But it is not alone for its scenic beauty and bountiful harvests of its valley that we remember Winchester, for north of the city on a high knoll situated in a clump of trees is the remains of the old "Star Fort" which figured in the fiercest engagements in the Civil war.
Winchester is said to have been occupied and abandoned eighty times during the war. It was held by the Confederates until March, 1862, when after Johnston's defeat at Manassas the southern forces withdrew up the Shenandoah valley and the northern forces occupied the city. Two armies surged back and forth over the territory until March 23, 1862, when the Federal forces under General Shields defeated an inferior federate force at Kernstown, four miles south of Winchester. The second battle of Winchester occurred on June 14, 1864, when the Confederates, under General Early, drove the Union troops from the town. The third or most important battle of Winchester occurred on September 19, 1864. This is one of the most memorable battles of the war, for, out of a seeming defeat the magnetic presence of Sheridan brought to the Union men an almost miraculous victory. We shall quote the famous Sheridan's Ride by Thomas Buchanan Read:
Up from the South at break of day,
Bringing to Winchester fresh dismay
The affrighted air with a shudder bore,
Like a herald in haste to the Chieftain's door,
The terrible rumble, grumble and roar,
Telling the battle was on once more,
And Sheridan twenty miles away.
And wider still those billows of war
Thundered along the horizon's bar;
And louder yet into Winchester roll'd
The road of that red sea uncontroll'd,
Making the blood of the listener cold,
As he thought of the stake in that fiery fray,
And Sheridan twenty miles away.
But there is a road from Winchester town,
A good broad highway leading down;
And there through the flush of the morning light
A steed as black as the steeds of night,
Was seen to pass, as with eagle flight,
As if he knew the terrible need;
He stretched away with his utmost speed;
Hills rose and fell but his heart was gay,
With Sheridan fifteen miles away.
Still sprang from those swift hoofs, thundering south;
The dust like smoke from the cannon's mouth,
Or the trail of a comet sweeping faster and faster,
Foreboding to traitors the doom of disaster,
The heart of the steed and the heart of the master
Were beating like prisoners assaulting their walls,
Impatient to be where the battlefield calls;
Every nerve of the chargers has strain'd to full play,
With Sheridan only ten miles away.
Under his spurning feet, the road
Like an arrowy Alpine river flow'd,
And the landscape sped away behind
Like an ocean flying before the wind;
And the steed like a bark fed with furnace ire;
Swept on, with wild eye full of fire.
But lo! he is nearing his heart's desire;
He is snuffing the smoke of the roaring fray,
With Sheridan only five miles away.
The first that the general saw were the groups
Of stragglers, and then the retreating troops;
What was done? What to do? A glance told him both,
Then striking his spurs with a terrible oath,
He dash'd down the line, 'mid a storm of huzzas,
And the wave of retreat, checked his course there,
The sight of the master compell'd it to pause.
With foam and with dust the black charger was gray;
By the flash of his eye, and the red nostrils' play
He seem'd to the whole great army to say,
I have brought you Sheridan all the way
From Winchester down to save the day.
Hurrah! hurrah for Sheridan!
Hurrah! hurrah for horse and man!
And when their statues are placed on high,
Under the dome of the Union sky,
The American Soldiers' Temple of Fame,
There with the glorious general's name,
Be it said, in letters both bold and bright;
Here is the steed that saved the day
By carrying Sheridan into the fight
From Winchester—twenty miles away.
Strassburg, a strategical point in the historical Stonewall Jackson valley campaign, is situated at the base of the Massanutten mountain, which rising abruptly as it does and extending parallel with the Blue Ridge divides the valley into two parts. Thus it may readily be seen why the possession of this place was all important to the Union troops, for with Strassburg in the hands of the Confederates, they could have menaced Washington, "either by way of Harper's Ferry over the Valley pike, or by the way of Manassas, over what was then the old Virginia Midland Railway. Flowing through the two parts are the north and south forks of the Shenandoah river, which unite near this point."