On September 19, Sheridan’s army crossed Opequon Creek and moved on Winchester. Early’s army lay scattered, and only Ramseur’s little division of 1,700 men stood in his way. Helped by a bungled Yankee deployment, the Tar Heel general skillfully withdrew to a defensive position outside the town and there, in one of the most tenacious defenses of the war, held off most of the Union VI Corps until the rest of Early’s army returned. The Confederates held out until late afternoon, when Sheridan’s cavalry, 10,000 strong, clattered up on their flank. Merritt led one of Little Phil’s three cavalry divisions, with Custer as one of his brigade commanders.

Lining up five brigades abreast in the open ground west of the town, the Yankee cavalry launched a thunderous charge, shattering Early’s flank and sending the Southerners whirling through Winchester. Custer and his Wolverines slashed through the Rebel infantry, capturing a number of flags. Ramseur’s division, at the other end of the line, maintained its organization in the confusion and quit the battlefield last.

Stephenson’s Depot was forgotten, and Ramseur was once again the man of the hour. As the army withdrew up the valley, Early moved him over to command the fallen Robert Rodes’ division. Old Jube made a stand on the high ground at Fisher’s Hill, but there, Ramseur had another one of his unaccountable lapses. Posted near the left end of the Confederate line, he failed to appreciate the significance of a Yankee column advancing on his flank, even though warned of it by one of his brigade commanders. Thus when Maj. Gen. George Crook’s men scattered the Rebel cavalry and flanked his division, it came apart after a short fight. So did the rest of Early’s line, leading to a complete stampede of his army. Although Ramseur somewhat atoned for his carelessness by organizing a rear guard, the damage was done. George Custer, marching around behind the Confederates in a fruitless attempt to cut off their retreat, missed the battle.

Sheridan chased Early up the valley but failed to catch him, then torched everything of value on his return back north. Along the way he placed George Custer in command of his 3rd Cavalry Division. Shortly afterward the Southern reaction to the Burning led to a major cavalry clash at Tom’s Brook. Brigadier General Tom Rosser led the Confederate forces. Spying the blond locks of his former classmate across the lines, he boasted that he was about to give his old friend a whipping. See if I don’t, he said. Custer, meanwhile, made one of those dramatic gestures that he so loved — after carefully deploying his division, he galloped out between the lines, doffed his hat and bowed to Rosser. That bit of theater was also highly practical — it gave him a last close look at the Southern position. It was Rosser who got badly whipped, losing his personal wagon and most of his guns in the humiliating Woodstock Races. Custer spent that evening clomping around camp in his opponent’s oversize clothes.

Sheridan camped near Strasburg, confident that the Rebels had been disposed of. But Early advanced in mid-October to try again, and on the night of October 18 his outnumbered army began a daring march around the Federal flank. Three days before, Dodson Ramseur had learned that he was a father. As he talked with fellow commander Maj. Gen. John Gordon that night, he expressed hope that the outcome of the battle would allow him some time to visit his dear Nellie. Well general, he said as he went to rejoin his division, I shall get my furlough today.

In the foggy dawn, the Confederate attack took the Yankees completely by surprise, scattering one corps, defeating another and driving back a third. Cedar Creek was somewhat of a class reunion. In addition to Dod Ramseur and Tom Rosser, Wes Merritt and Fanny Custer were there, as was Colonel Alexander Pennington, now leading one of Custer’s brigades, and Captain Henry Du Pont, who commanded the guns of the Army of West Virginia. By noon, through a combination of Union resistance and Confederate vacillation, the situation stabilized just north of Middletown. Sheridan had been absent, but he had ridden back from Winchester, reorganized his army and prepared for a counterattack. Even given his losses that morning, he still substantially outnumbered Early, many of whose troops were absent pillaging the rich Yankee camps. Worse, Old Jube’s indecision had left his army out in open country, once again leaving a clear field of action for the dreaded Federal cavalry.

