The Second Battle of Kernstown was fought on July 24, 1864, at Kernstown, Virginia, outside Winchester, Virginia, as part of the Valley Campaigns of 1864 in the American Civil War. The Confederate Army of the Valley under Lt. Gen. Jubal A. Early soundly defeated the Union Army of West Virginia under Brig. Gen. George Crook and drove it from the Shenandoah Valley back over the Potomac River into Maryland. As a result, Early was able to launch the Confederacy's last major raid into northern Union territory, attacking the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in Maryland and West Virginia and burning Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, in retaliation for the burning of civilian houses and farms earlier in the campaign.
On July 19, following a series of unsuccessful Union attacks on his flanks, General Early decided to withdraw from his precarious position at Berryville to a more secure position near Strasburg. During the evacuation of the military hospitals and storage depots at Winchester, Union forces under Brig. Gen. William W. Averell won a rare victory over Confederate forces under Maj. Gen. Stephen D. Ramseur at the Battle of Rutherford's Farm. The poor Confederate performance at the battle, as well as a series of small cavalry engagements south of Winchester the following day led Union commanders George Crook and Horatio G. Wright to conclude the Confederates were merely fighting a rearguard action and that Early was leaving the Valley and heading for Richmond to reinforce the Army of Northern Virginia.
With the threat to Washington, D.C., seemingly over, Wright withdrew the VI Corps and XIX Corps from the valley to return to the aid of Ulysses S. Grant's siege of Petersburg, Virginia, on July 20, leaving only the three-division strong Army of West Virginia in the Valley. The following two days were relatively quiet with both armies resting in their camps some 15 miles (24 km) from each other. On July 23, Confederate cavalry attacked the Union advanced picket line at Kernstown, leading to a sharp cavalry skirmish. From prisoners caught in the skirmish Early learned of Wright's departure. In order to continue to be of service to Lee in the Valley, Early realized he had to attack the diminished force in front of him to ensure that Grant's force at Petersburg would not be reinforced.
On the morning of July 24, Early marched his army north against Crook. Confederate cavalry encountered its Union counterpart south of Kernstown in the morning and heavy skirmishing broke out. Couriers alerted Crook to the attack. Crook still believed Early's infantry had left the Valley and sent only two of his division with cavalry support to meet the attack. In the early afternoon the infantry of both armies had arrived on the field. The Confederate position extended well to each side of the Valley pike south of Kernstown, anchored on each flank on high ground and screened by cavalry. Maj. Gen. John B. Gordon's division formed the Confederate center along the Valley Turnpike. Ramseur's division formed on his left with its flank resting on Sandy Ridge to the west of Kernstown, screened by Col. William "Mudwall" Jackson's cavalry. Brig. Gen. Gabriel C. Wharton's division, led by Maj. Gen. John C. Breckinridge, formed the Confederate right, with its flank screened by Brig. Gen. John C. Vaughn's cavalry. Early initially concealed his infantry in a woods, sending out his cavalry and skirmish line of sharpshooters to draw the Federals into battle, thus playing into Crook's misconception that the Confederate infantry had left the Valley.
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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