From Aldie to Winchester: Touring Route 50
By Joe Pickett

Author Bio: Joseph Pickett is a full-time and freelance writer and editor in Winchester Va. and rides Route 50 (oh so slowly) to Fairfax every day. His email is pickettj1970@yahoo.com , Web site is josephpickett.com. His work has been published previously in The Washington Times and at Countrylife.net.

Route 50 in the Historic Valley

West bound on Route 50 from Washington, D.C. to Winchester, Va., the rising sun warms the Shenandoah Valley, where little has changed since the days when the War Between the States tore this vital region, and a nation, asunder. Bathed in the glow are tiny barns nestled on quilts of green fields, blooming honeysuckle meadows dotted with cattle grazing on the rolling piedmont, and beckoning in the distance, faint outlines of the Blue Ridge Mountains peeking through the morning mist.

Each day the sun's rays grace the graves of thousands of fallen Union and Confederate soldiers who gave their lives in the many battles that raged in this critical region. From every point on the compass in these parts, the sun lights upon a nugget of this nation's Civil War past, just awaiting discovery.

It was in this 200 mile-long fertile valley, both an avenue of invasion to the head of the federal government and a granary for the Confederacy, that Major General 'Stonewall' Jackson led the brilliant Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1862. Here his 'foot cavalry' marched 350 miles and defeated Union forces twice their strength in five battles. Driving through tiny and tidy towns on Route 50 (Little River Turnpike in Civil War times), one can imagine the hoarse screams, smoke, and thunder of the fierce cavalry battles that raged here in the summer of 1863. The Confederates were taking the battle north to the enemy, scant weeks before the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia collided at the crossroads of Routes 15, 97, and 30 in a sleepy southern PA town called Gettysburg.

As the modern traveler heads further west and is met with increasingly dense Washington, D.C. area traffic, there is plenty of time to savor the rich Civil War history that is passing by, slowly, in the window. Some Civil War points of interest along Route 50 include these:

Historic Spots - The Aldie Mill

Built in 1807-1809 for Charles Fenton Mercer, a prominent 19th century Virginia statesman, the newly restored Aldie Mill was used to grind corn and wheat with millstones turned by nearby Little River. During the Civil War, the mill was a focal point of Confederate history. Col. John Singleton Mosby, The Grey Ghost, and his 17 Partisan Rangers routed a force of several hundred Union cavalry at the mill in 1863.

Mosby's report to Gen. J.E.B. Stuart about the incident reads, "Yesterday a Yankee cavalry force of about 400 men came up to Middleburg. As soon as I heard of it I hastily collected together 17 of my men and started in pursuit, having in the meantime ascertained that they had gone back. At Aldie I overtook their rear squadron, of 59 men, which I charged and routed, capturing 2 captains and 17 men, together with their arms; also 23 horses and accouterments."

Mosby went on to become one of the most legendary and dashing heroes of the Confederate cause. He became famous for his daring exploits in Northern Virginia, raiding Union outposts and supply lines, gathering intelligence and eluding Union pursuers.

Interestingly, after the Civil War, Mosby befriended General Ulysses S. Grant, his old adversary, and they even dined together on a few occasions after Grant became president. When Grant died in 1881, Mosby reports in his memoirs, "I felt I had lost my best friend."

In 1995, much of the area near Route 50 in Northern Virginia and the Shenandoah Valley was designated The John Singleton Mosby Heritage Area to increase awareness of the historic, cultural and natural qualities of this historic area of the state.


Mount Zion Church

A few miles east of Aldie on Route 50, near its intersection with Route 15, Mount Zion Church was both a hospital and a battlefield during the war. Also, Mosby held the first rendezvous here with his men to initiate serious partisan activities behind Federal lines. On July 4, 1864, Col. Charles Russell Lowell sent out a Federal scouting party in search of Mosby. They clashed here and the Federal units were defeated.

Just west of the church, traces can still be found of the old Carolina Road, once the principal north-south Indian trail from New York to the Carolinas, which became a major trading route, referred to by some as the Rogues' Road because it was used by gun runners and cattle thieves.


The Battle of Aldie, Middleburg, and Upperville - June 17-22, 1863

Wedged between the larger battles of Brandy Station and Gettysburg, the battle in Aldie may lack the familiarity of these better-known conflicts, but it was plenty brutal in its own right. Confederate Colonel Tom Munford reported about the Battle of Aldie that there were more Yankees killed "in the same space of ground in any fight - or any battlefield in Virginia that I have ever been over." A Northern surgeon said that it was "by far the most bloody cavalry battle of the war."

