The Battle of New Market, fought May 15th, 1864, near the town of New Market, northern Virginia, during the War Between the States marked the opening of the 1864 Shenandoah Valley campaign. Coming at a time when the Confederacy was hard pressed, the victory for Confederate arms freed up vital Rebel units to reinforce the Army of Northern Virginia, grappling with the Army of the Potomac in the Overland Campaign.

Background

The Confederate States of America found itself in dire straits in spring of 1864. Ulysess S. Grant, overall commander of the Union armies was coordinating the activities of multiple armies against the South and its badly outnumbered fighting forces. In the Eastern theater, he employed a triple pronged offensive, moving the massive Army of the Potomac against Robert Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, while General Benjamin Butler and his army of the James moved up the James River from Fort Monroe to attack Richmond in flank, and another pair of Union armies moved into the Shenandoah valley to raid it, deprive Lee of the food it supplied his army, and to get into position behind Lee’s left flank.

The fertile Shenandoah valley – the breadbasket of the Confederacy – was vitally important to the South, and especially to the Army of Northern Virginia. This lush agricultural region produced lots of wheat, cattle, flour, corn fruit, milk, poultry, eggs, butter, and other bounty of the land that was necessary to the operations of an army that, true to Napoleon’s maxim, traveled on its stomach.

Retaining control of the valley was especially important in 1864 when eastern Virginia, its fields and farms blackened and burnt by the scourge of war, and stripped by the foragers of both armies, offered little sustenance, and western Virginia, principally the Shenandoah valley, as yet untouched by large scale fighting, remained lush, verdant, and productive.[1]

Grant was of course aware of the immense value of the Shenandoah valley to the Confederate cause, and intended to do something about it, having moved two armies into it, as stated above. The first of the two armies, with the most important assignment, in Grant’s view, was the one under Brigadier General George Crook, an inexperienced Indian fighter who was proficient in unconventional warfare. Crook’s army comprised 6000 infantrymen under his personal command, and 2,000 cavalrymen under Brigadier General W.W. Averell. Crook’s mission was to sever the Virginia and Tennessee railroad, with his infantry, while Averell’s cavalry struck the salt works and lead mines of Saltville and Wytheville. After this, both Crook and Averell would proceed north and cut the Virginia Central railroad.

The second of the two armies was roughly equal in numerical strength to Crook’s, and comprised 8,000 men of all arms. Its assignment was to traverse the length the of the Shenandoah Valley, from Lexington to Staunton, link up there with Crook and join him in cutting the Virginia Central railroad. The army was commanded by Major General Franz Sigel, one of the many Union generals promoted to high rank more for political reasons than for military abilities. A participant in the European Revolutions of 1848, German born Sigel had emigrated to the United States in 1852 as one of the “Forty-eighters,” former German socialist revolutionaries who emigrated to the United States after the unsuccessful revolutions of 1848. The beginning of the war found Sigel teaching public school and serving as leader in the German immigrant community in St. Louis.

Lincoln’s attempts to recruit immigrants into the Union army made Sigel very valuable. He was given a commission and advanced to major general, in large measure to encourage enlistment among the 1.25 million German immigrants in the North. This was a largely successful scheme, and Sigel was very popular among the German immigrants in the Northern army. But while Sigel was invaluable as a recruiting tool, as a military commander he was less so. He had military experience, to be sure, in the revolutions – but he had defeated three times in three battles. And as a Federal general, his performance was little better. Sigel was kept around mainly for political reasons. His popularity among the German immigrants under his command – who liked to sing a wartime ballad entitled “I fight with Sigel” – was a major reason. Resigning in protest over the size of his command, which was not as large as he liked, Sigel made such a stink over the matter among the German immigrants that after a year, Lincoln gave him another command, not so much on his merits, but simply to shut the man up and appease the German immigrant outrage.[2]

Franz Sigel

And so, in spring of 1864, Sigel was given command of the Department of West Virginia and of the armies that went with it. General Grant had little use for Sigel and didn’t expect much from him, which was why Crook had been entrusted with the more important assignment in Grant’s plan. All Grant wanted from Sigel was to guard the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and to occupy Southern attention while Crook did his job. “If Sigel can’t skin himself,” Grant explained, “he can hold a leg while some one else skins.”

The plan was for Sigel to march out ahead on April 30th, drawing Confederate attention, while Crook moved out two days later on the 2nd of May. However, the Confederates found out about Crook’s movements before they did Sigel’s.

John C. Breckinridge

The Shenandoah valley lay within the purview of the Confederate Department of West Virginia, command of which had been entrusted to Major General John C. Breckinridge. A former politician, Breckinridge, a Kentucky native, had been elected as Vice President of the United States in 1856, a post he held until Kentucky appointed him to the U.S. Senate in 1859. A southern Democrat, he had been chosen by that wing of the fractured Democratic party in 1860 as their candidate for President. He won the whole Southern vote, and made a respectable showing in the electoral college, finishing second. But Abraham Lincoln had won first, and got the presidency. Breckinridge, finding his Southern stances increasingly unpopular in the Senate after the Lincoln administration began, soon resigned from the Senate, and joined the Confederate army. Unlike other many other generals in Civil War armies, whose background was in politics, Breckinridge performed competently in several battles, but disputes with his superior Braxton Bragg led to his censure, and he was thus reassigned to this post as head of the Department of West Virginia. Taking command on the 4th of March, Breckinridge moved quickly to assemble the small forces he had available to him into an army, that if small, was respectable.

 

All Breckinridge had available to him were a few brigades of infantry and they were at Dublin, in southwestern Virginia, 155 miles from Staunton, where Confederate cavalry commander John D. Imboden had his headquarters and 1600 troopers. Until Breckinridge could get there to reinforce him, protection of the valley was in Imboden’s hands alone. Yet it could not have been in more capable hands. As Imboden wrote:

“I was a native of the valley, acquainted with nearly all its leading inhabitants, and perfectly familiar with the natural features and resources of the entire district.”

