The First Battle of Winchester, fought on May 25, 1862, in and around Frederick County, Virginia, and Winchester, Virginia, was a major victory in Confederate Army Maj. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson's Campaign through the Shenandoah Valley during the American Civil War. Jackson enveloped the right flank of the Union Army under Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks and pursued it as it fled across the Potomac River into Maryland. Jackson's success in achieving force concentration early in the fighting allowed him to secure a more decisive victory which had escaped him in previous battles of the campaign.
Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks learned on May 24, 1862, that the Confederates had captured his garrison at Front Royal, Virginia, and were closing on Winchester, turning his position. He ordered a hasty retreat down the Valley Pike from Strasburg. His columns were attacked at Middletown and again at Newtown (Stephens City) by Jackson's converging forces. The Confederates took many Union prisoners and captured so many wagons and stores that they later nicknamed the Union general "Commissary Banks". Jackson pressed the pursuit for most of the night and allowed his exhausted soldiers only a few hours of sleep before dawn.
Banks now deployed at Winchester to slow the Confederate pursuit. He had two brigades of infantry under Colonels Dudley Donnelly and George Henry Gordon, a mixed brigade of cavalry under Brig. Gen. John P. Hatch, and 16 guns. Gordon's brigade was placed on the Union right on Bower's Hill with its left flank at the Valley Pike, supported by a battery of artillery. The center of the line (Camp Hill) was held by the cavalry supported by two guns. Donnelly's brigade was placed in a crescent on the left to cover the Front Royal and Millwood roads with the rest of the artillery. At earliest light the Confederate skirmish line advanced in force driving the Union pickets back to their main line of battle.
During the night, the advance of Maj. Gen. Richard S. Ewell's division (four brigades) reached Buffalo Lick. Jackson moved three of Ewell's brigades to the left to participate in the advance on the Valley pike, leaving Ewell with just Trimble's brigade and Bradley Johnson's Maryland regiment. At dawn, he deployed Trimble's brigade astride the Front Royal Pike and advanced against the Union left flank. His leading regiments (in particular the 21st North Carolina Infantry Regiment) came under heavy fire from Union forces deployed behind stone fences and were repulsed. Confederate forces regrouped and brought up artillery. Ewell advanced the regiments of Trimble's brigade, sending regiments to either side of the high ground to enfilade the Union position. Donnelly withdrew his brigade to a position closer to town with his right flank anchored on Camp Hill. Ewell then attempted a flanking movement to the right beyond the Millwood Road, but in response to orders from Banks, Donnelly withdrew through the town.
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.
This page covers First Winchester — Bowers Hill Assault (May 25, 1862). A full Aubrey report for the area pulls together this battle alongside historic sites, land records, and everything else the record holds within a few miles:
Every location is different. Not every section appears for every place, only what the historical record actually holds turns up in a report.
Content adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Wikipedia source.
Aubrey generates in-depth historical research for any location in the US, drawing on NRHP records, battlefield archives, census history and geological data to tell the full story of a place.