Third Battle of Winchester

The fertile Shenandoah Valley served as the Breadbasket of the Confederacy and as an avenue of invasion. Confederate Gen. Jubal A. Early's march north and raid on Washington, D.C., in June-July 1864 alerted Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant to the danger Early posed while he held the Valley, and in August Grant sent Gen. Philip H. Sheridan and his Army of the Shenandoah to defeat him. In the battles from September 19 to October 19, including Third Winchester, Fisher's Hill, Tom's Brook, and Cedar Creek, Sheridan accomplished that mission and laid waste to much of the Valley in The Burning. During the Third Battle of Winchester on the afternoon of September 19, 1864, Early ordered Col. Thomas T. Munford's brigade to Star Fort with two guns of Maj. James Breathed's Horse Artillery to protect his avenue of retreat. Soon after the Confederate detachment arrived, Union Col. James M. Schoonmaker's cavalry brigade charged the defenses but was repulsed by heavy fire from the fort. Union guns then shelled the position, forcing Munford to withdraw the artillery. As the Confederate artillery left, Schoonmaker chose to move against the fort's left rather than attack from the front, and when his cavalrymen neared the walls, some dismounted and stormed the fort on foot. Alarmed that they might be flanked and cut off, the Confederate defenders hastily evacuated. On May 19, 1899, Schoonmaker received the Medal of Honor for bravery at the Third Battle of Winchester, in part for gallantly leading a cavalry charge against the left of the enemy's line of battle at a critical period.

Virginia · United States