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February 17, 2011

Touring the Third Winchester Battlefield

In October I spent a Saturday touring sites of the Battle of Third Winchester with a group from Lord Fairfax Community College. Our leader was Professor Jonathan Noyalas. Previously I've taken two classes with Prof. Noyalas: Uncertain Freedom: The African Americans' Civil War in the Lower Shenandoah Valley and the Battle of Cedar Creek.We began our tour at the north parking lot of the county school complex on First Woods Drive. (See the HMDB map.) These pictures show the first part of our walking tour, which was rather long but pleasant.
The battlefield park features a number of interpretative signs. One of the first ones we saw starts out like this:

The Third Battle of Winchester - September 19, 1864
Bloodiest Battle of the Shenandoah Valley

Gen. Jubal Early assuming that Gen. Phil Sheridan was yet another cautious Union commander, divided his roughly 14,000 troops on a wide front north from Winchester. Sheridan planned to use his army of 39,000 men to attack the portion of Early's force near Winchester. Early, however, learned of the impending attack and raced to concentrate his army at Winchester.
For the rest of the text, see HMDB.org.

3 comments:

  1. Hilary12:13 AM, February 18, 2011

    Sounds like a fine way to spend an autumn day. I love the perspective in that last photo. Just beautiful.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Pat3:33 AM, February 18, 2011

    Beautiful pics - and how fab to have a walking history lesson in such surroundings ! xx

    ReplyDelete
  3. Linda11:24 PM, February 18, 2011

    Thanks! It's a fairly new park and very pleasant to visit.

    ReplyDelete

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