The Third Battle of Winchester

During the Third Battle of Winchester, in an effort to protect the Confederate left flank, Gen. Fitzhugh Lee placed a detachment of cavalry and six pieces of horse artillery along this rise. The guns, under the command of Major James Breathed, poured devastating fire into the ranks of the Union Nineteenth Army Corps as it advanced and retreated across the fields on the other side of Red Bud Run. One Confederate officer recalled that the battery roared with such precision and consistency that the earth seemed to tremble, and Col. Thomas Munford, C.S.A., said he never witnessed a more murderous fire. By the time Northern troops made a flanking movement late in the afternoon, the Southerners had left this position. Union artillery later used the rise to support the Eighth Corps in its advance toward Winchester.

Virginia · United States