General Robert E. Lee had command of both men and their forces, placed under his direction at the general’s own request. Leaving 4,000 troops to protect Dublin, and Saltville, Breckinridge hastened 2,500 men in two veteran brigades to Staunton by rail to join Imboden’s men.

 

Crook’s Progress

Crook started out with his army from Gauley Bridge on May 2nd, on the one-hundred-mile trek from the Kanawha Valley, southeast toward Dublin. Averell’s troopers started out on May 5th from Logan Courthouse on its assignment.

With two Federal detachments to face, the Confederates had to divide their forces. Brigadier General Albert Jenkins posted 3,000 men in a strong position on Cloyd’s Mountain, a steep hill north of Dublin. Crook made good time, despite the unfavorable terrain, and on May 8th, 1864, he received word of Jenkins’ stand, and attacked his force. The Confederates were routed, suffering nearly 700 casualties in the 90-minute engagement. The Yankees lost over 500.

But after his victory at Cloyd’s Mountain, Crook fell back, captured Rebel documents leading him to believe that the Army of the Potomac was in full retreat. He thus fell back to Meadow Bluff in West Virginia. Averell’s troopers had fared even worse. Advancing toward Saltville, Averell got wind that John Hunt Morgan and his fearsome band of raiders were there. Lacking the stomach to tangle with them, Averell decided to pick the alternate target of Wytheville instead. Ironically, that was where Morgan actually was, and on May 8th, he was beaten by the rebel raider, losing 114 men. Averell fell back, rendezvoused with Crook, and joined him on the retreat to Meadow Bluff. These incidents were of importance to Breckinridge, for they meant now that all he had to worry about now was Sigel’s army.

Confederate Preparations and Sigel’s Progress

Sigel’s army had gotten underway from Martinsburg on April 29th. His progress up the valley was sluggish and slow. He threw out patrols in every direction, cautious of Imboden’s cavalry, whom he believed were twice as many in number as they actually were. Frequently stopping, it took Sigel three days to cover the 22-mile distance to Winchester – where he stopped again, conducting mock battles and drilling for days. Imboden was not inactive during this time, hitting Sigel’s supply trains back to Martinsburg, and raiding the Baltimore and Ohio railroad. To deal with these raiders, Sigel detached Colonel Jacob Higgins with 500 cavalry troopers and Colonel William Boyd with 300 more. But on the 9th of May, Higgins was attacked and beaten by a detachment of Imboden’s men under Virginian cavalry captain John McNeill, and Colonel Boyd’s troopers were defeated on the 13th, by Imboden’s men. The Federals suffered a loss in the first engagement of 464 men taken prisoner, and 150 in the second engagement.

The losses of these troopers reduced Sigel’s force, for he had to detach cavalry to guard his supply lines. His army was down to 6,500 men then, when after a couple days Sigel got moving again on May 11th.  That was still bigger than the force Breckinridge and Imboden could bring to bear against him, even after they combined their forces. Breckinridge had joined Inboden at Staunton on May 8th, with his staff, but his two brigades were lagging behind, even though their commanders, Brigadier Generals John Echols and Gabriel C. Wharton, were pushing the men with all the exertions of a forced march. These two brigades were small, but they were “veteran troops and equal to any in the Confederate army, and were ably commanded.”[3] But it was not enough. Breckinridge needed more men, and in the serious predicament he was in, desperately short of manpower, he called up the militia of Rockingham and Augusta Counties, mostly old men above forty-five years old, or young men below the age of eighteen.

He also called, famously, for the 300 cadets of the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Virginia, all under the age of eighteen. The Virginia Military Institute had provided 425 of the thousand or so military officers available to the South at the start of the war.[4] The current cadets were too young for conscription in the Confederate armies, although at sixteen, they were old enough to be on the list of reserves, and in any case were being groomed for future, not current, leadership and service. As the future military leaders of the state, they were irreplaceable. But the military situation was so desperate, and manpower so scant, that Breckinridge had no choice but to call in them to the defense of the southern homeland and their state.

Notified on May 10th, the 247 cadets, under the leadership of Lieutenant Colonel Scott Shipp, their commandment, “an excellent soldier in every sense,” as Imboden described him, they marched off to war. Besides infantry, the cadet corps included an artillery section under the leadership of Cadet captain C.H. Minge. They would augment Breckinridge’s artillery under Major William McLaughlin, which comprised three Virginia batteries of artillery.

Despite the disaster that had befallen Higgins’ detachment, Sigel had once again gotten moving again on May 11th, and reached Woodstock. He sent out a cavalry screen the next day toward Mount Jackson, and Imboden’s troopers fell back, skirmishing to New Market, seven miles to the south. All day on the 13th, Imboden held his position at New Market, against the imminent attack assumed to be coming from Sigel, but Sigel made no such attack. He had halted again, believing it was too dangerous to venture south of Woodstock. But the defeat of Colonel Boyd’s troopers jarred him to urgent action. On the 14th, he resumed his march, heading toward Mount Jackson, the terminus of the Manassas Gap railroad.[5]

Prelude

Breckinridge’s men had expected him to fortify Staunton and hold it against Sigel’s advance. A defensive battle plan seemed to be in order under the circumstances that Breckinridge faced with an outnumbered army, which had not yet reached Staunton yet.

But Breckinridge had decided that the best defense was a good offense. When Sigel stayed put on the 13th of May, Breckinridge decided to bring the war to him. “I determined not to await his coming,” he reported, “but to march to meet him and bring him battle whenever found.” Sigel was on the march, but he was still cautious enough to take the precaution of ordering a reconnaissance in force to push out in front of him. The force allotted to this was placed under the command of Colonel Augustus Moor, one of Sigel’s two brigade commanders, and was comprised of two infantry regiments and five hundred cavalrymen of the 1rst New York Cavalry, under Major Timothy Quinn.

