Second Battle of Winchester

In June 1863, during the Army of Northern Virginia's second invasion of the North, Confederate Gen. Richard Ewell's Second Corps moved to destroy Gen. Robert Milroy's approximately 8,000 troops guarding the lower Shenandoah Valley. Ewell's lead elements first met Milroy's troops on June 12 in Middletown, and on June 13 Milroy sent Gen. Washington Elliot's brigade to protect the southern approaches to Winchester, including a reconnaissance in force toward Kernstown led by Col. Joseph Warren Keifer of the 110th Ohio, with his regiment, the 12th Pennsylvania Cavalry, and two guns from Battery D, 1st West Virginia Artillery. After pushing aside a small Confederate force from the 2nd Maryland Infantry Battalion, Keifer advanced south on the Valley Pike as firing intensified and Elliot sent reinforcements. Near Kernstown, Elliot chose to block the Confederate advance by holding Pritchard's Hill and Sandy Ridge west of the Valley Pike. The two guns from Battery D, 1st West Virginia, supported by two Ohio infantry regiments, took position on Pritchard's Hill, while the 12th West Virginia Infantry held Sandy Ridge to protect the western flank. Ewell responded by using Gen. Jubal Early's division, which sent Gen. Harry Hays' Louisiana Brigade against the western flank of Pritchard's Hill while Gen. John Gordon's brigade advanced farther west and drove the defenders from Sandy Ridge. Although the artillery on Pritchard's Hill fired effectively, Confederate numerical strength overcame the Union position, and the defenders withdrew and re-formed closer to Winchester. For two more days Ewell's and Milroy's commands fought in the forts and fields north and northwest of Winchester, and by the morning of June 15, 1863, Milroy's force had been crushed, clearing the path into Pennsylvania for the Army of Northern Virginia. Jubal Early's success here as a division commander on June 13, 1863, preceded his victory nearly a year later at the Second Battle of Kernstown, and Robert Milroy, though best remembered for this defeat, was also the first Union general to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation in the Shenandoah Valley.

Winchester, Virginia · United States