1st Battle of Kernstown  "Keeping Banks Occupied"  March 23, 1862

When on March 9, 1862, Union Gen. George B. McClellan learned the Confederate army had withdrawn from its Manassas, VA., lines, he immediately ordered his armies to push forward on all fronts. Political general Nathaniel P. Banks, commander of the Union forces in the northern Shenendoah Valley, pushed his command south from the area of Harper's Ferry and on March 12, a day after it was evacuated by the Confederates, captured the town of Winchester, VA.

The commander of the Confederate soldiers facing Banks's army, Gen. Stonewall Jackson, was instructed by Richmond to keep Banks occupied to prevent him from moving east to support McClellan's impending drive on Richmond. But Jackson's 4,600 men were outnumbered eight to one by Banks's army, and Jackson could only fall back before the Union advance. Banks advanced a division commanded by Gen. James Shields to Strasburg, about halfway between Winchester and Mount Jackson.

Late in the evening of March 21, Jackson was informed by his cavalry commander, Gen. Turner Ashby, that Banks's army was being shifted east to join McClellan's force-precisely the movement Jackson had been ordered to prevent. At dawn on March 22, the small Confederate army found itself on a rapid march northward. They covered 25 miles that day, and at about 2:00pm on March 23, after a 16-mile march, they neared the small town of Kernstown, just four miles south of Winchester. Turner Ashby rode up to Jackson and informed him that only four regiments of federals remained in Winchester and that the Union force at Kernstown was only a rear guard. Though he had lost 1,500 stragglers on the rapid march, Jackson decided to attack the isolated Union fragment immediately. Neither Jackson nor Ashby suspected that Shields had covertly placed 9,000 Union soldiers in good defensive positions and was ready to receive the Confederate attack.

Fascinating Fact:  Winchester, VA., has the distinction of having been captured by the opposing forces more than any other town-52 times during the 48-month war.


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