Breckinridge was at Lacy Springs, ten miles from New Market. Imboden mounted and rode from New Market to Lacy Springs to confer with him. The two had set down to lunch, when the sounds of a heavy cannonade reached their ears. With orders from Breckinridge to hold New Market at all costs, Imboden mounted his horse once more, and rode ten miles back to the town with all possible speed.

General John D. Imboden

In the interim, an artillery duel had opened up between a six-gun battery of Imboden’s and some of Moor’s artillery pieces, but the Unionists made no attempt to cross the Shenandoah River and attack. Sigel intended to bring up the rest of his army before he would try anything like that. The day had been humid and night brought with it rainfall. Imboden had laid down to sleep in the open, alongside the Valley Turnpike, four miles south of town. About two hours before daybreak, he was awoken by the light of tin lantern shining in his face. It was held by a camp guard, who knew where to find him on the roadside. The camp guard was not alone. General Breckinridge was with him, and he immediately accosted Imboden, whom he informed of some good news: his troops would be up before sunlight at this location.

About daylight, Breckinridge’s troops finally arrived, weary, wet from the night rain, and covered with mud. The cadets were among them, but they had almost failed to make it. They had marched into Staunton late on the 12th, their fifers playing “The Girl I left behind me,” just in time to march out with Breckinridge’s veteran soldiers in his two brigades, the morning of the 13th.[6] The militia of Augusta and Rockingham counties, also ordered up, did not arrive. Imboden explained that they “had not had time to assemble from their scattered homes and were not up.”[7]

Breckinridge now assembled his men in line of battle across the valley turnpike. He placed Gabriel Wharton’s brigade, augmented by two of Imboden’s dismounted cavalry regiments on the left, two of Echols regiments astride the pike, and placed the third in reserve with the cadets. Colonel Shipp reported that Breckinridge “did not wish to put the cadets in if he could avoid it, but that should occasion require it, he would use them very freely.” The low marshy ground between the turnpike and Smith’s creek on the right of the Confederate line was held by 1000 of Imboden’s cavalry and his horse artillery.

With the sun having risen, an hour after daybreak, the surrounding area could be clearly seen.

Imboden recorded:

“The whole country for two or three miles lay before and below, like a map, and a few words of explanation from me as to roads, streams, etc., enabled General Breckinridge to grasp it all; and he remarked after five minutes study of the scene, “We can attack and whip them here, and I’ll do it.”

The surrounding area that Breckinridge studied and understood after five minutes of study is described in detail by Imboden:

In 1864, the village of New Market had a population of 1000. Its site is one of the most beautiful in the far-famed Shenandoah valley. The north fork of the Shenandoah River flows behind a range of hills that rise gently to a height of perhaps four hundred feet north-west of the town. These hills were cleared and in cultivation on their slope facing the town, and at their foot runs the valley turnpike, the main street of New Market and the great highway of the valley during the war. About a mile east and south of the turnpike flows Smith’s Creek, a mill-stream, at the foot of the rugged Massanutten Mountain, which from Strasburg to near Port Republic, separates the Luray of Page Valley from the Shenandoah Valley for a distance of over forty miles. Luray and New Market are connected by a mud-pike which runs which crosses the Massanutten Mountain through a slight depression or gap four miles from New Market. Five miles north-east of New Market the valley turnpike crosses the north fork of the Shenandoah, on the boundary of the celebrated “Meem Plantation.” Rude’s Hill, one mile nearer New Market than the river at the bottom, overlooks the whole of the Meem bottoms from an elevation of perhaps seventy-five or one hundred feet…From this hill to New Market, four miles, the country is undulating, and was cleared and in a high state of cultivation. Between New Market and Smith’s Creek, where the road to Luray crosses it, there was in 1864 a body of perhaps 100 hundred acres or more of woodland, and the town and its outskirts were ornamented with many orchards. From about the center of the town and its outskirts were ornamented with many orchards.  From about the center of the town to a deep little valley, or rather ravine, leads to the north fork of the Shenandoah River and cuts the range of hills back of the town at right angles, the hills being higher on the southwest side of this ravine than those on the northeast side. This description is necessary to a clear understanding of the movements on both sides in the battle of May 15th.[8]

Breckinridge “sent orders at once for all the troops to advance as quickly as possible, and for Major McLaughlin, not to wait for the infantry, but to bring on his guns to the hill where we [Imboden and Breckinridge] were.”[9]

Meanwhile, General Sigel, hearing that Breckinridge was on the march down the valley, had ordered his troops to get underway at 5 am on the 15th. Believing that Mount Jackson would offer many advantages as a defensive position, Sigel ordered the troops to move there and they arrived at that place at 10 that morning. Sigel now forward to scout the ground and, in his words: “to decide whether we should advance farther or meet the enemy’s attack at Mount Jackson.”[10] General Sigel’s mind was made up by a report from Colonel Moor that he “was in a good position,” and by a major he had sent to the front who reported “that our troops were in a good position and ‘eager for a fight.”’[11]

Sigel decided not to hold his position at New Market but to press on to New Market, “well aware of the strategical value of New Market, commanding as it did, the road to Luray, Culpepper, and Charlottesville, as well as the road to Brock’s Gap and Moorefield. I resolved to hold the enemy in check until the arrival of our main forces from Mount Jackson and then accept battle.”[12]

With his own men in position, Breckinridge wasted no time in aggressively starting to start the battle. He ordered Imboden to prod Moor into attacking the Confederates, but the attack, which led to fighting in the streets of New Market and around the town, did not goad Moor into acting offensively. Breckinridge tried again, and a little harder this time. Moving some of his artillery to Shirley’s Hill, he opened fire on the Federals, but this did not goad Moor either.

