On September 19, 1864, the Third Battle of Winchester, also called the Battle of Opequon, became the bloodiest battle of the Shenandoah Valley. General Jubal Early, assuming General Phil Sheridan was another cautious Union commander, divided his roughly 14,000 troops on a wide front north from Winchester, while Sheridan planned to use his army of 39,000 men to attack the portion of Early's force near Winchester. After Early learned of the impending attack and raced to concentrate his army at Winchester, the battle unfolded in four phases: at Berryville Canyon from dawn until 11 a.m., one small Confederate division delayed most of Sheridan's army, allowing Early's remaining troops to reach the battlefield; in the Middle Field from 11:40 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., Union troops tried unsuccessfully to dislodge the Confederates from their positions; at Red Bud Run and the Valley Pike in late afternoon, Union cavalry and infantry pushed the Confederates closer to Winchester; and on the outskirts of Winchester at dusk, Southerners made determined but ineffective stands north and east of town at Fort Collier, Star Fort, and other positions. By nightfall, Winchester was securely in Union hands and the Confederates were in full retreat, with total Union and Confederate casualties numbering almost 9,000. Soon after this battle, Confederate domination of the Shenandoah Valley came to an end as the Confederacy suffered a series of four major defeats during the 1864 Valley Campaign, including a devastating loss at Cedar Creek on October 19th. The Shenandoah Valley, prized for rich farmland and known as the breadbasket of the Confederacy, had served throughout the Civil War as a natural corridor for military movements and as the scene of repeated fighting, including Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson's 1862 Valley Campaign and the 1863 campaign whose Second Battle of Winchester helped clear the Valley of Union troops and opened the way for Robert E. Lee's movement into Pennsylvania before Gettysburg. In the summer of 1864, with Abraham Lincoln facing George McClellan in a presidential contest, the Army of the Potomac tied down at Petersburg, and Union hopes revived by William Tecumseh Sherman's capture of Atlanta on September 2, Robert E. Lee sent Early into the Shenandoah Valley hoping Ulysses S. Grant would divide his army to counter a threat to Washington, D.C.; Grant did so and gave Philip Sheridan and his new Army of the Shenandoah the task of rendering the Valley useless to the Confederates. Third Winchester became the first in a series of Union victories that ended Confederate domination of the Valley.
