"The Battle of New Market, though a smaller conflict, represented a crucial moment in the Union's offensive movements in the spring of 1864 and became the last major Confederate victory in the Shenandoah Valley. The results of the battle between Franz Sigel and John C. Breckinridge - with the Virginia Military Institute Cadets pushing the conflict in the Confederates' favor - altered the campaigns of Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee and the course of the American Civil War in Virginia."--Provided by publisher.
Focusing on the South’s four major military colleges—the Virginia Military Institute (VMI), the South Carolina Military Academy (later The Citadel), the Georgia Military Institute, and the University of Alabama—The Young Lions is the story of young Confederate military cadets at war. From the opening of VMI in 1839 through the struggles of all the schools to remain open during the war, the death of Stonewall Jackson (a VMI professor), and the Pyrrhic victory of the Battle of New Market to the burning of the University of Alabama in 1865, this book reveals the everyday dramatic actions of cadets on battlefield and beyond.
Using letters, reminiscences, artifacts and archival photographs, Cadets presents the story of the 250 Virginia Military Institute students who fought alongside the Confederate soldiers to defeat a larger Union force in a critical 1864 Civil War battle.
The Civil War historian recounts a significant yet smaller battle in the Shenandoah Valley—showing how it changed the war and the lives of those present. The battle of New Market came at a crucial moment in the Union’s offensive movements. It would also be the last major Confederate victory in the Shenandoah Valley. The outcome altered campaign plans across the North and South, while the bloody battle changed the lives of those who witnessed or fought it. In the spring of 1864, Union Maj. Gen. Franz Sigel prepared to lead a new invasion into the Valley. Confederate Maj. Gen. John C. Breckinridge scrambled to organize a defense. Young cadets from the Virginia Military Institute were called to the battle lines just days after leaving their studies. When the opposing divisions clashed on May 15th, 1864, local civilians watched as the combat unfold in their streets and churchyards and aided the fallen. In Call Out the Cadets, Sarah Kay Bierle traces the history of this battle, covering its military aspects and shedding light on the lives it forever changed. Youth and veterans, generals and privates, farmers and teachers—all were called into the conflict or its aftermath, an event that changed a community, a military institute, and the very fate of the Shenandoah Valley.
The battle was similar to many others, with one notable exception: The corps of cadets from the Virginia Military Institute was among the regiments on the field that fateful day. Confederate President Jefferson Davis affectionately referred to those boys, as young as 15, as the "Seed Corn of the Confederacy". With only a few individual exceptions they had never been in battle. By day's end they had stepped into the pages of history. Their gallantry gained the respect of veteran soldiers on both sides. Their day culminated with the capture of a Union battery. The victory had a price, however. Ten of their number would die a New Market; more than fifty others would be wounded. This is the first known account of the Battle of New Market written from the perspective of the cadets from Virginia Military Institute. They had never seen battle before, but by day's end they had earned the admiration of both sides for their valor in action.