By this time, Moor had reinforcements on hand, for the rest of the Federal cavalry, preceding Sigel’s infantry, had arrived, commanded by Brigadier General Julius Stahel, Sigel’s cavalry commander and another German immigrant. Stahel took over command from Moor, but was no more aggressive than Moor was. He pulled the Yankees back to the outskirts of town, between the turnpike and the crest of Manor’s Hill, and posted a battery of guns on each flank.[13]

Arriving at New Market at about noon, it soon became obvious that not all the Federals would be on hand quickly enough. Therefore, Sigel ordered Colonel Moor to evacuate his position, covered by the cavalry, and fall back to a new position, three quarters of a mile north of New Market, right and left of the pike which led to Mount Jackson.

Battle

McLaughlin’s artillery now commenced the opening of the battle, banging away at the Unionists, to which Stahel’s artillery replied, and for an hour, the two sides banged away at each other in a fierce artillery duel, the shot and shells passing over New Market. Sigel now began to arrange his troops in line of battle. Sigel, wrote Imboden, “brought up his infantry steadily into line on his side of the little valley or ravine running from the town to the river, where he occupied a wide and high plateau, and from which his artillery was playing upon our line.” This plateau was dubbed Bushong’s Hill. He posted two batteries, those of Captains Snow and Carlin’s, on the extreme right. To the left of the batteries, Colonel Joseph Thoburn’s brigade (34th Massachusetts regiment, 54th Pennsylvania, 1tst West Virginia, and 12th West Virginia) was placed. Colonel Moor was ordered to form on Thoburn’s left. Only two of his regiments arrived however, and formed on the right and left of Captain Albert von Kleiser’s New York artillery battery. These two units, the 123rd Ohio and the 18th Connecticut, were with von Kleiser’s battery placed a little way in front of Sigel’s main line. Skirmishers were placed in the front of this line, and Sigel himself personally saw to its arrangements on the right flank, but before he could see to its arrangements on the left, his “attention was directed by to the approach of the enemy whose lines appeared on the crest of the hills opposite our front, north-west of New Market.”[14] Sigel’s battle plan was to use his first line to absorb the Confederate attack, and to beat them with the second.

Unfortunately, for Sigel, his advanced first line was vulnerable to being overlapped on both flanks, and the 123rd Ohio proved itself unreliable. Even before Moor and Stahel moved their men off of Manor’s Hill, to the new position Sigel was preparing at Bushong Hill, General Breckinridge advanced the brigades of Echols and Wharton to the attack, along with the 62nd Virginia. Artillery shells occasionally made a gap in their line by a shell burst or by a solid shot plowing through. But, Imboden reported, on the right of the Confederate line, only an occasional random shell troubled his men. When the Confederates reached the defile between Shirley’s Hill, and Manor’s Hill, they were temporarily safe from attack. Breckinridge gave the men half an hour to rest, and then charged them up Manor’s Hill. But by that time, Moor and Stahel pulled their men back to Bushong’s Hill and into Sigel’s new defensive position. The 123rd Ohio had preceded the rest of the Union units in falling back, skittish and unnerved by the unexpectedly large size of the Confederate attacking force.

Map of the battle of New Market

On Manor’s Hill, Breckinridge paused for a half an hour to restore his formations and plant his artillery. He placed ten of his 13 cannons east of the valley turnpike, and then advanced his men to attack Sigel’s position on Bushong’s Hill, “in the face of a most galling artillery fire steadying them everywhere by his personal presence.”[15]

When Breckinridge’s men pushed to the edge of New Market, General Imboden rode out to ascertain the Union strength on the Federal left, which was obscured to the Confederates by the woods in the Confederate front on their right, which shielded the Yankees from their view. Just beyond the woods, in an open field just beyond, Imboden was extremely pleased to see Stahel’s cavalry bunched up together “massed in very close order,” as he reported it. Imboden moved his troopers into position at a trot march, down Smith Creek to the bridge on the Luray road, A six gun battery under Captain John McClanahan following. Moving down along the creek, the artillery was unlimbered on top of a small hill. The Confederates could hardly believe their good fortune. The Yankee left flank was completely “in the air” – military lingo meaning it was unprotected by any strong natural terrain, and was therefore vulnerable. And the bunched-up state of Stahel’s troopers meant that the Confederates could not miss when they began shooting.

And start shooting they did. While Imboden and his cavalry kept on slowly down the creek to get in the Union rear, McClanahan opened up with his artillery. Speaking of the hill on which the guns were placed, Imboden wrote:

The position was a magnificent one for our purposes. It was less than one thousand yards from the enemy’s cavalry, and a little in rear of prolongation of his line. A large part of his cavalry, and that nearest to us, was massed in column, close order, squadron front, giving our gunners a target of whole acres of men and horses.[16]

The effect when the Confederates opened fire, Imboden said, “was magical.” He went on to record:

The guns were rapidly worked…the first discharge of the guns threw his whole body of cavalry into confusion. They could not change front and face us without great slaughter. They did the next best thing. Being ignorant that the woods in their front were only held by a skirmish line, they turned off to the right about and retired rapidly till beyond our range. In doing this, they uncovered one of their batteries, which changed front to the left and exchanged a few rounds with McClanahan.[17]

As the cavalry retired, McClanahan’s gunners began dropping their shells down onto Sigel’s infantry flank. This was at the same moment that Sigel’s front was being hard pressed by Breckinridge’s assault. Sigel’s first line, his advanced line, gave way. Thomas A. Lewis explains:

The hapless 123rd Ohio fired a single volley at the Confederates and broke for the rear. The 18th Connecticut and von Kleiser’s battery, their left thus exposed, had no choice but to fall back as well. On came the Confederates grimly closing with the main Federal body. As the tension mounted, the Federals of the 12th West Virginia, in reserve in the rear, panicked and fired a volley into the backs of their comrades, wounding several of them.[18]

