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The 1864 drive up the Shenandoah Valley by the Union Army was designed to
cut off Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia from its main source of food
and animal fodder.
In 1864, the Valley was the ‘breadbasket of the Confederacy’. Its ripe farms and
fields provided critical wheat, corn, beans, meat and potatoes for Lee and his
men, who were engaged in battle to the East, just across the Blue Ridge
mountains.
Logistics are a major factor of every military campaign; the loss of food for his
soldiers, and of fodder for his cavalry, dray, and artillery animals, would have
major impact on Lee’s abilities to continue the fight against General Ulysses
Grant’s Army of the Potomac.
Although the Valley had been the ground for Stonewall Jackson’s famed
1862 campaign, in 1864 New Market was still an untouched, sleepy farm
town astride the Valley Pike, dozing in the sun.
The Valley lies between the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Alleghenies, sloping
gently downward, northeast toward Harpers Ferry and Washington DC.
To the northeast of New Market, the great bulk of Massanutten Mountain
looms over the Valley, as it has for thousands of years.
Commanding all Confederate forces in the Valley in the Spring of 1864 was
General John C. Breckinridge, former Vice President of the United States.
Commanding the Union forces in the Shenandoah in the Spring of 1864 was
General Franz Sigel, a native German with prior service in the Prussian
military, and a successful career in minor New York politics.
In times of crisis, Sigel was given to lapsing into his native German, which
did not encourage tactical cohesion, since many of his subordinate officers
did not speak that language.
New Market is 85 miles northeast of
Lexington, on the Valley Pike – in
1864 a dirt road wide enough for
horse-drawn wagons.
Summoned by messenger to join
Breckinridge, the VMI cadets made
the 85 miles in a three-and-a-halfday forced march, arriving on the
southern outskirts of New Market
on the cloudy and troubled evening
of 14 May.
The sound of guns could be heard
to the north as the cadets bedded
down in a sodden field. None had
ever been in action.
Though some VMI cadets who fought at New Market were from other
Southern states, the overwhelming majority were Virginians, loyal to their
native state, to which they had pledged their duty and honor.
25 year old Lieutenant Colonel Scott Shipp, Superintendent of VMI and
affectionately known for his characteristic goatee as ‘Old Billy’ by the
cadets, led the attack.
Shipp was one of the first wounded casualties, struck down by a shell
fragment, which knocked him unconscious.
Though the uniforms of the re-enactors at left are sharp, the actual appearance
of the cadets at New Market was as shown at the right. Four years of war,
rationing, and scarcity of cloth resulted in the homespun ‘butternut’ coloring of
the uniform.
Contemporary evidence
can be seen in these
plates by famed Civil
War artist Walton Taber,
in a volume of sketches
published immediately
after the war.
On the left is the sharp
turnout of the VMI cadet
of 1861, while on the
right, the cadet’s 1864
appearance is far more
utilitarian, reflecting the
wartime Virginia maxim:
‘Use it up, wear it out;
make it do, or do
without.’
Modern re-enactors in the uniforms of two Southern units that fought at New
Market. 51st Virginia Infantry above, and 30th Virginia Infantry below.
Modern re-enactors on the battlefield at New market. The actual battle took place
in driving rain and thunderstorms.
Development of the battle.
Sigel advances south; his
brigade under Moore is
attacked by Breckinridge
on the west side of the
Valley Pike between the
road and the North Fork of
the Shenandoah River.
Echols’ Brigade in this
attack is led by Colonel
George S. Patton, CSA.
Imboden, with cavalry and
horse-drawn light artillery,
demonstrates, and tries to
flank the Union left
The battle does not go
well for the Confederates;
Breckinridge is forced to
order the VMI cadets, held
in reserve, into the action.
The cadets attack the
center of the Union line in
the teeth of artillery firing
point blank, overrunning
the leading Union battery
with their bayonets.
The battlefield today is owned by VMI, and restored almost exactly to its appearance on
15 May 1864.
You are looking from the point where the VMI cadets were held in reserve until ordered
into action. Past the white buildings of the Bushong family farm to the front, the gentle
slope seen under the trees beyond is the location of the Union lines during the battle.
The cadets advanced forward from here in parade ground order; divided into two
battalions, they passed on either side of the farmhouse, and re-formed on the far side, at
all times under artillery and musket fire. They then advanced and attacked the leading
Union battery with their bayonets and dress swords, carrying the battery and the day.
A modern painting of the cadet’s attack. Passing on either side of the Bushong farmhouse,
they re-formed and crossed a field so muddy from the incessant rains it sucked many of
their shoes off their feet. Color Sergeant O.P. Howard holds aloft the regimental flag,
adorned with the motto of Virginia, Sic Semper Tyrannus – ‘Thus always to tyrants’.
