BRANDED

In the final hours of Union Maj. Gen. Robert H. Milroy’s life, with family gathered at his home in Olympia, Wash., the 73-year-old veteran had a singular focus—making certain that history did not judge him harshly for his defeat at the Second Battle of Winchester during the Confederate advance to Gettysburg in June 1863. On March 28, 1890—the day before his death—Milroy, according to a newspaper correspondent, “sat up all day…and dictated matter…touching upon the supreme event of his life, the battle of Winchester.” As Milroy spoke to A.S. Austin, a justice of the peace in Olympia, and May Sylvester, who was collaborating with Austin “in compiling a volume of the general’s military memoirs” (unfortunately never completed), the “Gray Eagle” stated emphatically that he was not ultimately responsible for the disastrous Union defeat at Winchester on June 13-15, 1863.

Throughout Milroy’s occupation of Winchester in the first half of 1863, General-in-Chief Henry W. Halleck fretted for the safety of Milroy’s command. On April 29, Halleck reminded Milroy’s immediate superior Maj. Gen. Robert C. Schenck, commander of the Middle Department headquartered in Baltimore, that Winchester and its immediate environs was “no place to fight a battle. It is merely an outpost, which should not be exposed to an attack in force.” One month later, in the wake of the Army of Northern Virginia’s momentous victory at Chancellorsville, Va., Halleck’s anxieties about the safety of Milroy’s garrison neared a fevered pitch. He warned Schenck that “forces at Harpers Ferry, the Shenandoah Valley, and Western Va., should be on the alert and prepared for attack.”

Beyond Halleck’s warnings, Milroy’s Jessie Scouts—Union soldiers who