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Cochlin, William.

[Autograph letter, signed, recounting in great detail the 3rd Battle of Winchester or Opequon.]

Winchester, Virginia, 26 September 1864. 12 pp. in ink on three separate sheets of lined bifolium (8” x 5”). CONDITION: Very good, old folds.

A vivid, richly detailed firsthand account of the Third Battle of Winchester (Opequon), capturing a young Union soldier’s baptism by fire, graphic impressions of combat, and thoughtful reflections on the experience and its aftermath.

Cochlin begins with an apology to his sister for having “not had the time to write,” before launching into a harrowing account of the events of the past week. The battle—one of the most important fought in the Shenandoah Valley and Cochlin’s first-ever combat experience—occurred on September 19th, 1864 when General Philip Sheridan’s Union forces launched an attack on the Confederates under General Jubal Early outside the city of Winchester, Virginia, resulting in Union victory. Casualties were high on both sides, and Cochlin’s unit, the 49th Pennsylvania Infantry, saw significant action. 

The narrative opens with a 3:00 am march on the morning of the 19th, followed by the unit’s advance through woodlands past wounded Confederates before emerging into heavy shelling. Cochlin’s first up-close experience with battlefield death arrives when a shell lands in a nearby regiment, killing several. A captain next to him rises to inspect the damage—declaring “Oh they won’t hit me”—and is promptly and badly injured by an exploding shell. 

As the battle shifts in the Union’s favor, Cochlin describes his unit advancing between hilltops, alternating between firing and pursuing the retreating enemy. Several more men are killed or wounded, but a brief visit by General Sheridan on horseback rallies the troops. After reaching a rail breastwork, the unit again comes under heavy fire and suffers more casualties:

On we come until we gain the rail breastwork. Here we lie down and as the enemy’s line is in good view, we take steady aim. But the enemy has a battery on our left and has us at a cross fire. Now a shell strikes in the Co. on our right, killing their O.S. and 1st Corp., with several wounded. The half of the orderly’s head was taken off…Two muskets are knocked into the air, and the sun gleaming on their broken fragments gives the appearance of a thousand strokes of forked lightning. 

Similar gruesome scenes are repeated, but a final Union advance finally manages to force the Confederates into full retreat. Cochlin describes the Rebel last stand with characteristic poetic flourish:

One gallant officer (Rebel though he be) rode that wavering line again and again, in the vain hope of rallying them, exposed to the fire of 5,000 guns. I trained mine on him three times. He disappeared. Whether he wore a charmed life or whether he fell victim to his bravery and to his infernal cause, I cannot tell. And now they break. Yes! Verily, the chivalry of the sunny south are fleeing from the Northern vandals. 

By day’s end, Union forces capture Winchester and raise the Stars and Stripes. “So I ended my first fight,” Cochlin writes. As night falls and the unit camps, he describes taking a contemplative moonlight walk. Though grateful for being kept alive, he is left perplexed at his emotional state during the battle: “I felt so little fear or nervousness that I was quite surprised at it myself.” 

The following day, Cochlin’s unit receives orders to stay in Winchester. There, he searches local homes as part of a “forage party,” finding only a few Union sympathizers. He describes his interactions with townsfolk, including a girl with whom he discovers he shares family relations in Pennsylvania, and a local woman who heckles him while transporting captured Confederates. While guarding the prisoners over two days, Cochlin attempts to explain to them what taking an oath of allegiance to the Union would mean for their condition. 

Finding himself surprisingly reinvigorated by the battle, Cochlin signs off to his sister with a few encouraging words: “You may think things are strange but they are true. Where that day brought death to many, it brought me health, strength, and appetite, the result of excitement & exercise.”

William Cochlin was a private in the Pennsylvania 49th Infantry Regiment. He enlisted in July of 1864 and was mustered out one year later in Hall’s Hill, Virginia. His unit, The 49th Pennsylvania, was attached to the Army of the Potomac and saw action at many of the war’s most important battles. During Cochlin’s period of service, the regiment participated in the Third Battle of Winchester, the Petersburg Campaign, and the Appomattox Campaign, the latter bringing the war to a conclusion. 

A riveting account of Civil War combat and its aftermath.

REFERENCES: “Third Winchester” at American Battlefield Trust online; “William Cochlin” at American Civil War Research Database (Historical Data Systems) online.

Item #10108

Price: $1,500.00

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