As the fugitives streamed into the second, and main Federal line, they caused confusion in the Northern ranks, just at the time they were being strongly attacked from the front. Providence was cooperating with the Confederates; the weather was even being directed on the Rebel behalf. The wind was pushing thick and acrid cannon smoke over the battlefield, obscuring the attackers from the aim of the Yankees. As Sigel himself explained it,

…the wind drove clouds of smoke from our own and the enemy’s lines against us, giving the latter an advantage in distinguishing our position and rendering the fire more effective, thus accounting in part for the greater number of killed on our side.[19]

But at this moment, the battle began to turn against the Confederates. The advance of Wharton’s brigade stalled under heavy Union fire, and Echols brigade, too, was stymied in its advance too by Yankee fire. “There was an interruption of a few minutes,” wrote General Sigel, “when the enemy’s lines recoiled, and our men cheered…”[20] A Yankee colonel reported:

Our front fire was very heavy, and the artillery had an enfilading fire, under which their first line went down. They staggered, went back, and their whole advance halted. Their fire ceased to be effective. A cheer ran along our line, and the first success was ours. I gave the order to cease firing.

Colonel W.S. Lincoln of the 34th Massacuhussetts reported:

“We poured a rapid and well directed fire into the enemy; which, aided by the heavy enfilading fire from our artillery, checked his advance. For a moment he staggered, appeared to give way, and the day seemed ours.”

Things went from bad to worse for the Confederates now. A gap opened between the 51rst and 62nd Virginia regiments, as the 51rst regiment recoiled in confusion, and fell back a hundred yards. The situation was indeed serious. If the Yankees took advantage of the situation to hurl their cavalry, or for that matter, their infantry, into the gap, the Confederates might be routed. An officer dashed to General Breckinridge and reported that the day was lost unless the gap were filled. But the only troops on hand were the cadets held in reserve. “Put in the cadets.” The officer urged. “They are only children,” Breckinridge protested. But apparently seeing that he had no other choice, Breckinridge reluctantly assented. “Put the boys in,” he commanded, and then added, “and may God forgive me for the order.”[21] With a cheer, the cadets surged forwards, excited that their moment of glory and combat had come. Breckinridge ordered them to fill the gap between the 51rst and 62nd regiments and support the 62nd as it attacked a particularly troubling Federal battery, that of Von Kleiser, whose six fieldpieces, situated on “elevated ground west of the turnpike that was particularly destructive in its fire upon Breckinridge’s infantry…”[22]

The 62nd Virginia certainly needed the support of the cadets as they came up. The gap opened between the 51rst and the 62nd, had enabled the Federals to take the 62nd under a particularly heavy and damaging fire. The cadets now began to take this fire as well. Shells began to burst among them, causing several casualties, but the cadets, though taking their first fire, cooly and valiantly continued to advance. The sight was an impressive one, not only to their comrades, but to their enemies.

Sigel’s chief signal officer recorded:

Standing on the crest of this slope after a short time, I observed a line forming in the ravine at the foot of the hill, which seemed like a regiment in extent, but so ‘smart’ and ‘natty’ in appearance…they appeared more like militia on parade than troops in campaign. We were soon able to identify the command as the battalion of the Virginia Military Institute, and certainly a more soldiery appearing corps never faced an enemy.

Union Major T.F. Lang recalled:

In the center on the left of the valley turnpike through my strong field-glasses I beheld an unfamiliar sight for the battlefield, a body of several hundred with bright uniforms, shining swords…polished buttons, and handsome flags as if just come from the manufacturer, kept the alignment perfect…on came the line and on came the bright uniforms.

At the bottom of the hill, the cadets moved out through a muddy open field. The mud was ankle deep and made it impossible to advance faster than a walk. Bravely, however, the cadets struggled through, without losing their nerve, despite the fact that they were under artillery fire. The line became curved at both ends, but it was straightened out, and the cadets moved on. The cadets had now closed to within 400 yards of the Union line. Three of the cadets were now slain by a bursting Union shell, and fifty yards further, another was shot through the heart. Another shell went through the cadet’s colors. About this time, the cadets passed a group of wounded soldiers who cheered them on, but a shell burst among them and silenced them. John D. Imboden records:

When the cadets and the 62nd Virginia had moved to within three hundred yards of the battery, they came across “a deep rocky gulch, grown up with scrub cedars, thorns and briars, and filled here and there with logs and old stumps. Many men had fallen before Smith and Shipp had reached this gulch, but whilst in it they were sheltered by its banks.[23]

Colonel Smith and his 62nd Virginia halted here, resting a bit for the final 300-yard run to the battery. The cadets, being younger, and “more agile and ardent than Smith’s veterans…got out on the bank first.”[24]

Sigel’s chief signal officer recorded:

The battalion remained but a short time in the ravine, and again advanced. They came on steadily up the slope, swept as it was by the fire of these guns.  Their line was as perfectly preserved as if on dress parade or in the evolutions of review. As they advanced, our guns played with utmost vigor upon their line; at first with shrapnel, then, as they came nearer with canister, and, finally, with double loads of canister…

Imboden recorded that the cadets “suffered severely in the two or three minutes while Smith was getting the 62nd out of the gulch…”[25] Shipp was wounded by a bursting shell, and command devolved upon Professor Captain Henry A. Wise. The cadets had by now thrown themselves on the ground and through the rails of a fence were shooting their rifles at the Unionists, but Wise saw that this was no winning tactic, and he ordered them to charge the artillery. Springing to his feet, Wise led the cadets to the charge, who rose as one man, and followed Wise in a wild rush to Von Kleiser’s battery. The 62nd Virginia was right behind them – and near enough to take horrific casualties as the double loads of canister burst among them and the charging cadets. Sigel’s chief signal officer recorded:

