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 Victories in the Valley” wayside marker is about a mile south of the Redbud Road trailhead on the walking tour of the Civil War Trust’s Third Winchester battlefield site. (see map below)
The maker looks out over the scene of some of the heaviest fighting of the battle.
From the marker:
The Third Battle of Winchester
Union Victories in the Valley
After the successful attack of the Union Eighth Corps, it was only a matter of time before the Confederates lost the battle. As Confederate Gen. Early consolidated his lines closer and closer to Winchester, his men faced coordinated infantry attacks. Worse still, powerful Union cavalry forces fought their way along the Valley Pike, threatening to surround Early’s forces. Although the Southerners offered stubborn resistance at Fort Collier, Star Fort, and from every fenceline and barricade they could find, Early had to choose between retreat and the destruction or capture of his army. By nightfall, the city of Winchester was in Union hands.
The Third Battle of Winchester was the bloodiest battle ever fought in the Shenandoah Valley, producing more casualties than the entire 1862 Valley Campaign. Union Gen. Sheridan lost 12 percent of his army with 5,000 of 39,000 soldiers killed, wounded and missing. Early suffered fewer casualties – 3,500 men – but he lost 25 percent of his army.
After the battle Early’s men retreated twenty miles south to Fisher’s Hill. On September 22, they were outflanked from their position and forced to retreat again. A Confederate cavalry force was beaten atTom’s Brook, but Early nearly defeated the Army of the Shenandoah at Cedar Creek on October 19. Sheridan organized a powerful counterattack, however, and almost completely destroyed the Army of the Valley. Never again would the Confederates control or even conduct substantial operations in the Shenandoah. Thereafter, Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant shifted his focus to forcing Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee out of Richmond. He accomplished this seven months later, effectively ending the war.
From the caption to the drawing:
The dead were buried where they fell. Many were later moved to the nearby Winchester National Cemetery or the Stonewall Cemetery. Some 8,000 Union and Confederate soldiers from the many battles around Winchester rest in these cemeteries today. (image courtesy of the Western Reserve Historical Society)
The Union Victories in the Valley wayside marker is along the walking tour for the Civil War Trust’s Third Winchester battlefield site about 1 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°11’56.5″N 78°07’36.7″W)