The war came to Aldie from the south. After a tremendous victory at Chancellorsville, Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia left Fredericksburg through the gaps in the Blue Ridge Mountains to block key mountain passes and screen the army's movements from Union cavalry. Soon, the Confederate cavalrymen met their adversaries who were probing west to locate Lee and determine his intentions. Five days of fierce fighting followed, over rolling hills and stone fences in brutal Virginia summer heat. Nearly 20,000 troops in an area of less than 20 miles from Aldie to the Blue Ridge engaged in battle over those days.

Much of the bloody action transpired just outside of Aldie. A few miles west of town is a sharp right off Route 50 that leads to the Snickersville Turnpike, a twisting, narrow sunken road running 14 miles northwest from 50 to Route 7. Today it is peaceful and quiet, and purple finches and warblers chirp in the trees on crisp spring mornings. On June 20, 1863, however, it was anything but peaceful.

Up the Turnpike a mile or so, the road approaches a blind curve. On this curve the day of the battle there was a stone wall with a steep drop off on the south side of the road and a split rail fence on the other side. Just behind this blind curve was a stone wall, and sharpshooters from the 2nd and 3rd Virginia Cavalry under command of Gen. J.E.B. Stuart hid themselves there. Just behind the stone wall on the hill behind the wall the Confederates placed a cannon. None of this was visible to the Union troopers of the 1st Massachusetts Cavalry approaching from Aldie, four abreast on the road. The result was a bloody slaughter.

According to Bob O'Neill, author of The Cavalry Battles of Aldie, Middleburg, and Upperville, "The narrow bend in the road quickly became a dusty, confused killing ground from which there was little chance to escape. Men were punched out of their saddles by sharpshooters who could practically touch their targets. Once down in the road the wounded endured a greater horror as terrified and wounded horses plunged and reared, trampling those underneath. Hemmed in by the deep cut as well as the walls and fences and pressed by their comrades behind them, the Yankees could not avoid the deadly fire that dropped them by the score."

By the end of the day, dead men, blood and horses carpeted the Turnpike and limestone dust from the road's macadamized surface coated the trees. One hundred men from the 1st Massachusetts Cavalry died here that day for the Union cause. Today at that same bend in the road, the stone walls and brown wood fences have been reconstructed to their 1863 appearance. And overlooking the meadow with the Bull Run Mountains in the distance, is a historic marker erected in 1880 attesting to the sacrifice of those Northern soldiers, the only monument to Union forces on southern soil.


Middleburg

The fighting from Aldie moved west and continued to rage in Middleburg, so named because of its equidistance between Alexandria and Winchester. The town and its clusters of quaint Civil War-era building lining its narrow streets were used in other parts of the war. After the Second Battle of Manassas, 1,200 wounded men were brought here by wagon where the Free Church and the Methodist Church both had been converted into hospitals. Townspeople were taking wounded into their homes and providing tent sites in their yards. Middleburg was also used as a base by Col. Mosby (a tavern in town bears his name). Also, at the Red Fox Inn, Mosby met with General J. E. B. Stuart on June 17, 1863 prior to the start of the Gettysburg campaign. Across the street, where the bank building now stands, is where a former Mosby Ranger, Charley McDonough shot it out with Federal cavalry pursuers prior to using his last bullet to commit suicide. He is buried in the town cemetery.


Goose Creek Bridge

A few miles east of Ashby's Gap (see below), more fighting raged around the key Goose Creek Bridge. Built between 1801 and 1803 during Thomas Jefferson's administration, this unique 4 arch stone bridge carried vehicular traffic along Route 50 from the early 1800s until 1957 when it was abandoned by the highway department. On June 21st 1863, Confederate forces took a strong position on the high ridge overlooking the bridge to the west. The Union forces occupied the ridge on the east and were attempting to cross the bridge and overrun the Confederates' position. The two sides exchanged artillery fire for more than an hour as violent volleys from cannon blasted the nearby trees. The Confederates delayed the Union advance for a few hours, but Union forces eventually overtook this key link to the Shenandoah Valley.


Upperville

Further west lies Upperville, founded in 1797. Here in the 1760s a young George Washington bought a piece of land with a stone house that is today's 1763 Inn. In this sleepy town, the fight that started in Aldie that hot June 140 years ago continued onward. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart's troops fought hard in and around Upperville as they attacked, gave ground, and counter-attacked along Route 50 on June 22nd, 1863. The Confederate resistance proved successful in the end as Lee moved his army to Pennsylvania, where the Battle of Gettysburg commenced two weeks later.

