Lieutenant-General Jubal Early’s Confederate Army of the Valley was reduced to just 12,000 men after Lieutenant-General Richard H. Anderson’s detachment left the Shenandoah Valley to rejoin the Army of Northern Virginia at Petersburg. Despite this, Early sent two divisions under Major-Generals Robert Rodes and John B. Gordon north to destroy a bridge on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, west of Martinsburg.
This left just 4,000 Confederates to defend Winchester and Stephenson’s Depot along Opequon Creek. Early decided to spread his army thin because Major-General Philip Sheridan, commanding the 40,000-man Federal Army of the Shenandoah, had shown no aggression since taking command. But Early was unaware that Sheridan, having received vital intelligence from a spy named Rebecca Wright, was about to attack.
Sheridan initially planned to attack the Confederates at Winchester while cutting off the Valley Turnpike below the town. But when he learned that Early divided his army, Sheridan instead opted to destroy the force at Winchester and Stephenson’s Depot, and then move on to destroy the isolated force west of Martinsburg. Orders were issued for the Federals to mobilize at 2 a.m. on September 19. According to Sheridan’s plan:
- Brigadier-General James H. Wilson’s cavalry division would advance on the Berryville Pike.
- Major-General Horatio G. Wright’s Sixth Corps would advance behind Wilson, and, “As soon as it has reached open country it will form in line of battle, fronting in the direction of Stephenson’s Depot.”
- Brigadier-General William H. Emory’s Nineteenth Corps would support Wright.
- Major-General George Crook’s Eighth Corps (formerly the Army of West Virginia) would be in reserve, “to be marched to any point required.”
- The remaining Federal cavalry would ride around the enemy’s left flank and attack the Confederates from the north.
As the Federals prepared, Early learned from intercepted dispatches that General-in-Chief Ulysses S. Grant, the overall Federal commander, had recently met with Sheridan. This indicated that Sheridan might attack soon. Early therefore ordered Rodes and Gordon to stop wrecking the railroad and hurry back to Winchester. By the end of the 18th, Rodes was back at Stephenson’s Depot, and Gordon was at Bunker Hill. The Confederates were still spread along a 14-mile line, but they were more concentrated than they had been when the day began.
The Federals advanced at 3 a.m. on the 19th, led by Wilson’s cavalry. The plan relied on speed, but Sheridan mishandled the march by sending his men through the narrow Berryville Canyon, and miles of supply wagons wedged themselves among Wright’s marching infantry. A soldier of the Nineteenth Corps wrote that the narrow canyon was packed with “hundreds of men who belong to an army but never fight–the cooks, the officers’ servants, the hospital gangs, the quartermaster’s people, the ‘present sick’ and the habitual skulkers.” This delay gave Early time to bring up Rodes and Gordon from the north, and Major-General John C. Breckinridge’s division from the south.
The Federals finally approached the enemy around noon. They formed a rough crescent, with the northern tip overlapping Early’s left flank and the southern tip overlapping Early’s right. Emory’s corps comprised the Federal right (north), and Wright’s corps comprised the left (south). Sheridan rode up and down the lines encouraging his officers and men; the troops were not accustomed to seeing a commanding general put himself in the thick of a fight.
Gordon’s Confederates came up on the left (north) of Major-General Stephen D. Ramseur’s isolated division on the Berryville Road, about a mile and a half east of Winchester. Fighting began in the cornfields and woodlands at 11:40 a.m. One of Emory’s divisions under Brigadier-General Cuvier Grover pushed Gordon back but was then repulsed by a counterattack. Gordon’s division nearly decimated the Nineteenth Corps. A Federal correspondent reported:
“The moment was a fearful one. Such a sight rarely occurs more than once in any battle, as was presented on the open space between two pieces of woodland, into which the cheering enemy poured, in their eagerness. Their whole line, reckless of bullets, reckless even of the shells of our batteries, constantly advanced… The day, had such a situation been suffered to continue fifteen minutes longer, would certainly have been lost to us.”
