremble….A more murderous fire I never witnessed than was plunged into this heterogeneous mass.”
By the time Northern troops made a flanking movement late in the afternoon, the Southerners were no longer here. Union Artillery later used this position to support the Eighth Corps in its advanced towards Winchester.
From the photo caption:
Major James Breathed. According to Col. William H. Payne, C.S.A., he “fought the Yankees because he hated them, When he entered a battle it was to kill. He would have thought it an insult to his dead comrades to dream in a nightmare that we were rightfully beaten and that they had died for a foolish cause.” (image courtesy of David P. Bridges)
Looking south along the Confederate Flank Trail. The “Confederate Horse Artillery” wayside marker is on the right of the trail in the distance just before the woods.