18631776 Club
Ewell's flanking columns crush Milroy at Winchester; Lee's road to Pennsylvania is open
In three days, Early and Johnson overwhelm ten Union forts, taking 4,000 prisoners, 23 guns, and 300 wagons at a cost of only 269 Confederate casualties.
By the summer of 1863, Robert E. Lee was moving north, and the Shenandoah Valley had to be clear before his army crossed the Potomac. Confederate Lieutenant General Richard S. Ewell marched his 19,000-man Second Corps down the Valley in mid-June to sweep out the Union garrison at Winchester, Virginia — a garrison whose commander, Major General Robert H. Milroy, had ignored repeated orders to retreat. Over three days, June 13–15, Ewell used two flanking columns under Jubal Early and Edward Johnson to overwhelm Milroy's ten-fort defensive network, capturing 4,000 prisoners, 23 artillery pieces, 300 loaded wagons, and more than 300 horses while suffering only 269 casualties against Milroy's 4,443…
