Volume XXVII Issue #2 • An Excerpt From:

Third Winchester
(Opequon)

by Scott C. Patchan

Click Here to view a sample map from this article
Note: All Blue & Gray feature articles are annotated.

Rocky Ford of Opequon Creek northeast of Winchester, Va. The wartime bridge here carried the Winchester & Potomac Railroad. Union cavalry under Brig. Gen. Charles R. Lowell of Massachusetts splashed across the creek (right to left) on the morning of September 19, 1864.

Jed Hotchkiss, the famed mapmaker of the Confederate Army of the Valley District, asserted: “We are keeping the Yankee nation in a perpetual ferment.” A staff officer from North Carolina deemed the Federals “completely mystified and kept in perpetual apprehension of a renewal of invasion.”

Indeed, the veterans of the lamented Stonewall Jackson’s command had wreaked havoc in western Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania throughout the summer of 1864 under the steady hand of Lt. Gen. Jubal A. Early. “Old Jube,” as his men called him, had rescued the vital Confederate supply and rail center of Lynchburg, Virginia, from the fiery clutches of Union Maj. Gen. David Hunter in June. The wily Virginian then turned the tables on the Federals and marched his army down the Shenandoah Valley and crossed the Potomac River, routing Maj. Gen. Lew Wallace’s force at Monocacy on July 9. Early arrived in front of Washington, D.C., on the hot, steamy afternoon of July 11. Although the capital was weakly defended at the time, Mother Nature had wreaked havoc among the Southern fighting men. Hundreds of them lay along the roadside stricken with heatstroke, and many died. With dwindling manpower, Early delayed his planned attack until the next day, but reports of Union reinforcements prompted a prudent withdrawal. After a successful delaying action at Cool Spring near Snicker’s Gap on July 18, he retired to Fisher’s Hill in the Shenandoah Valley. For six days Early waited for the main Federal force to leave the Valley. Then he turned and routed Maj. Gen. George Crook’s Army of West Virginia (Hunter’s command) at the Second Battle of Kernstown, July 24, and dispatched a cavalry force that torched Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, on the 30th.

Jubal Early’s summer campaign had a tremendous impact on the war in Virginia. From a purely military point of view, his actions had removed 30,000 Federal troops from Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s operations against Gen. Robert E. Lee at Petersburg and Richmond. Perhaps even more important was the political impact upon the U. S. presidential campaign that was occurring in 1864. The Lincoln administration was trying to convince the Northern people that the war was in fact being won and that final victory would soon arrive. Although the Union war effort was slowly grinding down the Confederacy, the appearance of Early’s army in front of Washington and the burning of a Pennsylvania town did little to persuade the Northern voters to Lincoln’s point of view. As such, Lincoln’s Democratic opponents constructed a platform calling for peace and separation. If the war effort in the Shenandoah Valley continued on the same downward trajectory into the fall, Lincoln’s reelection hopes could have been severely hampered.

Grant recognized that changes were needed and ultimately appointed Maj. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan to command the newly formed Middle Military Division. Most recently Sheridan had served as Grant’s cavalry commander in the Army of the Potomac, but he had truly made his reputation as a front line infantry division commander in the Army of the Cumberland at Perryville, Stones River and Chattanooga. He caught Grant’s eye at the latter place when the fiery Irishman pushed his division forward in pursuit of the beaten Confederates. However, Sheridan had a mixed record as a cavalry corps commander and his appointment to lead the Army of the Shenandoah as well as the Middle Military Division was met with skepticism. Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton openly questioned Sheridan’s experience for the command and harbored serious doubts as to Sheridan’s fitness for the immense undertaking. In the end, Grant convinced the administration that Sheridan was the right man for the job.