A painting of the battle done for LIFE magazine in 1961 depicts Cadet Color
Sergeant O.P Howard waving the regimental colors atop a captured 12-pound
‘Napoleon’ field gun. This incident happened as shown.
The attack of the cadets
as depicted in the
enormous painting of
the battle in Jackson
Memorial Hall at VMI,
executed by the
internationally famous
artist Benjamin West
Clinedinst (VMI 1880)
from notes and
interviews with cadets
who fought at New
Market.
This painting is the
most accurate rendition
of the attack.
12 cadets were killed in
action or died of
wounds afterward and
47 were wounded, for a
26 per cent loss.
No Infantry unit can
sustain casualties this
heavy repeatedly, and
remain an effective
force.
The cadet barracks at VMI
(left) as seen immediately
before the Civil War.
The cadet corps was
withdrawn to Richmond
following the Battle of New
market.
In June 1864, the Union
Army sent another force
up the Valley, under
General David Hunter.
This force, essentially
unopposed, shelled VMI
from across the Maury
River for half a day, then
crossed the river into
Lexington and burned the
barracks and many of the
other Institute buildings.
The statue of Washington,
seen on the parapet in
front of the sallyport, was
removed by Hunter’s
troops, but returned to VMI
and rededicated in 1866. It
remains in that position
today.
Several of the solid cannon shot fired at VMI by Hunter’s artillery are still
embedded in the wall of one of the barracks towers facing the Maury River.
The Department of Buildings and Grounds ensures that they will remain there.
Captain Henry A. du Pont was a Union officer at New Market, and witnessed the
cadet attack. He was so impressed by the bravery of the boys under withering
fire that after the war, as a United States Senator, he sponsored legislation to
appropriate Federal funds to rebuild the Virginia Military Institute.
Jackson Memorial Hall at VMI today, with the painting of the battle by Clinedinst.
The overhanging flags are those of the Confederate States of America.
Seen through the great windows above the choir loft of Jackson Memorial Hall:
the colors of the United States of America and the Commonwealth of Virginia.
‘Virginia Mourning Her Dead’ executed by Sir Moses Ezekial (VMI 1866), the first
Jewish cadet to attend VMI, and in later life an internationally-acclaimed sculptor
and artist.
Six of the cadets killed at New Market are buried behind the statue. On 15 May each
year the Superintendent and Cadet First Captain lay wreaths before each grave.
On 15 May each year the Institute commemorates New Market with a full-dress regimental
review. The Corps takes the field with gaps in the ranks of ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’, and ‘D’ Companies, in
which cadets were killed in the battle.
The names of the casualties are called by the Cadet First Captain. At each, a cadet’s voice
rings out from the ranks, ‘Died on the field of honor, sir!’
The Corps then passes in review before the statue of ‘Virginia Mourning Her Dead’. It is the
only occasion during the year when the Regimental Band plays ‘Dixie’.
The overcoats worn by VMI cadets are of the same
pattern as those worn at West Point (left), except for
the lining of the capes.
The VMI capes are lined with blood-red, in memory of
the cadets killed and wounded at New Market.The
capes are turned back for parade under white crossbelts, as shown below.
The Corps also always parades with fixed bayonets,
marking the cadets’ bayonet attack at New Market.
The New Market battle streamer, authorized by Congress to the Virginia Military
Institute. Attached to the same regimental colors waved over the captured Union
battery in 1864, it underscores the fact that the Corps of Cadets at VMI fought as
an independent Infantry unit, and is the only college body in the United States to
have done so.
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Among the famous names
associated with VMI is
Thomas Jonathan Jackson
(USMA 1846), shown here as a
Major in the Virginia Militia,
immediately before the war.
As a Professor at VMI
Jackson taught the course in
‘Natural and Experimental
Philosophy’, known today as
Physics, and artillery
mathematics.
He was a didactic and rigid
instructor; known to the
cadets variously as “Old
Tom’, or ‘Tom Fool’.
However, as a General in the
Confederate Army, he was a
ferocious tactician, feared by
the enemy.
Just before the battle of
Chancellorsville in 1863,
seeing so many of his Corps’
units commanded by VMI
graduates, he remarked to an
aide, ‘The Institute will be
heard from today.’
‘Stonewall’ Jackson’s grave in the
Lexington cemetery, as seen today.
He was more than a bit eccentric,
and in the saddle would often
elevate one arm, then the other, in
order to allow the fluids of the
body to ‘naturally redistribute
themselves’.
Another eccentricity was his habit
of eating lemons, as others would
eat oranges.
While reconnoitering an attack
route in the darkness and
confusion of the aftermath of the
first day at Chancellorsville,
Jackson was shot from his saddle
by soldiers of a North Carolina
regiment. Hit several times by
large-caliber balls, his left arm had
to be amputated. He died of
pneumonia shortly afterward, and
was buried at Lexington.
The yellow objects on the lawn are
fresh lemons, thrown over the
fence by present-day admirers
from around the world.