As the shadows began to grow long on September 20, 1864, Union Major General Philip H. Sheridan and his commanders stared at the seemingly impregnable heights of Fisher’s Hill, grandly known as the ‘Gibraltar of the Shenandoah Valley,’ which seemed to be crawling with Lieutenant General Jubal Early’s men.

Subscribe Today

• Did you enjoy our article?
• Read more in America's Civil War magazine
• Subscribe online and save nearly 40%!!!
 

Fisher’s Hill, just south of Strasburg, was recognized as a defensive key to the lower Valley during the Civil War. Massanutten Mountain stood to the east, while Little North Mountain rose to the west. Those two ridges narrowed the Valley, and the steep slopes of Fisher’s Hill stood roughly in the middle. The hill had a sharp northward-facing slope and a small creek, Tumbling Run, traversing the ground to the north. Officers in both armies knew the site and understood that if defended properly it could be impenetrable. ‘Fisher’s hill is a natural fortification of lofty heights thrown across the Shenandoah Valley at a point where the Massanutten Mountain reduces [it] to a width of barely four miles,’ remarked a staff officer in the Union XIX Corps. Nonetheless, Sheridan knew he had to attack the precipitous slopes — how to do so remained the question.

When Sheridan received command of the Middle Military Division in early August 1864, Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant ordered him to ‘give the enemy no rest.’ Grant was disgusted that Early had become such a distraction that summer by marching down the Shenandoah Valley into Maryland and threatening Washington. That campaign had disrupted Grant’s efforts to hammer General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia into submission near Petersburg, and the Yankee commander wanted the troublesome ‘Old Jube’ quieted for good.

But throughout his first month of command of the Army of the Shenandoah, which consisted of the VI Corps, two divisions of the XIX Corps, the VIII Corps and two cavalry divisions, Early’s Army of the Valley — approximately 15,000 men — had kept Sheridan at bay, even though ‘Little Phil’ had some 60,000 men at his disposal. By mid-September, Sheridan had received intelligence from area Unionists and his own scouts that bolstered his confidence and prompted an attack on Early’s Confederates in Winchester on September 19. The Third Battle of Winchester turned out to be an outstanding victory for Sheridan’s army and left Early’s command in chaos. However, Early’s army was not totally demoralized as it retreated south to the fastness of Fisher’s Hill before Sheridan’s pursuit.

Early knew the Valley well and understood that Fisher’s Hill afforded the best immediate opportunity to defend against Sheridan. The previous month he had sought refuge at Fisher’s Hill after feeling threatened by Federal forces and was never attacked. Furthermore, Early could not retreat any farther up the Shenandoah Valley without leaving the door wide open for Sheridan to move into the upper valley and carry out his plan to lay waste to the fertile region known as the Confederacy’s ‘breadbasket.’

The battered Confederate force arrived at Fisher’s Hill during the early morning hours of September 20 and by noon had taken up defensive positions facing north to Strasburg. Although the chief engineer of Maj. Gen. William Emory’s XIX Corps had initially deemed the heights ‘inattackable,’ during the afternoon of September 20 the position was in fact extremely vulnerable.

In order to adequately defend Fisher’s Hill, Early needed to have enough troops to stretch out over a four-mile front from Little North Mountain to Massanutten or his flanks would be exposed and susceptible to assault. And there was the rub. A captain in the 13th Virginia succinctly described the Confederate dilemma, saying, ‘The position was a very strong one, but our army was too small to man it.’

In August Early had the ability to defend the position, but by late September he did not. Four thousand of his men had become casualties at Third Winchester, most of whom had been taken prisoner. Orders from the Confederate War Department to move Maj. Gen. John C. Breckinridge’s troops to the Department of Southwest Virginia further diminished Early’s strength. Early also had to pare off troopers to contend with a Union cavalry threat in the Luray Valley, as the portion of the Shenandoah Valley from Massanutten east to the Blue Ridge was known.

Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to