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 Union Rear” wayside marker is a short distance from the southeast trailhead of the walking tour of the Civil War Trust’s Third Winchester battlefield site. (see map below)
From the marker:
The Third Battle of Winchester
The Union Rear
The First Woods saw little combat, but areas near the front lines were bustling with activity. Here, men of Grover’s, Dwight’s, and Thoburn’s Union divisions formed for their attacks across the Middle Field. Union Generals rallied the broken Nineteenth Corps, and field hospitals were established here to care for the wounded.
More than 5,000 men were wounded in the Third Battle of Winchester. Before they could be moved to proper hospitals in and around Winchester, men limped, crawled, or were carried to improvised field hospitals. One was set up along the banks of Red Bud Run 250 yards in front of you. Capt. Ira B. Gardner of the 14th Maine, wounded in the arm in the Second Woods, walked back across the Middle Field to the Red Bud Run field hospital. He soon joined some 300 wounded men at the nearby home of Charles L. Wood where his arm was amputated near the shoulder, wrapped in cloth, placed in a box, and buried in the yard. Thirty years later Gardner returned and was told Mr. Wood had unearthed his arm and reburied it in the Winchester National Cemetery. The Wood family, like so many others who lived near the scenes of battle, lost their cattle, harvest, fences, linens, and much else. The Wood family never fully recovered and eventually lost its land as well.
From the caption to the photo:
Every home near Winchester became a temporary field hospital like the ones pictured here east of Richmond, VA.
“The Union Rear” wayside marker is on the walking tour on the Civil War Trust’s 3rd Winchester battlefield site just a short distance from the Millbrook High School trailhead.