The city of Winchester, Virginia, and the surrounding area were the site of numerous battles during the American Civil War, as the contending armies strove to control the lower Shenandoah Valley. Winchester changed hands more often than any other Confederate city.
Background John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry
Ties between Winchester and the American Civil War are considered to have begun with the suppression of John Brown's raid in October 1859, in nearby Harpers Ferry. Colonel Lewis Tilghman Moore, of the 31st Virginia Militia of Frederick County, assembled 150 militiamen from the Marion Guards, the Morgan Continentals, and the Mount Vernon Riflemen, and moved them on the Winchester and Potomac Railroad to Harpers Ferry, to the east. Ironically, the first death of Brown's raid was Heyward Shepherd, a free black from Winchester who worked for the B&O Railroad; he was buried in Winchester's colored cemetery with military honors.Noyalas, p. 5. Following the raid, Judge Richard Parker of Winchester presided over the trial of John Brown, sentencing the insurrectionist to hang.
The bodies of a son of John Brown and three other raiders, one white (Jeremiah Anderson) and two Blacks (John Anthony Copeland and Shields Green), were taken to the Winchester Medical College for use in medical education. During the two months of the first Union occupation (March 12–May 25, 1862), the Union forces would certainly have learned of this. The bodies of the three dissected bodies were long vanished when Union forces arrived two years later; the only remains were unlabeled bones, taken out in the country and tossed haphazardly into a pit.
In contrast, the body of Watson Brown had not been dissected but had been turned into a medical specimen. Half the skull and the brain had been removed, but the muscles and blood vessels had been preserved and stained. When Union troops arrived his body was on display in the one-room museum of the college, with a label that read: "John Brown's son—thus always with Abolitionists", and the lips "purposely distorted in disrespect". It has been skinned, with the skin made into moccasins and the scraps given out as souvenirs. Identical version in a different paper. The troops were also surely informed of the Black community's fear of and hatred for the college, because it regularly robbed Black graves.
John Brown was the Union's hero and the Confederacy's villain in the Civil War. He died to end slavery. Union soldiers marched to John Brown's Body, which became the Battle Hymn of the Republic. It was the assassination of Lincoln that displaced Brown from the nation's consciousness. To dishonor a son of Brown, who also died fighting slavery, and displaying the body as a crude lesson to abolitionists, was deeply offensive to the Union officers.
The Union officers set the college's building on fire on May 16, 1862. They did not allow fire engines to extinguish the blaze, and the building burned to the ground. The college never reopened.
Secession deliberations Neither Winchester nor the Commonwealth of Virginia was particularly fond of secession from the Union. Virginia was not a cotton state, and the Valley's economy and culture centered around small family-owned farms producing wheat and cattle. However pro-Union sentiment was often conditional. Historian William A. Link writes:
At the same time, the resolutions renounced secession, promised "unfaltering attachment" to the Union; proposed boycotting imports from some Northern states; and called for, if necessary, a national convention to resolve the sectional issues.Link p. 222. Historian Richard R. Duncan (p. xiii) describes the dilemma faced by Winchester citizens:The town's residents, initially reluctant to leave the Union, were caught up in the emotional uproar of the secession crisis. Ultimately, they supported Virginia's decision and the Southern cause. A number of factors underlay that resolve. Slavery defined those factors. Fear of abolitionism provided a common denominator for the town's white citizens.
In January 1861, Virginia's Governor John Letcher and the State Assembly called for and sponsored the Peace Conference of 1861, which ended up failing in its purpose to get the U.S. Congress to review an agreed upon compromise. Virginia ran an election on February 4, 1861, to elect delegates to a special state convention to deliberate on the question of secession. Of the four candidates (two pro-union and two pro-secession), Winchester and Frederick County elected two pro-union delegates: Robert Y. Conrad James Marshall Two thirds of the votes went to the two pro-Union candidates, revealing the strong Union sentiments of the town and county at that time.Delauter, p. 7. On April 4, the convention voted, and secession was defeated by a vote of 88 to 45. However, later that month the firing upon Fort Sumter prompted newly-elected President Abraham Lincoln to issue a call for 75,000 volunteers, including a call to Virginia to provide troops. Governor Letcher responded on April 15 on behalf of the state refusing Lincoln's request. In response, the convention passed an ordinance of secession on April 17 by a vote of 88 to 55, which was ratified by popular vote on May 23, 1861. Immediately after this vote, Governor Letcher ordered the capture of the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry, and Winchester companies of the Virginia militia were among the first to arrive, under the command of Colonel Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson.Noyalas, p. 13.
