The Second Battle of Winchester by Eric J. Wittenberg Scott L. Mingus Sr

Author:Eric J. Wittenberg,Scott L. Mingus Sr.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HISTORY / United States / Civil War Period (1850-1877)
ISBN: 9781611212891
Publisher: Casemate Publishers & Book Distributors, LLC
Published: 2016-04-30T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

Sunday, June 14

“They were getting away as fast as their legs could carry them.”

— Capt. James I. Harris, 30th North Carolina1

Fighting at Martinsburg

While

Generals Early and Johnson attacked and maneuvered against the overmatched Milroy at Winchester, Maj. Gen. Robert Rodes started his Confederate division at daybreak on “a very fatiguing march of 19 miles” from Summit Point and Berryville. His goal was the seizure of Martinsburg, where more than 1,200 Federals under Col. Benjamin F. Smith guarded the Valley Pike and the sprawling Baltimore & Ohio Railroad complex.

Martinsburg was a prosperous town of 3,300 people and the seat of Berkeley County, which would soon be part of the new state of West Virginia. Established in 1773, Martinsburg was situated on a broad elevation in the Lower Shenandoah Valley about 12 miles south of Williamsport and some 20 miles north of Winchester. Several roads radiated from the town, including the north-south Valley Pike, the Charles Town (Charlestown) Road, and well-used routes to Shepherdstown to the east, Hedgesville to the northwest, and Boyd’s Gap in the North Mountain range to the west. Early settlers included Germans, Quakers, and Scots-Irish, whose descendants maintained mills, farms, and light industry, or worked for the railroad or associated enterprises. Several stately mansions dotted Martinsburg, the most prominent of which was “Boydville.” The Georgian-style plastered stone manor was the home of Confederate Lt. Col. Charles J. Faulkner, a Minister to France during the Buchanan administration and Stonewall Jackson’s assistant adjutant general. His two-story house just south of town was a popular hub of antebellum society and the center of a sprawling farm and estate.2

Martinsburg’s strategic location and the presence of several important railroad shops and warehouses there made it an inviting target for both armies once war erupted in April 1861. Three months later in July, when some of Maj. Gen. Robert Patterson’s Union soldiers attempted to raise the Stars and Stripes over the home of Benjamin and Mary Boyd, a verbal altercation broke out and their daughter, Maria Isabelle, pulled out a pistol and killed Pvt. Frederick Martin of the 7th Pennsylvania. Although she was acquitted of the charges, Maria Boyd—or “Belle” as she is better known to history—turned her talents to espionage and became a relatively effective spy for the Confederate high command. Because he was soldiering in the 2nd Virginia (part of what would become the famous Stonewall Brigade), Benjamin Boyd was not home when his daughter shot Martin. Most of Martinsburg’s residents leaned strongly to the Union, but a significant number of others, such as the Boyds, fervently supported the Confederacy.3

Martinsburg changed hands many times during the Civil War. Union troops occupied the city beginning in October 1862. The troops that made up the Union garrison holding the town during the second weekend of June 1863 consisted of Col. Benjamin F. Smith’s Third Brigade, 1st Division, Eighth Corps. The 31-year-old Smith was a West Point graduate and a career soldier with considerable experience in the western territories and distant states before the war,

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