As the battalion continued to advance, our gunners loaded at the last, and without stopping to eject from six guns more missiles than those boys faced in their wild charge up that hill. But still they advanced steadily, without any sign of faltering. I saw, here and there, a soldier drop from their line and lie where he fell, as his comrades closed up the gaps and passed on. Their pace was increased from a quick step to a double-time and at last to the charge, as the fire as through the fire they came on, and up to the guns…

In the midst of a blinding rainstorm, the cadets rushed the battery, and the artillerists, who prepared to stand their ground, only decided to run for it when the bayonets of the cadets were upon them. In a fierce hand to hand fight, they fell back or were overpowered, and the cadets ran among the guns taking prisoners. One of them was Colonel Lincoln of the 34th Massachusetts, whose killed horse pinned him to the earth. He tried to fight back with his pistol, but the badly wounded man gave up that idea when a cadet threatened to plunge his bayonet through the incapacitated man.[26] The cadets color-bearer now sprang upon the carriage of one of the cannons and waved his Institute flag, signaling the capture of the battery. A wild cheer now went up from the Confederates. The battery had been silenced, and most of the gunners had been taken prisoner by the cadets. It was a moment of glory of the cadets of the Virginia Military Institute, who had surpassed the expectations of their older comrades and Breckinridge himself. They had acquitted themselves with honor, and etched their heroic deeds in the annals of military history, as well as the history of the Virginia Military Institute forever.

The charge of the V.M.I. cadets at the battle of New Market

This action had not come cheap for the cadets, however. Their moment of glory had been expensive. They suffered 8 killed and 46 wounded, a quarter of their number. The 62nd Virginia too had taken quite a beating from the Federal battery. Of the 550 men in that regiment, 241 had been killed or wounded. Imboden recorded that

nearly all of these fell in passing over that deadly three-hundred yards up ‘to the cannon’s mouth.’ My recollection is distinct that the losses in killed and wounded of the 62nd and the Cadet Corps constituted over one-half of the casualties of the day in the whole of our little army of about 4500 men.[27]

In the 62nd Virginia indeed, seven out of the regiment’s ten captains had been cut down between the gulch and the battery, of whom were four were killed instantly and three badly wounded. A Missouri company, the only Missouri unit in the Confederate army, attached to this regiment did gallant service in shooting down many of the gunners of Von Kleiser’s battery, and temporarily stopped the battery’s fire before its cadets permanently stopped it. This action was conducted under artillery fire, and the Missourians suffered grievously, losing six killed and fifty-four wounded out of seventy.

Echols’ brigade was still stalled, and Stahel launched his 1,000 troopers against them in a cavalry charge. But Echols’ two regiments, the 22nd Virginia and the 23rd Virginia, were ably commanded by Colonel George S. Patton – the grandfather of World War II General George S. Patton – and by Lieutenant Colonel Clarence Derrick. And McLaughlin had most of his artillery here on the Confederate right flank. Patton and Derrick hastily put together a defensive plan as the Union cavalry thundered down on them.

The men on Derrick’s left and center jammed themselves shoulder to shoulder in small squares from which they could fire outward in all directions; the right of Ferrick’s line wheeled inward to take the approaching cavalrymen with flanking fire. Patton’s men wheeled in the opposite direction. The Federal troopers found themselves galloping into a deadly corridor with a closed end.[28]

To make matters worse for the Confederates, McLaughlin’s fourteen fieldpieces began blazing away with deadly effect as they drew near, lobbing shells into the very midst of the onrushing troopers. Under a withering fire from front and flank, and under artillery shelling from the other flank, it is little wonder that the charge ended in absolute Union disaster, only three Federal horsemen reaching the Confederates, their comrades recognizing the utter futility of the charge and turning tail to get out of there.

General Sigel did not take all this lying down. When he heard that the Confederates were threatening Von Kleiser’s battery, as well as Captain Carlin’s battery, of which an officer notified him, he ordered two companies of the 12th West Virginia to go the aid of the batteries. Urgently, Sigel began barking orders to his staff. But in his excitement, he began shouting them in German, and it was no surprise therefore that at least some of his men didn’t understand him. Sigel recorded:

“But to my surprise, there was no disposition to advance; in fact, in spite of entreaties and reproaches, the men could not be moved an inch! At this moment, Major Meysenburg of my staff came up to me, and, to save the guns, I determined to make a counter-charge of the whole right wing, and requested him to transmit the order to Colonel Thoburn, who was not far from me on the left.”[29]

“Bayonets were fixed,” he went on to state, “and the charge made in splendid style,”[30] but he was continuing to give orders in German, and his confused subordinates failed to execute the charge correctly.  As the Federals moved down the slope, they were taken under a murderous fire by the Rebels. The 54th Pennsylvania could not advance under that fire. As Colonel Jacob M. Campbell of that regiment recorded:

Advancing beyond the crest of the hill, a rapid, vigorous, and I believe, effective fire was for some time kept up on the enemy, and every effort made by them to advance on the front occupied by my regiment was firmly and resolutely resisted, and proved abortive, although we sustained a galling and destructive fire, in which many of my men were killed or wounded.

Neither could the 1rst West Virginia, which too, had to retreat, leaving only the 34th Massachusetts to press on against the Confederates. The Rebels poured in a heavy fire, dropping more than 200 of the regiment’s men. Colonel Wells of the 34th Massachusetts recorded:

The regiment on my left, which first met the fire, turned and went back, leaving the Thirty-fourth rushing alone into the enemy’s line. I shouted to them to halt but could not make a single man hear or heed me, and it was not until they had climbed an intervening fence and were rushing ahead on the other side, that I was able to run along the lines, and, seizing the color-bearer by the shoulder, hold him fast as the only way of stopping the regiment. The wings surged ahead, but losing sight of the colors, halted. The alignment rectified, we faced about and marched back to our position in common time. I could hear the officers saying to the men, and the men to each other, “Don’t run! —Keep your line! – “Common time! &c. On reaching our position the regiment was halted, faced about, and resumed its fire. The path of the regiment between our line and the fence was sadly strewn with our fallen.