The Confederates discovered a gap in the Federal center just as Rodes’s division came up, and troops from both Rodes’s and Gordon’s commands pushed through. Early wrote that it “was a grand sight to see this immense body hurled back in utter disorder before my two divisions, numbering a very little over 5,000 muskets.” But Early suffered a major loss when Rodes was mortally wounded in the assault.
Sheridan brought up the rest of the Sixth and Nineteenth corps to plug the gap, and Brigadier-General David A. Russell, commanding a division in the Sixth Corps, was killed by shrapnel in the counterattack. The Federals eventually closed the gap, which possibly saved the army from destruction. Sheridan later wrote:
“The charge of Russell was most opportune, but it cost many men in killed and wounded. Among the former was the courageous Russell himself, killed by a piece of shell that passed through his heart, although he had previously been struck by a bullet in the left breast, which wound, from its nature, must have proved mortal, yet of which he had not spoken. Russell’s death oppressed us all with sadness, and me particularly.”
During a lull on the field, Sheridan directed Crook’s Federals to move around the enemy left. The Confederates crumbled under the overwhelming assault; Colonel George S. Patton (grandfather of World War II General George S. Patton) was mortally wounded and his brigade was decimated. Gordon repositioned his withdrawing men behind a stone wall on a line running east to west, perpendicular to the rest of Early’s army. Breckinridge’s division came up to extend the Confederate left flank.
Meanwhile, Wright’s Federals launched another attack on the Confederate right, as Sheridan rode along the front, waving his hat and yelling, “Give ‘em hell… Press them, General, I know they’ll run!” As the Federals gradually pushed the Confederates back toward Winchester, Major-General Alfred T.A. Torbert’s Federal cavalry attacked Breckinridge’s isolated division on the far left until one of Early’s cavalry brigades fought them off.
Around 4:30 p.m., Crook and Wright launched assaults that broke the Confederate left and penetrated Breckinridge’s part of the line. Cavalry under Brigadier-Generals Wesley Merritt and William W. Averell attacked in support. Sheridan wrote, “Panic took possession of the enemy, his troops, now fugitives and stragglers, seeking escape into and through Winchester.” Ramseur’s Confederates held off the Federals to allow an orderly retreat. This marked the first time that Early’s army had ever been driven from the field.
The Confederates withdrew along the Valley Turnpike to Newtown while moving their supplies, munitions, and equipment to Fisher’s Hill. Sheridan wrote Grant:
“I have the honor to report that I attacked the forces of General Early on the Berryville pike at the crossing of Opequon Creek, and after a most stubborn and sanguinary engagement, which lasted from early in the morning until 5 o’clock in the evening, completely defeated him, and, driving him through Winchester, captured about 2,500 prisoners, 5 pieces of artillery, 9 army flags and most of their wounded… The conduct of the officers and men was most superb. They charged and carried every position taken up by the rebels from the Opequon creek to Winchester. The enemy were strong in number and very obstinate in their fighting.”
Sheridan’s chief of staff telegraphed Washington, “We have just sent them whirling through Winchester, and we are after them to-morrow. This army behaved splendidly.” The Federals secured Winchester for the last time, holding the town for the rest of the war.
The Federals sustained 5,018 casualties (697 killed, 3,983 wounded and 338 missing) in what they called the Battle of Opequon. The Confederates lost about 3,921 (276 killed, 1,827 wounded and 1,818 missing or captured) in what they called the Third Battle of Winchester.
The Confederate losses equated to about a quarter of Early’s entire army, but he nevertheless asserted that “Sheridan ought to have been cashiered” for allowing the Confederate army to escape relatively intact. Indeed, the Federals had failed to cut off and destroy Early’s army, and they made many mistakes that might have even caused their defeat. But this was a Federal victory nonetheless, and it added to the momentum that was now shifting to the Federals’ favor in the war.
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