Winchester's 1861 Confederate earthwork and the cavalry charge that broke the Shenandoah
476 Redbud Road, Winchester, VA 22601
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.
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