A Natural Battleground
Mountain passes, rivers, fords, roads and (in modern times) railroads often determine how armies move and consequently influence where armies collide. Many places have witnessed more than one battle. Thermopylae is the site of eight battles (per Wikipedia’s count), the first in 480 B.C. and the most recent in 1941. Three famous battles between the English and the Scots—Stirling Bridge (1297), Falkirk (1298) and Bannockburn (1314)—were all fought along a short, 12-mile corridor in southern Scotland. In World War I we had two Battles of the Marne, one in 1914 and a repeat in 1918. The French and the Germans fought in the Ardennes in 1914; in the next war the Germans attacked there in 1940, and yet again, against U.S. forces, in what is best known as the Battle of the Bulge.
The Civil War has its own share of multiple battles fought in the same vicinity. The best known are the pair of battles fought in Northern Virginia. The First Battle of Manassas (or Bull Run) on April 21, 1861, was the first major battle of the war. Sixteen months later Federals
GEORGIA’S CONFEDERATE MONUMENTS In Honor of a Fallen Nation Gould B. Hagler, Jr.
This unique work contains a complete photographic record of Georgia’s memorials to the Confederacy, a full transcription of the words engraved upon them, and carefully-researched information about the monuments and the organizations which built them. These works of art and their eloquent nation’s profound grief, praise the soldiers’ bravery and patriotism, and pay homage to the cause for which they fought.
Confederates met here again in the Second Battle of Bull Run (or Manassas). We also have Corinth. The First Battle of Corinth (May 1862) was not much of a battle and is sometimes called the Siege of Corinth, but it was not really a siege. The Second Battle of Corinth, or just the Battle of Corinth, was the real thing, fought in October 1862. Both events point to the importance of the railroad.
Fredericksburg (numbers one and two), Chancellorsville, Spotsylvania, and the Wilderness were so close that a single National Military Park serves to teach visitors about all five battles, where a total of over 100,000 American men were killed, wounded, or captured.
To the west, we have the Shenandoah Valley.
Shelby Foote called the Valley “a corridor [that] pointed shotgun-like at the Union’s solar plexus.” The Confederates took advantage of this weapon and used the corridor several times to launch invasions and minor raids into the North. Throughout the war, armies marched up, down and across* the Valley. The whole place was a battlefield. The National Park Service states that the area “witnessed hundreds of skirmishes and engagements,
including twenty battles.”
In the Valley there were two battles named for Kernstown and three for nearby Winchester. Let’s look at each of these five, in chronological order, and consider how each battle fits into the overall course of the war.
First Battle of The Kernstown, fought on March 23, 1862, was the initial engagement in Stonewall Jackson’s famous Shenandoah Valley Campaign. Jackson marched his men 40 miles in a day and a half from Mount Jackson to Kernstown. There he came upon what he thought was a small rear guard. He attacked. His intelligence was faulty, however, and he unexpectedly met a force of 8,500. With only 3,000 men in the ranks (about 1,500 others fell out during the rapid march), the Confederates were repulsed, suffering over 700 total casualties, including 80 dead.
This was an inauspicious start for the Valley Campaign. However, in the next two months Jackson took his force up the Valley, crossed and recrossed the Blue Ridge, fought battles at
McDowell and Front Royal, then hastened back down the Valley in pursuit of the retreating Federals.
Not far from the Kernstown battlefield, on May 25, the Federals attempted to make a stand at the First Battle of Winchester, just south of the town. Federal Maj. Gen. Nathaniel Banks commanded a force of 6,500; Jackson led 16,000 men. The Federals offered stiff resistance at first but ultimately broke and fled north, through Winchester and beyond. After losing over 2,000 casualties (including 1,714 captured), Banks’s army crossed the Potomac at Williamsport. The Confederates lost fewer than 400.
First Winchester was a major tactical victory with major strategic consequences. Lincoln ordered more troops to the Valley, hoping to snag Jackson in a trap formed by three separate Federal forces. The plan failed. Banks, disregarding Lincoln’s orders, did not pursue when Jackson went up the Valley. Then, by rapid marching, Jackson was able to defeat the other two Federal armies in detail. In addition, the diversion of forces to the Valley relieved pressure on the Confederates defending Richmond. Jackson, having cleared the Valley of enemy forces, took his army to join Gen. Lee to help drive Gen. George McClellan’s threatening army from the Confederate capital.
Second Battle of The Winchester was fought during the 1863 Gettysburg Campaign. Lee invaded the North for the second time, using the Blue Ridge to cloak his movements and aiming Foote’s shotgun at Maryland and beyond. The Army of Northern Virginia’s Second Corps, commanded by Lt. Gen. Richard Ewell, led the way. Ewell crossed the Blue Ridge on June 12 via Chester’s Gap, placing the corps near Front Royal.
The bulk of the Federal forces in the vicinity, about 7,000 under Maj. Gen. Robert Milroy, were holding fortified positions at Winchester, 25 miles to the north. Ewell marched toward Winchester with some 12,500 men, while sending one division to bypass the town and block the road north of Milroy’s position.
Not realizing he was facing so large a force, Milroy disregarded orders from Washington to withdraw to Harpers Ferry. On June 14 and 15 his force was battered by Confederate artillery, flanked on both sides, and ultimately surrounded. The Federals’ attempt to fight their way out failed. In the chaos the Union lost 4,000 captured and missing (including 700 sick who were not in the fight and were left behind in the town). Only 95 were killed and 348 wounded. Confederate losses were minimal.
Several hundred men, Union and Confederate, were hospitalized in Winchester while their comrades battled in Pennsylvania. As Lee retreated after the Battle of Gettysburg, thousands followed the route through Winchester. The town was overwhelmed with 8,500 sick and wounded Confederates, who were followed by many hundreds of tired and hungry Union prisoners.
Second Battle of The Kernstown occurred a year later, after the Overland Campaign ended and after the investment of Petersburg started. In July 1864 the Second Corps, now under Lt. Gen. Jubal Early and designated as the Army of the Valley, marched down the Valley and embarked upon a large-scale raid
