HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena, as catalogued
Winchester's 1861 Confederate earthwork and the cavalry charge that broke the Shenandoah
476 Redbud Road, Winchester, VA 22601
Research updated September 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Donation-supported preservation site; check fortcollier.com for current visiting policies.
Access
Limited Access
Earthen fortifications and open ten-acre field; uneven footing
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1861 · Best-preserved Civil War earthwork in the Shenandoah Valley · Site of decisive Union cavalry charge during Third Battle of Winchester (1864) · Owned and preserved by the Fort Collier Civil War Center since 2002
Fort Collier was constructed in the early summer of 1861 as one of the first Confederate earthwork fortifications built to defend Winchester, Virginia. The earthworks were supervised by Second Lieutenant Cowles Miles Collier, for whom the fort is named. Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston and his chief engineer, Major William Henry Chase Whiting, selected the Stine Farm location due to its proximity to the Martinsburg Pike (now U.S. Route 11).
The fort's most consequential role came on September 19, 1864, during the Third Battle of Winchester, when a large Union cavalry charge swept the position. The charge is regarded by Civil War historians as a turning point in the Shenandoah Valley campaign and is often cited as signaling the beginning of the end for Confederate operations in the Valley. The earthworks survived the rest of the war and the following century in relatively good condition due to limited agricultural disturbance.
The Fort Collier Civil War Center, Inc., a nonprofit organization, purchased the ten-acre core of the site on April 1, 2002 with assistance from the Land and Water Conservation Fund, the Civil War Preservation Trust, Frederick County, and private donors. In 2021 the center announced a partnership with Shenandoah University's McCormick Civil War Institute to expand interpretive programming. The fort remains one of the best-preserved Civil War earthwork fortifications in the Shenandoah Valley.
Sources
Local tradition associates the Fort Collier site with the kind of folk reports common to well-preserved Civil War battlefields: occasional cries that visitors describe as similar to the sounds of wounded men, and figures glimpsed near the earthworks in poor light. Accounts are scattered and do not pin to a specific date or anniversary; the original Shadowlands-era account explicitly notes that the timing of any sightings is irregular.
The Fort Collier Civil War Center promotes the site as a battlefield-preservation landscape rather than as a paranormal destination, and its interpretive programming focuses on the 1864 cavalry engagement and the broader Shenandoah Valley campaign. Visitors should respect the preservation goals of the site and the surrounding neighborhood.
Walk the preserved 1861 Confederate earthwork fortification, one of the best-preserved earthworks in the Shenandoah Valley. The site was the location of the decisive Union cavalry charge of September 19, 1864 that ended the Third Battle of Winchester.
Some links on this page may earn HauntBound a small commission when you book, at no extra cost to you. Our editorial picks are independent. Full disclosure
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Free Guide
9 verified stops, rated for families, mapped in order. Free.
One email to confirm, then the guide link. Unsubscribe anytime.
Kure Beach, NC
Fort Fisher was the largest earthwork fortification of the Civil War, built by the Confederacy beginning in 1861 to protect blockade-running traffic into the port of Wilmington. After a failed Christmas Eve 1864 assault, a combined Union land and naval bombardment captured the fort in January 1865. Fort Fisher's fall closed the last open Confederate seaport.
Atlantic Beach, NC
Fort Macon is a Third System brick coastal fort built between 1826 and 1834 to guard Beaufort Inlet on the North Carolina coast, named for U.S. Senator Nathaniel Macon. North Carolina militia seized the fort for the Confederacy in April 1861, and Union forces under Major General Ambrose E. Burnside recaptured it in 1862. It is now the centerpiece of Fort Macon State Park.
Hammond, OR
Battery Russell is one of nine concrete coastal-artillery emplacements built between 1897 and 1906 to defend the mouth of the Columbia River as part of Fort Stevens. Completed in 1904 and named for Civil War Brig. Gen. David A. Russell, the battery mounted two 10-inch M1888 'disappearing' rifles. It was decommissioned in 1944. On the night of June 21-22, 1942, the Japanese submarine I-25 surfaced offshore and fired roughly 17 shells in the direction of the fort — the first foreign attack on a mainland U.S. military installation since the War of 1812. The site is preserved within Fort Stevens State Park, Hammond, Oregon.