With the Federal counterattack having failed, Breckinridge wasted no time in renewing his assault. All across the Confederate line, the Rebels surged forwards. On the right flank, Colonel Edgar’s 26th Virginia Battalion had worked its way onto the Yankee right flank on the top of Bushong’s Hill. Sigel described this movement:

…a part of his [the Confederates] forces moved against the left and rear of Thoburn’s brigade. When Thoburn’s regiments came back, strewing the ground with their killed and wounded, the enemy, close on their heels, now again turned against the batteries on the right, filling the air with their high-pitched yells, I saw that the battery would be lost, as men and horses were falling.[31]

With Imboden on the left flank, Edgar on the right, and the 62nd Virginia and the cadets pressing the center, the Union line began to give way all across its length. “Our whole position,” Sigel wrote, “now became untenable.”[32]

The Union Retreat

Captain Carlin was ordered to limber up his artillery and take position on a hill in the rear, lest his guns be captured. As some of his horses had been killed, Carlin was forced to abandon two of his fieldpieces. As the artillery withdrew, the Federal infantry followed. On the left the retreat was made in disorder, the cavalry and infantry streaming down the pike in confusion. In the center and on the right, the retreat was conducted in good order. Sigel was unsuccessful in his efforts to maintain the position of his army on the field. So was his provost marshal, whose horse was shot out from under him. Breckinridge’s men were hot on the fleeing Yankees’ heels, and could have all bagged them had it not been for the timely arrival of Captain Henry A. DuPont’s battery from Mount Jackson, which he used to cover the Federal retreat. DuPont described:

A curtain of smoke very largely obscured the enemy position, and the Union forces were falling back in the greatest disorder; everything was in the utmost confusion. I received any number of contradictory orders, given on their own initiative by various staff officers – most of them young and inexperienced – and I took the responsibility of acting on my own judgment. Accordingly, I put one platoon (two guns) in position on the turnpike and opened fire immediately. I then designated two other positions along the turnpike to the rear and sent the other two platoons back to go in position, and as our troops fell back, I retired my advanced platoons and opened fire with the others successively, sending the platoon which had been in advance to another position still further in the rear – a movement called in the tactics “retiring by echelons of platoons.”

Breckinridge had been using his own artillery just as effectively, wheeling it into advanced positions, while a section of McClanahan’s battery was dashed down the Valley turnpike and took the fleeing Federals under shellfire, though it was getting dark by now at 5 pm and this reduced the effectiveness of the fire.

General Sigel’s army halted at Rude’s Hill, where the 28th Ohio and 116th Ohio regiments were already present, and formed a new line of battle. Artillery was placed on this hill, and began shelling the Confederate pursuers. Breckinridge now called a halt and stationed his batteries in position to return the Yankee fire. General Breckinridge had spent much of the battle on foot and among his men. Imboden records:

I learned that he had much of the time off his horse during the whole day, mingling with and cheering his brave, tired, hungry, drenched, and muddy infantry and artillery, to whose lot had fallen the hard fighting all the day long.[33]

Breckinridge had a good reason for ordering a halt. His men were nearly out of ammunition. He had sent back for the ordnance wagons, but continued the pursuit until the wagons could overtake him. Now that they had, he halted his battle line until his men could replenish their ammunition before a final attack on the Union position on Rude’s Hill. But General Sigel was having second thoughts after making a stand at Rude’s Hill. In his words:

When this new and last line was forming I met with General Sullivan, and after some consultation we came to the conclusion not to await another attack, for the reason that our losses were severe; that the regiments that had sustained the brunt of the fight were nearly out of ammunition and would have no time to receive it from the train, which was in the rear, beyond the bridge; that our position was not a good one,  being commanded by the enemy’s guns, posted on the hill in front of our left; and that in case of defeat we could not cross the swollen river, except by the bridge.[34]

Therefore, Sigel instead directed the army to retreat to Mount Jackson. He decided against remaining at that town, because of the large number of wagons he had to protect which would have to be sent to the rear with a large cavalry escort. Instead, Sigel decided to fall back to Cedar Creek with his army “disengage it from its impediments, receive the reinforcements that were expected and, on their way, and according to circumstances, remain there or advance again. So Sigel’s army crossed the Shenandoah river, neglecting to post a rear guard to burn the bridge in his wake. Captain DuPont reached the bridge with his gunners only to find it completely deserted. An angry DuPont had to take on the task of destroying the bridge himself to keep the Confederates from pursuit.

Breckinridge had wanted to destroy the bridge as well, but before the Federals got there, so that they would be trapped on his side of the Shenandoah and he could finish them off. Imboden was unable to cross Smith Creek and destroy the bridge, he reported to Breckinridge when he called a halt to the pursuit. Breckinridge was bitterly disappointed naturally, but he continued the pursuit anyways, thinking that Sigel might make a stand at the river rather than cross.[35] But Sigel did cross, and he finally reached Cedar Creek on May 17th. As for Breckinridge, he was unable to cross the night of 15th in pursuit of Sigel, for he found the bridge, in Imboden’s words, “completely destroyed and further pursuit rendered impossible that night.”[36]

 

Aftermath

And thus ended the battle of New Market. The defeat had cost the Federals 841 casualties (96 killed, 520 wounded, and 225 captured or missing). The victorious Confederates suffered naturally lower casualties, a total of 520. (43 killed, 474 wounded, and three missing).

