Qualla: Third Battle of Winchester

Third Battle of Winchester: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mathew Benjamin Brady / Levin Corbin Handy, Public domain. A Black man named Thomas Laws walked into Winchester, Virginia, with a permit to sell vegetables on September 16, 1864. Inside the basket he carried a coded letter from Union General Philip Sheridan. Laws delivered it to a Quaker schoolteacher named Rebecca Wright, who replied in writing about the troop movements she had been quietly observing from the upstairs window of her boarding house. Three days later Sheridan attacked Jubal Early outside Winchester with 40,000 men. By nightfall on September 19, two Confederate generals were dead, two more were wounded, Early had lost nearly a quarter of his army, and the Shenandoah Valley campaign that finally broke the Confederate hold on the Valley had begun in earnest.

Image: Mathew Benjamin Brady / Levin Corbin Handy | Public domain

Third Battle of Winchester: How the Intelligence Got Out

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NPS, Public domain. By the summer of 1864 Jubal Early had been operating out of Winchester for months, raiding north toward Washington and tying up Union forces that Ulysses S. Grant needed at Petersburg. Sheridan, the new commander of the Middle Military Division, needed to know what Early actually...

Image: NPS | Public domain

Third Battle of Winchester: Two Future Presidents

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bvt. Lt. Col. G. L. Gillespie, Major of Engineers, U.S.A. under the authority of the U.S. Secretary of War, Public domain. Sheridan moved at 2 a.m. on September 19. James Wilson's cavalry division crossed Opequon Creek east of Winchester and pushed through a narrow ravine known as Berryville Canyon, then engaged Stephen D. Ramseur's Confederate division on Limestone Ridge. Behind Wilson came Horatio ...

Image: Bvt. Lt. Col. G. L. Gillespie, Major of Engineers, U.S.A. under the authority of the U.S. Secretary of War | Public domain

Third Battle of Winchester: Rodes and Russell

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Samuel Clarke Farrar (1842-1935) and TwoScarsUp, Public domain. Around noon, with both lines now in position, the battle broke open. The Confederate divisions of Gordon and Rodes attacked Emory's XIX Corps in a coordinated counterstroke that drove back the Union right and threatened the entire Federal line. Robert E. Rodes, perhaps the most r...

Image: Samuel Clarke Farrar (1842-1935) and TwoScarsUp | Public domain

Third Battle of Winchester: The Patton Connection

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bvt. Lt. Col. G. L. Gillespie, Major of Engineers, U.S.A. under the authority of the U.S. Secretary of War, Public domain. Among the Confederate dead was Colonel George S. Patton, commanding the 22nd Virginia Infantry. He was mortally wounded leading his men in the late-afternoon Confederate collapse and died six days later, on September 25, in Winchester. His grandson - George S. Patton Jr., the Wor...

Image: Bvt. Lt. Col. G. L. Gillespie, Major of Engineers, U.S.A. under the authority of the U.S. Secretary of War | Public domain

Third Battle of Winchester: What Came After

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sarah Stierch, CC BY-SA 2.0. Early retreated south down the Valley Pike to a strong position at Fisher's Hill, near Strasburg. Sheridan followed him there and won again on September 22. The Shenandoah Valley campaign continued through October, including the Battle of Cedar Creek on October 19, where Sheridan...

Image: Sarah Stierch | CC BY-SA 2.0