Cover story on one of my Civil War mags.  At first I thought it was Sunday & Sheba but to my relief it was a Union Major General named Robert H.  Milroy who was in charge of the occupation of the rebel city & lost the second battle of Winchester.  It would seem that Milroy had many "run ins" with the feisty ladies of Winchester a trait which appears to be present in Winchester's ladies to this very day.  See Sunday & Sheba.  Following is the synopis:

 

The citizens of the gateway town to the Shenandoah Valley despised the general as they despised no other yankee mostly due to his draconian measures taken by him when the union army occupied the much fought over area during 1863.  The town changed hands more than 70 times during both the Revolutionary & Civil Wars.  As the occupation commander Milroy wrote, "My will is absolute law, I feel a strong disposition to play the tryant amung these traitors."  He levied heavy fines levied on Confederate sympathizers in that region to compensate for the loss of Unionist property.  He immediately freed all the slaves in the area & stricly enforced Lincon's Emancipation Proclamation.  The citizens viewed this "atrocity" as an attempt by Milroy to incite a slave rebellion against their former owners.  This prompted Jeff Davis to place a $100,000 bounty of Milroy's head.  Milroy, an elder in the Presbyterian Church felt he was ordained by God to rid the area of the scourge of slavery & the rebellion.  He had all mail coming & going out of Winchester to be censored & arrested & exhiled citizens, mainly women who showed even the slightest anti-union sentiment.  He passed a number of decrees which forced the citizens to take an oath of allegiance to the union.  Those who refused were arrested, jailed & simply tossed out of town wearing only the clothing on their backs.  A union soldier who was escorting a caravan of these rebel sympathizers showed some compassion towards these unfortunates & when Milroy found out about it, he had the soldier court-martialed & jailed.  Farmers were forbidden to sell any food-stuffs to anyone who had not taken the oath.  Disobediance meant jail & the loss of their farms.  The wood shortage was severe as Winchester had already changed hands 6 times before Milroy's arrival & the trees used for firewood were all gone.  Milroy had the homes of the rebel sympathizers dis-assembled along with barns & fences & the wood used as fuel for the union army fires.  Milroy seemed to be constantly bickering with Winchester's women & on one occasion drew wrath from the populace because he threw two southern belles out of his office in order to hear complaints from two negro women who were former slaves.  Milroy send "spies" dressed in confederate uniforms into the local's homes & if they found sympathy for the lost cause among the inhabitant's they were arrested & exiled from the town.  Such punishment was rendered even if there was a confederate flag present in the house.  Milroy expelled the Logan family from their spacious home to afford a luxerious dwelling for his wife.  While citizens lost property & the food supply dwindled, many townspeople had no choice but to ask Milroy for favors.  Many women like Mary Lee (no relation to Robert E.) refused.  One woman begged Milroy for feed for her livestock & when he learned she had not signed the "oath" he replied by shouting at her, "You all brought on this devilish rebellion & ought to be crushed & starved along with your cows."  

 

Responses encouraged, more to follow.

 

T-Dog