The Battle of Opequon or Third Winchester, Sept. 19, 1864

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Gen. Robert Rodes was killed at the battle.

They carried his body back to his hometown of Lynchburg, Va., for burial.
 

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Gen. Robert Rodes was killed at the battle.

They carried his body back to his hometown of Lynchburg, Va., for burial.

I'm pretty sure that my Civil War ancestor, Lt. George W. Ward of the 3rd North Carolina Infantry, was among those in Rodes' Division on the day of the battle.

The remnants of the 3rd NC had been transferred to the brigade of Gen. William Cox following the disaster at the battle of Spotsylvania Court House. Lt. Ward had been wounded at that battle but is recorded as having been released from the hospital in late August, so it seems likely he would have returned to duty in time for Third Winchester.

I don't have any direct evidence that Lt. Ward fought on that day, but it seems likely.
 

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About 20 years ago, there was a very good one time reenactment on the 3rd Winchester site, just after it was acquired. The only spectators were amn eagle scout who built a walking tour and his family. I'm told that the local pronunciation of the creek is "oh-peck-in", not the expected "op-eh-kwahn."
 
He must've learned something from his abysmal performances in the East then.

R

He was even the subject of his very own print by artist Don Stivers, Wilson's Charge, showing an episode from the April 2, 1865 Battle of Selma, Alabama during "Wilson's Raid". This was one of the notable cavalry raids of the war, on par with John Hunt Morgan or Jeb Stuart but was so overshadowed by Appomattox it got little of the coverage that likely would had it occurred a bit earlier.

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...I appreciate these battle threads, as I know they take a lot of time and effort to assemble.
Hi James N - Great posts, thanks! How did you learn so much about Opequan? One of my ancestors was in Emerson's Brigade (87th PA, Ricketts' division, VI Corps) and wounded just south of the Berryville Pike on Sept. 19, 1864. See attached. I've been researching the battle and area for a few years. Do you know Winchester well?
Thanks James .... do you have a current map of the trails? The one I got on-line a couple months ago was very much out of date. Got me a might bewildered......
... Haven't really dug into the '64 Valley Campaign much as far as reading goes either, besides some unit histories and other books that cover it in part. Heard that The Last Battle of Winchester by Scott Patchan was a pretty good read on this battle.

Unfortunately, my familiarity with Winchester and its surroundings has been limited to perhaps a half-dozen quick visits over the space of the past half-century, so I have to admit I had to do a bit of research, both before visiting such of the battlefield as I've shown here; and still more before posting it. As for Patchan's book, unfortunately I was unaware of it or any other book devoted solely to this battle so have yet to see or read it. I've listed a number of general sources in my previous thread on the Battle of Cedar Creek, but will repeat two of them that are relative here, the 1960's Sheridan in the Shenandoah by Lt. Gen. Edward J. Stackpole, which was possibly the very first full-length treatment of the entire 1864 Valley Campaign; and Jeffrey Wert's From Winchester to Cedar Creek, a much more recent study. Lately, I've gotten (and just finished) two additional sources, the last volume in the Time-Life series Voices of the Civil War, called Shenandoah 1864; and a 2010 issue of Blue & Gray Magazine devoted to the battle. The B&G issue has I think one particular flaw that @KLSDAD will find to be a boon: the text and its excellent maps are built mainly around the then-newly protected area and its system of trails and interpretive markers, to the exclusion of those parts of the battlefield that have largely disappeared beneath modern development.

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About 20 years ago, there was a very good one time reenactment on the 3rd Winchester site, just after it was acquired. The only spectators were amn eagle scout who built a walking tour and his family. I'm told that the local pronunciation of the creek is "oh-peck-in", not the expected "op-eh-kwahn."

Indeed it is, as I too was corrected when last there! (I also included it in one of the first captions here, too; you probably just overlooked it.)
 
Thanks, James N., for the excellent account!

I was at the reenactment of the 150th 3rd Winchester, held not at Winchester but at the Cedar Creek site. It was really a mess! Orders that conflicted with the planned scenario were issued at the last minute which placed the 6th Ohio Cavalry (my son's outfit) behind the Confederate lines and right in front of the spectators, blocking their view. (I told my son that as long as the scenario was already fouled up, they should have gone over and captured the Confederate high command which was right next to them!) The poor narrator was so confused that all he could do was keep repeating "General Sheridan is concerned. General Early is concerned." They should have been! They finally got things sort of straightened out for the cavalry charge at the end. It was a good thing I'd read Jeffrey Wert's book beforehand! There was a lot of grousing at the 6th OH campfire that night!

I noticed that everyone at the reenactment used "3rd Winchester," thus avoiding any pronunciation issues with "Opequon."
 
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