Baptism of Fire
VMI Cadet Casualties in the Battle of New Market
While the cadets of the Virginia Military Institute comprised one of the smallest Confederate units engaged in the Battle of New Market, they paid a disproportionately high price in their baptism of fire. Nearly one in four of the cadets were either killed or wounded during the fighting, resulting in the third-highest casualty rate in Maj. Gen. John C. Breckinridge’s army.
In addition to 45 cadets who would survive their wounds, ten cadets were either killed outright or would die after the battle ended. Even before the cadets were ordered into the battle line, a single artillery shell took the lives of Cadets William Cabell, Charles Crockett, and Henry Jones.
William Hugh McDowell was killed near the Bushong House, and Jacqueline “Bev” Stanard also died on the field. After saving another wounded cadet’s life by applying a tourniquet during the battle, Thomas G. Jefferson was struck in the body and succumbed in the Clinedinst home in New Market on May 18, consoled by Eliza Clinedinst and Cadet Moses Ezekiel.
Joseph Wheelwright, who was wounded around the same time as Cabell, Crockett, and Jones, died on June 2 at the home of a doctor in Harrisonburg. Luther Haynes also lingered, dying of his wounds in Richmond on June 15. On June 26, Alva Hartsfield suffered a fatal collapse brought on by his wounds in Petersburg.
Samuel Atwill, though slightly wounded in the calf, died of lockjaw on July 20, the last fatal casualty of the Battle of New Market.
Marker can be reached from George Collin Parkway (County Route 305), on the right when traveling south.
Courtesy hmdb.org
