The Battle of Waynesboro was fought on March 2, 1865, at Waynesboro in Augusta County, Virginia, during the American Civil War. It was a complete victory for Brig. Gen. George Armstrong Custer and the final battle for Confederate Lt. Gen. Jubal Early, whose force was destroyed.
On February 27, 1865, Major General Philip Sheridan rode with two cavalry divisions from Winchester up the Shenandoah Valley toward Staunton. He had orders to take his cavalry south to join Major General William T. Sherman's army in the Carolinas campaign. After crossing the North Fork of the Shenandoah River on February 28, Brigadier General George Armstrong Custer's division encountered some 300 Confederate cavalrymen under Brigadier General Thomas Rosser guarding the Middle River near the village of Mount Crawford. Rosser set a long covered bridge on fire, hoping to delay the Federals. Custer ordered two of his regiments to swim across the river and strike Rosser's flank, while additional regiments stormed the bridge. Custer successfully drove off Rosser's meager force, extinguished the fire, and rode on to Staunton, where they were joined by the bulk of Sheridan's force the next day. Desiring to eliminate Early's small force as a threat to his rear, Sheridan turned east instead of proceeding to Sherman.
Custer's men set out towards Early's force at Waynesboro on March 2 with orders to "proceed to Waynesborough, ascertain something definite in regard to the position, movements, and strength of the enemy, and, if possible, to destroy the railroad bridge over the South River at that point." Heavy rain and sleet, which had been falling for several days, turned the road into a quagmire and greatly impeded the speed of the march. At Fishersville, just six miles from Waynesboro, Custer's men drove off Confederate vedettes and continued their march. Upon arriving outside of Waynesboro, Custer found Early's army dug in behind a "formidable line of earth-works."
Sheridan was the overall Federal commander in the Valley, but did not arrive on the field until after the battle was concluded. Brigadier General George A. Custer, commanding the 3rd Cavalry Division, was the effective commander of Union forces on the field. Under his command were Colonel Alexander Cummings McWhorter Pennington, Jr. (commanding the First Brigade), Colonel William Wells (commanding the Second Brigade), Colonel Henry Capehart (commanding the Third Brigade), and at least one section of the Second US Horse Artillery under a Captain Woodruff. Custer's total strength is estimated at 2,500.
Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early commanded the remnants of the Army of the Valley, by this point reduced to a single division of infantry, three batteries of artillery, and a small unit of cavalry (the rest having been dispatched across the Valley). The infantry division, commanded by Brigadier General Gabriel C. Wharton, was composed of two small infantry brigades commanded by Colonel Augustus Forsberg and Colonel Thomas Smith. Forsberg's Brigade consisted of the 50th and 51st Virginia Infantry Regiments and the 30th Virginia Sharpshooters Battalion, while Smith's Brigade contained the 36th and 60th Virginia Infantry Regiments and the 45th Virginia Infantry Battalion. An independent infantry command, under Colonel William H. Harman, was composed of Virginia Militia reservists. Colonel William Nelson commanded the Confederate artillery, composed of Captain Thomas J. Kirkpatrick's Amherst Artillery, Captain John Milledge's Georgia Regular Battery, and Captain Charles G. Snead's Fluvanna Artillery. With Thomas Rosser's and Lunsford Lomax's cavalry dispatched elsewhere in the Valley, Early had "not more than one effective company" of cavalry at the time of the battle.
The American Civil War (1861–1865) was the deadliest conflict in American history, killing an estimated 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers and an unknown number of civilians. The Confederate States of America, formed by eleven seceding Southern states, faced the Union in four years of warfare across 23 states and territories. Major engagements included First and Second Bull Run, Antietam (the bloodiest single day in American history, September 17, 1862), Chancellorsville, Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863), Vicksburg (surrendered July 4, 1863), and Sherman's March through Georgia and the Carolinas (1864–1865). President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, transforming the war's stated purpose to include the abolition of slavery and enabling the enlistment of approximately 180,000 Black men in the United States Colored Troops. Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. The war resolved the question of secession and ended American slavery, though Reconstruction would face sustained resistance in its attempt to secure civil rights for formerly enslaved people.
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