In the spring of 1864, Union commander-in-chief Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant executed a grand strategy to press the Confederacy into submission, with control of the Shenandoah Valley as a key element. Grant ordered Major General Franz Sigel's Army of the Shenandoah to secure the valley and threaten General Robert E. Lee's flank. Sigel was tasked with advancing on Staunton, Virginia, to link up with another Union column commanded by George Crook, which would advance from West Virginia and destroy Confederate infrastructure in the region. Upon learning of the Union Army's entry into the valley, Major General John C. Breckinridge assembled all available forces to counter this threat.
On May 15, 1864, the two forces engaged south of New Market in Shenandoah County, Virginia. Sigel's force, numbering approximately 6,275 men by the time of battle, included infantry commanded by Brigadier General Jeremiah C. Sullivan and cavalry under Major General Julius Stahel. Breckinridge commanded a makeshift Confederate army of 4,087 men consisting of two infantry brigades under John C. Echols and Gabriel C. Wharton, a cavalry brigade under John D. Imboden, and the cadet corps of the Virginia Military Institute—an infantry battalion of 247 cadets under Lieutenant Colonel Scott Shipp with a two-gun artillery section. The Confederates had moved north from Lacey Spring early on May 15, hoping to trap and crush the Union army. Colonel Augustus Moor initially commanded Union forces at the scene, with the main line centered on Manor's Hill. At about 11:00 a.m., Breckinridge launched an infantry attack while Imboden's cavalry crossed Smith's Creek to strike behind Union lines.
The Confederate forces achieved victory, defeating the larger Union Army of the Shenandoah. The battle delayed the Union capture of Staunton by several weeks. The engagement is primarily remembered today as the only time in American history when a school's student body was used as an organized combat unit—the VMI cadets, averaging 18 years of age with some as young as 15, participated in combat operations ordered by Breckinridge. This event became central to the Virginia Military Institute's history and heritage.
The American Civil War (1861–1865) was the deadliest conflict in American history, killing an estimated 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers and an unknown number of civilians. The Confederate States of America, formed by eleven seceding Southern states, faced the Union in four years of warfare across 23 states and territories. Major engagements included First and Second Bull Run, Antietam (the bloodiest single day in American history, September 17, 1862), Chancellorsville, Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863), Vicksburg (surrendered July 4, 1863), and Sherman's March through Georgia and the Carolinas (1864–1865). President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, transforming the war's stated purpose to include the abolition of slavery and enabling the enlistment of approximately 180,000 Black men in the United States Colored Troops. Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. The war resolved the question of secession and ended American slavery, though Reconstruction would face sustained resistance in its attempt to secure civil rights for formerly enslaved people.
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