Strategically, the victory not only saved for the time being, the Army of Northern Virginia’s principal source of rations, enabling the wheat crop to be harvested that spring, but if Sigel had defeated Breckinridge at this battle, Lee could not have spared the men to check his progress, a luxury he could take a month later. “In view of these probable consequences,” Imboden writes, “there was no secondary battle of the war more importance than that of New Market.”[37] Robert E. Lee could not spare Breckinridge in the valley any longer. He needed his men, and this fine Rebel commander, and ordered him to join him at Hanover Junction with his troops. Breckinridge won the praise of the entire Confederacy in this battle, and he was compared to Stonewall Jackson. Indeed, it seemed an omen that this victory had come on the one-year anniversary of that general’s funeral.

Franz Sigel’s reputation was another matter. Grant had not had much confidence in Sigel, and this defeat only confirmed it. When Harry Halleck, general in chief of the Union armies, suggested that Sigel be replaced, Grant concurred. Sigel would never again command another army in the field.

The battle of New Market did not end the Union threat in the valley, but bought only several weeks of respite. Indeed, it inaugurated the Shenandoah valley campaign of 1864, in which the valley would be laid waste in a brutal form of total war. But that was in the future, and for the present, the victory had not been in vain. Nor was it in the hindsight of history, for it furnishes us with many examples of heroism and gallant conduct, none more gallant than those of the V.M.I. cadets, an example that should inspire the youth of our own day to do great deeds worth remembering.

[1] The Shenandoah valley had not seen large scale fighting and had been little trampled by large armies, but it had seen war. Stonewall Jackson had fought a series of small battles here in his famous campaign in 1862, and Lee had used the valley as an invasion route in 1863 to invade Pennsylvania. But the small battles, minor engagements and skirmishes did not affect the agricultural prosperity of the region, and its inhabitants had as yet not known hunger. In between military engagements life went on just as it always had, quietly and peacefully. (Thomas A. Lewis and the Editors of Time Life Books The Shenandoah in Flames: The Valley Campaign of 1864 [Alexandria, Virginia: Time Life Books] p. 17)

[2] Ibid p. 24

[3] John B. Imboden “The Battle of New Market, Virginia., May 18th, 1864” in Robert Underwood Johnson (Ed.) Battles and Leaders of the Civil War 4:482

[4] Thomas A. Lewis and the Editors of Time Life Books The Shenandoah in Flames: The Valley Campaign of 1864 (Alexandria, Virginia: Time Life Books) p. 17

 

[5] Shelby Foote The Civil War: A Narrative (New York, New York: Random House, Inc. 1974) [Reprint 1986] 3:248

[6] Thomas A. Lewis and the Editors of Time Life Books The Shenandoah in Flames: The Valley Campaign of 1864 (Alexandria, Virginia: Time Life Books) p. 29

[7] John B. Imboden “The Battle of New Market, Virginia., May 18th, 1864” in Robert Underwood Johnson (Ed.) Battles and Leaders of the Civil War 4:483

[8] Ibid p. 481

[9] Ibid p. 483

[10] Franz Sigel “Sigel in the Shenandoah Valley” in Robert Underwood Johnson (Ed.) Battles and Leaders of the Civil War 4:488

[11] Ibid

[12] Ibid

[13] Thomas A. Lewis and the Editors of Time Life Books The Shenandoah in Flames: The Valley Campaign of 1864 (Alexandria, Virginia: Time Life Books) p. 31

[14] Franz Sigel “Sigel in the Shenandoah Valley” in Robert Underwood Johnson (Ed.) Battles and Leaders of the Civil War 4:489

[15] Thomas A. Lewis and the Editors of Time Life Books The Shenandoah in Flames: The Valley Campaign of 1864 (Alexandria, Virginia: Time Life Books) p. 33

[16] John B. Imboden “The Battle of New Market, Virginia., May 18th, 1864” in Robert Underwood Johnson (Ed.) Battles and Leaders of the Civil War 4:483

[17] Ibid pp. 483-484

[18] Thomas A. Lewis and the Editors of Time Life Books The Shenandoah in Flames: The Valley Campaign of 1864 (Alexandria, Virginia: Time Life Books) p. 33

[19] Franz Sigel “Sigel in the Shenandoah Valley” in Robert Underwood Johnson (Ed.) Battles and Leaders of the Civil War 4:489

[20] Ibid

[21] Thomas A. Lewis and the Editors of Time Life Books The Shenandoah in Flames: The Valley Campaign of 1864 (Alexandria, Virginia: Time Life Books) p. 34

[22] John B. Imboden “The Battle of New Market, Virginia., May 18th, 1864” in Robert Underwood Johnson (Ed.) Battles and Leaders of the Civil War 4:484

[23] Ibid

[24] Ibid

[25] Ibid

[26] Ibid

[27] Ibid

[28] Thomas A. Lewis and the Editors of Time Life Books The Shenandoah in Flames: The Valley Campaign of 1864 (Alexandria, Virginia: Time Life Books) p. 34

[29] Franz Sigel “Sigel in the Shenandoah Valley” in Robert Underwood Johnson (Ed.) Battles and Leaders of the Civil War 4:489

[30] Ibid

[31] Ibid

[32] Ibid

[33] John B. Imboden “The Battle of New Market, Virginia., May 18th, 1864” in Robert Underwood Johnson (Ed.) Battles and Leaders of the Civil War 4:485

[34] Franz Sigel “Sigel in the Shenandoah Valley” in Robert Underwood Johnson (Ed.) Battles and Leaders of the Civil War 4:490

[35] Thomas A. Lewis and the Editors of Time Life Books The Shenandoah in Flames: The Valley Campaign of 1864 (Alexandria, Virginia: Time Life Books) p. 39

[36] John B. Imboden “The Battle of New Market, Virginia., May 18th, 1864” in Robert Underwood Johnson (Ed.) Battles and Leaders of the Civil War 4:485

[37] Ibid