The Union counterattack began in mid-afternoon. The Confederate center, anchored by Ramseur’s division, held firm. Then Early’s left flank began to crumble, brigade by brigade. Tom Rosser, still skittish from his licking at Tom’s Brook, was supposed to be keeping Custer occupied, but failed miserably to do so. As a result Fanny was able to bring his division around to the wavering Rebel left flank.

By late afternoon the Confederate line was near breaking. As more and more fugitives materialized from the left, they disordered the regiments of Maj. Gen. Joseph B. Kershaw’s and Ramseur’s divisions, who yet held the Union VI Corps at bay. Even those stalwarts, however, began to leak rearward. The only thing holding the line together was Dod Ramseur’s magnetic leadership. Utterly heedless of danger, he galloped from one threatened point to the other, encouraging his men, whacking laggards and holding the remaining troops together by the sheer force of his personality. If they could hold until dark on that short fall day, they might yet make an orderly retreat.

For a time it looked as though it might work. The wavering gray line retreated, stopped, then retreated again, steadily losing men but still retaining its cohesion. Ramseur, one of the few men on horseback, attracted a storm of bullets. One wounded him slightly in the arm while another took down his horse. He got another, which was killed almost immediately. As he remounted a third, a bullet tore through the side of his chest, penetrating both lungs. His aides bore him to an ambulance and tried to get him to the rear. With Ramseur gone and the Yankees pressing in on three sides, even the grizzled veterans of Stonewall Jackson’s old II Corps began to lose heart. Still, a few, mostly Brig. Gen. Cullen A. Battle’s Alabamians and Brig. Gen. Bryan Grimes’ Tar Heels, aided by some of Kershaw’s South Carolinians, hung tough.Custer’s cavalry delivered the final blow just before dusk, slamming into the rapidly disintegrating Confederate left flank and scattering what remained of Kershaw’s division, who in turn swept away the remnants of Ramseur’s men in their frantic attempts to escape the horsemen in blue. The Rebel army now completely fell apart, each man quitting the field as best he could. Custer’s and Merritt’s cavalry divisions hammered the flanks, hacking at the fugitives. As Ramseur’s ambulance jolted rearward in the fading light, two horsemen ordered it to halt.

The general ordered the ambulance to go on, shouted the driver.

What general? asked one of the men.

General Ramseur.

That is the very man I am looking for, said the rider. The two men, John Sweeney and Fred Lyon, were Yankees from the 1st Vermont Cavalry, and soon had Ramseur’s ambulance headed toward Sheridan’s headquarters at Belle Grove mansion.

That evening Custer and the others who’d raised a cup with him at Benny Havens’ only four years before trooped in to pay their last respects to their dying friend. Even with the narcotic help of laudanum, the young Rebel general’s pain was nearly unbearable. When Du Pont, whose room had been across from Ramseur’s at the academy, sat on his bed, it sent a thrill of pain through the dying man. Du Pont, Ramseur rasped, you do not know how I suffer. That evening Dodson Ramseur made his final arrangements and spoke of his wife and child as he slipped in and out of consciousness. By mid-morning the next day he was gone. He told me to tell you, one of his staff officers wrote to Nellie, that he had a firm hope in Christ and trusted to meet you hereafter. He died as became a Confederate soldier and a firm believer.

George Custer went on to fame and glory, crushing what remained of Early’s army at Waynesboro in March, playing a major role in the Appomattox campaign and receiving a promotion to major general on April 15. After the war he went West to fight Indians, and while in the Dakotas joined Tom Rosser for a hunting expedition. Custer’s legendary luck ran out in June 1876, 12 years after Dodson Ramseur’s death. Yellow Hair, as the Plains Indians knew him, met his end in similar circumstances — trying to rally his broken command at the Little Bighorn against overwhelming odds.

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This article was written by Frederick L. Ray and originally appeared in the July 2003 issue of America’s Civil War magazine.

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