The Second Battle of Winchester was fought between June 13 and June 15, 1863, in Frederick County and Winchester, Virginia as part of the Gettysburg campaign during the American Civil War. As Confederate Lieutenant General Richard S. Ewell moved north through the Shenandoah Valley in the direction of Pennsylvania, his corps defeated the Union Army garrison commanded by Major General Robert H. Milroy, who had already received numerous orders to retreat, that he had ignored. The rebel army stormed the heavily fortified union positions around the city, prompting the unionist army to retreat to a fort overlooking the city. This was abandoned in the evening. The rebel army closely pursued the retreating union army, intercepting its line of retreat and causing heavy casualties and chaos among the retreating baggage train and columns of the Union army. A large number of union soldiers and stores were captured in the ensuing rout, though the union commander escaped, in what became one of the worst defeats the union had suffered in the war, prompting the severe censure of the Union general Milroy.
After the Battle of Brandy Station on June 9, 1863, Confederate General Robert E. Lee ordered Ewell's 19,000-man Second Corps, Army of Northern Virginia, to clear the lower Shenandoah Valley of Union opposition so that Lee's army could proceed on its invasion of Pennsylvania, shielded by the Blue Ridge Mountains from Union interference.
Headquarters Eighth Army Corps,Baltimore, January 5, 1863.
"Major-General Schenck: No attempt should be made to hold Winchester against a large force of the enemy ..."
General Halleck does not quite agree with General Schenck and yourself as to the policy of covering and protecting the road principally by keeping up advanced posts at Leesburg, Winchester and Romney.
=== Ewell's Second Corps, Army of Northern Virginia ===
The division of Maj. Gen. Jubal A. Early, with the brigades of Brig. Gens. Harry T. Hays (Louisiana Tigers), William "Extra Billy" Smith, John B. Gordon, and Isaac E. Avery
The division of Maj. Gen. Robert E. Rodes, with the brigades of Brig. Gens. Junius Daniel, George P. Doles, Alfred Iverson, Stephen Dodson Ramseur, and Col. Edward A. O'Neal
The division of Maj. Gen. Edward "Allegheny" Johnson, with the brigades of Brig. Gens. George H. Steuart, James A. Walker (Stonewall Brigade), John M. Jones, and Col. Jesse M. Williams (Nicholls' Brigade)
The cavalry brigade of Brig. Gen. Albert G. Jenkins
Corps Artillery Reserve under Col. J. Thompson Brown
=== 2nd Division, VIII Corps, Middle Department ===
Maj. Gen. Robert H. Milroy's force of 6,900 consisted of three infantry brigades, under Brig. Gen. Washington L. Elliot and Cols. Andrew T. McReynolds and William G. Ely, and two small outposts northwest of town under Col. Joseph W. Keifer.
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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