Visitors can see the road, stone walls and fields where 10,000 cavalry and infantry clashed in the near Route 50. The cemetery includes several graves of soldiers killed in that battle. There is a marker on Route 50 in Upperville Park across from the cemetery.


Winchester Battles

Moving west from Upperville, a few miles past Route 17, the road slopes dramatically upward. This is Ashby's Gap, on the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The top of the Gap overlooks the 46,000-acre Piedmont Valley, also known as Paris Valley. It takes in the eastern slope of the Blue Ridge Mountains, the rolling hills of the Piedmont, woods, streams, ponds, fields and farms stretching east towards the Bull Run Mountains and south to the Cobbler Mountains. In the distance lies the vital town of Winchester. Ashby's Gap has long been a gateway to the west, from its beginning as a narrow Indian trail and colonial road between Alexandria and Winchester.

During the war, whoever controlled the Gap controlled access to the northern Shenandoah Valley, which supplied food, livestock, horses, and soldiers to the southern cause. Because of the vitality of this fertile region, the fighting around Winchester was frequent and fierce. Winchester changed hands in the war about 70 times, an average of once every three weeks for four years.

Six major battles near Winchester included the First Battle of Kernstown in March 1862, during which General Stonewall Jackson suffered his only tactical defeat during the Valley Campaign. He did succeed in keeping Union troops in the Valley from leaving to reinforce Gen. George McClellan on the peninsula.

In May 1862, Jackson's army defeated the Union troops at the First Battle of Winchester. The Union soldiers stood their ground for three hours, but they were out-numbered 3 to 1, and had 2,000 casualties to the Confederates' 400. This was a major victory in General Jackson's 1862 Valley Campaign that captured valuable supplies for his army, including much-needed medical supplies, in Winchester and nearby Martinsburg.

After a year of relative peace in Winchester, Gen. Robert E. Lee ordered the Army of Northern Virginia to clear all Union forces from the Shenandoah Valley to make way for a Confederate sweep into the north. In the Second Battle of Winchester in June 1863, Confederate troops successfully attacked and defeated Union troops occupying forts on the western side of Winchester. Union troops were again defeated at the second battle of Kernstown in 1864.

At the Third Battle of Winchester, General Philip Sheridan's Union troops successfully attacked Confederate troops at Winchester. This battle, however, would prove to be more devastating to the Confederates than the other Winchester clashes. In August 1864, Grant decided to destroy the Shenandoah Valley and crush its ability to support the Confederacy. With the high numbers of losses on both sides, a new war of attrition was to begin in the Valley from which the southern forces would never recover. For three weeks in 1864, Sheridan's troops undertook the infamous "Burning" to end Confederate strength in the Valley. Union troops burned 2,000 barns, 120 mills, and a half a million bushels of grain and confiscated 50,000 head of livestock in the Valley. In Sheridan's words, "When this is completed, the Valley from Winchester up to Staunton, ninety-two miles, will have but little in it for man or beast."

In October 1864, Jubal Early's Confederate troops were entrenched south of Cedar Creek. The Union troops were encamped just north of Cedar Creek. A surprise attack by the Confederates drove the Union troops to the north. General Sheridan rallied his troops and attacked, driving the Confederates back across Cedar Creek. This victory helped boost Union morale and helped President Lincoln win reelection.


Winchester Attractions

In addition to the home of many battles, Winchester is also where Stonewall Jackson kept his headquarters, located on Braddock Street. The Gothic Revival-style house has been restored and furnished much as it was while Jackson led Confederate operations during the Civil War. There are hundreds of Civil War artifacts and memorabilia, including Jackson's prayer book, his camp table, and noted Confederate officer Turner Ashby's revolver.

In all, 326 armed conflicts bloodied the rich soil of the Shenandoah Valley during the war, the majority of them near the Route 50 corridor. An exact death count has never been established, but almost 8,000 war dead lie in Winchester cemeteries alone, and it is estimated that more than 27,000 Union and Confederate soldiers died or were wounded in the six battles in and around Winchester.

Now and again the skeletons of fallen patriots of the North and South are still found in the Valley, a grim reminder of the history of this once war-ravaged region. Each man is given an honorable burial, the least this grateful generation can do for the men who gave, in Lincoln's words, "the last full measure of devotion" to their country.