Winchester's strategic location Located at the north end of the lower Shenandoah Valley at a latitude north of the Federal capital city of Washington, D.C., Winchester's location was the hub of key roadways linking the Ohio Valley to the eastern United States coastal plains. Sitting just south of the Potomac River, Winchester lay on the only route between the east and western United States with direct connections to Washington, D.C. Passing through or nearby Winchester are these major transportation and communications routes:
The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal The Winchester and Potomac Railroad The Manassas Gap Railroad and Manassas Gap The Valley Pike and Martinsburg Pike The Pughtown Pike The Northwestern Grade and Petticoat Gap to Romney, West Virginia The Berryville Pike, Castleman's Ferry and Snickers Gap The Millwood Pike, Berry's Ferry and Ashby's Gap The Front Royal Pike and Chester Gap
Winchester was a base of operations for several Confederate incursions into the Northern United States, at times threatening the Federal capital city. Winchester also served as a central point for troops conducting raids against the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, and turnpike and telegraph paths along those routes and the Potomac River Valley. For instance, in 1861, Col. Thomas J. Jackson removed 56 locomotives and 386 railroad cars, along with miles of track, from the B&O Railroad and ultimately closed down the B&O's main line for ten months. Much of the effort to transport this equipment by horse and carriage centered in Winchester.
Winchester in the Eastern Theater Winchester was a key strategic position for the Confederate States Army during the war. It was an important operational objective in Gen. Joseph E. Johnston's and Jackson's defense of the Shenandoah Valley in 1861, Stonewall Jackson's Valley Campaign of 1862, the Gettysburg campaign of 1863, and the Valley Campaigns of 1864.
Battles fought around or involving Winchester Colonel Jackson's Defense of the Lower Valley of 1861 The Great Train Raid of 1861, May 23 – June 23, 1861 The Skirmish of Falling Waters, July 2, 1861 General Jackson's Valley Campaign of 1862 The Romney Expedition, January 1–24, 1862 The First Battle of Kernstown, March 23, 1862 The First Battle of Winchester, May 25, 1862 General Robert E. Lee's Maryland Campaign of 1862 The Battle of Harpers Ferry, September 12–15, 1862 General Robert E. Lee's Gettysburg campaign of 1863 The Second Battle of Winchester, June 13–15, 1863 General Early's Valley Campaign and Washington, D.C. Raid of 1864 The Battle of Snicker's Ferry, July 17–18, 1864 The Battle of Rutherford's Farm, July 20, 1864 The Second Battle of Kernstown, July 24, 1864 The Battle of Berryville, September 3–4, 1864 The Third Battle of Winchester, September 19, 1864 The Battle of Belle Grove (or Cedar Creek), October 19, 1864
The occupations of Winchester Including minor cavalry raids and patrols, and occasional reconnaissances by various forces, it is claimed that Winchester changed hands as many as 72 times during the course of the war, and 13 times in one day. Battles raged all along Main Street at different points in the war. Both Union General Sheridan and Stonewall Jackson located their headquarters just one block apart at various times. During the war, Winchester suffered greatly under five major periods of Union occupation:
The Occupation of Major General Nathaniel Banks – (March 12 to May 25, 1862, and June 4 to September 2, 1862) The Occupation of Major General Robert Milroy – (December 24, 1862, to June 15, 1863) The Burning and Occupation of Major General Philip Sheridan – (September 19, 1864, to February 27, 1865) The Occupation of Major General Winfield Scott Hancock – February 27, 1865, to June 27, 1865 The Occupation of the First Military District of Major General John Schofield – (End of War to January 26, 1870)
During the Union occupation of Winchester, many residents were exiled from town, personal property was stolen, citizens rendering medical assistance to wounded soldiers were shot and murdered, homes were illegally stolen, occupied and destroyed, a medical school was burned down, and the citizens of the Commonwealth were not allowed to vote on readmittance to the Union under the reign of Major General Schofield.
The occupations of Major General Nathaniel Banks (1862)
Major General Nanthniel Banks' primary objective in the Shenandoah Valley from 1861 to 1862 was to defend Washington, D.C., from possible attack by the Confederates, as well as defend and protect the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. During the winter of 1861, Banks headquartered his troops of the V Corps in Frederick, Maryland. A pontoon bridge crossing the Potomac River was completed in early March 1862, allowing Banks to begin crossing and marching up the Shenandoah Valley with superior forces against Major General Stonewall Jackson. Major General Jackson evacuated Winchester, retreating up the Valley.
During the summer of 1862, two major battles were fought in Winchester between Banks and Jackson:
During Banks first occupation from (March May 12 to 25, 1862): The First Battle of Kernstown, March 23, 1862 The First Battle of Winchester, May 25, 1862
Following the First Battle of Winchester, Banks retreated down the Valley. Shortly thereafter, by May 31, Major Gen. Jackson departed Winchester up the Valley (southwest) and Banks re-entered the town, occupying it with forces from June 4 to September 2, 1862).
The occupation of Major General Robert Milroy (1862–63)
Winchester was occupied by the 2nd Division of the VIII Corps of the Federal Middle Department from December 24, 1862, until the Second Battle of Winchester on June 15, 1863. The primary objectives of the Federals during this period were to protect and defend military approaches to Washington, D.C., and especially to guard and defend the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad from Confederate Raids. Major General Robert Milroy, commander of the 2nd Division, entered in force at the beginning of the year in 1863, coincidental with the enactment of the Emancipation Proclamation. Milroy, a radical abolitionist, was intent on using Winchester as a place to enforce this new proclamation in the strictest and harshest terms possible. Major General Milroy is most famous for his edict that: