by Kelly Jasper , The Daily News-Record

A Union shell explodes. Col. George S. Patton rises in his stirrups — an attempt to rally his men. A fragment strikes his right hip and the brigade commander falls in the narrow Winchester street.

The original “old blood and guts” of the Patton family is captured. He waves his revolver. Any doctor who dares touch his leg will be shot — even the Union surgeons urging amputation.

Gangrene develops, and in a house still standing on Piccadilly Street, Patton dies on Sept. 25, 1864.

Fighting Family

Grandfather of the famed World War II general, Patton was a hard-nosed fighter, says Jonathan Noyalas, a history professor at Lord Fairfax Community College. Undoubtedly, Noyalas says, Gen. Patton grew up listening to stories about his grandfather during the war.

Most famously, those stories include his capture at Third Winchester. But Patton was also captured several times during the war.

The colonel was wounded at the Battle of Scary Creek in 1861. Doctors tried to amputate his arm, but Patton refused and the wound healed. Perhaps this is why Patton also believed his hip would heal, says Noyalas, who authored “Plagued by War: Winchester, Virginia, During the Civil War.”

Soldierly

Though some would identify lapses in his personal judgement, Patton was well respected.

By the time Gen. Jubal A. Early's forces were sent to the Valley in 1861, Patton commanded the 22 nd Virginia. And when Brig. Gen. John Echols frequently fell ill in 1864, Patton commanded his brigade, as he did at Third Winchester.

On the morning of Sept. 19, 1864, the brigade supported cavalry and artillery north of the city near Locke's and Seiver's Fords. Much of Early's army was pushed closer to Winchester. By late afternoon, Patton's brigade anchored the left flank of Early's army near Fort Collier.

A cavalry charge led by Gen. George Armstrong Custer, the largest in American history, fractured the troops. Six-thousand Union soldiers stormed Confederate infantrymen positioned at Fort Collier. Patton's men fled to the rear. A battle-tested veteran, Patton stood to rally his men and was hit with the shell fragment that would end his life a week later.

Solid Reputation

His adjutant, Wood Bouldin Jr., remarked that Patton was “irreproachable in character” upon learning of his commanding officer's death.

Although a lawyer by trade, Patton was a soldier at heart, Noyalas says. Born in June 1833 in Fredericksburg, Patton graduated from Virginia Military Institute, ranked second in his class in 1852.

He studied law and opened a practice in Charleston, which is now in West Virginia. Yet, much of his time was spent organizing and training his militia company, the Kanahwa Minutemen who became part of the 22 nd Virginia Infantry.

Sources: “Plagued By War: Winchester, Virginia, During the Civil War” by Jonathan Noyalas and the Fort Collier Civil War Center