A Well Deserved Tribute

Confederate General Charles Sidney Winder was killed during the Battle of Cedar Mountain August 9^th 1862.

Charles Sidney Winder was born October 18^th 1829 Easton, Talbot, Maryland.  He attended St John’s College in Maryland before becoming a cadet at the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1846.  He graduated in 1850 in the middle of the class, taking an appointment to 4^th United State Artillery.  He would see action in the Indian Wars while stationed in Washington Territory.

When the Civil War started Winder resigned from the United State Army and accepted an appointment to Captain on March 16^th 1861 in the Confederate Artillery.  He became the Colonel of the 6^th South Carolina Infantry July 8^th 1861.  Moving into the Shenandoah Valley with a promotion to Brigadier General on March 1^st 1862, he served under Confederate General Thomas J "Stonewall" Jackson.  Winder commanded the Fourth Brigade a part of Ambrose Powell Hill’s Division.

During the Battle of Cedar Mountain on August 9^th 1862, Winder’s men held the left flank of the Confederate line.  He was on the line directing the fire of the Rockbridge Artillery when he was hit by a shell in his left side, the shell nearly severed his left arm.  Winder was taken to the rear and would die a few hours later.  In death he was not left to rest, being buried first at Orange Court House, and then moved to Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia, before his family moved him again to the family cemetery at Wye House, Easton, Maryland.

Confederate General Robert E Lee wrote of Winder, “I can add nothing to the well-deserved tribute paid to the courage, capacity, and conspicuous merit of this lamented officer by General Jackson, in whose brilliant campaigns in the valley and on the Chickahominy he bore a distinguished part."