Preserving another Piece of the Shenandoah Valley Civil War History

Recipient: Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation

Amount: $3,882,644.81
Acres: 144.62

Throughout the Civil War, Winchester, Virginia was hotly and continuously contested. Located at the northern edge of the Shenandoah Valley, Winchester was a springboard for major Confederate military actions to the North, including the Gettysburg campaign of 1863. By the war’s end, Winchester changed hands over 70 times, as several major battles were fought in and around its limits. As the Union and Confederate Armies attempted to capture Winchester throughout the Civil War, the rich farmland of the McCann property was the site of numerous actions including the Second and Third Battles of Winchester, the Battle of Kernstown, and the Battle of Rutherford’s Farm.

But it was the Third Battle of Winchester that proved to be the most pivotal engagement on McCann’s soil. In September 1864, Union forces hoped to re-capture Winchester for the final time and launched an attack on Confederate defenses of the city. In one of the largest cavalry charges of the Civil War, mounted Federal troops collided with Confederate cavalry and infantry on the McCann property. The Union charge successfully contributed to the Confederate’s final withdrawal from Winchester on September 19, 1864.

With financial support from the NPS American Battlefield Protection Program, the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation in partnership with the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation will receive a Battlefield Land Acquisition Grant award to permanently protect 144 acres of the McCann property. This acquisition is part of a larger strategy to preserve a network of the many Civil War battlefields that surround Winchester. With NPS ABPP financial assistance, another piece of Winchester’s tapestry of historic landscapes will be preserved for future generations!