New Market Battlefield and Civil War Museum

A Union cannon placed overlooking the battlefield.

We found ourselves with unseasonably warm weather on a Sunday morning last month, so after breakfast at the Southern Kitchen in New Market, I suggested that we go on an outing to the Civil War Battlefield there.  Mary and I had chanced upon it in 1993 but hadn’t been back; since we’ve been coming to the Valley I’ve wanted to go and we had never managed it until now.

The museum is a unique modern building.

There is a good museum here, and the battlefield is a state park.  There is a small theater in the museum that offers a couple of films on this topic.  It’s well worth the visit.

What’s significant about the Battle of New Market is its association with the Virginia Military Institute, or VMI.  I’ve worked with VMI alums in the past, and I know of their commitment to the school’s traditions and history – and New Market holds a special place for them.  Cadets from the school marched from Lexington, VA to New Market – just more than 80 miles, in four days during the spring of 1864.

One of two battlefield monuments, this humble memorial
is inscribed:  This rustic pile the simple tale will tale:
It marks the spot where Woodson's heroes fell.

The Confederates were there to stop a Union advance down the Valley, and the VMI Cadets were meant to be a reserve force for the battle.  Eventually, they were called into action, where a number of them were killed and many more injured. 

The Cadet Corps’ story is quite a brave one, well worth checking out in person or via the Wikipedia article linked below (there’s also a link to the museum).  But there are a couple of additional points for me to make in this post.

One of the VMI alums donated the money to acquire this site, which includes the Bushong farm that stood at the battlefield during the Civil War.  It was in this area that the Cadets advanced through what became known as the “field of lost shoes” – the ground was soggy (this field doesn’t appear to have natural drainage, despite its position on a bluff over the Shenandoah North Branch), and as they progressed over the field they bogged down and lost their shoes.

This stained glass panel memorializes the cadets who died.

A sculpture by Moses Ezekiel in the museum hall.

Among the notable cadets at the battle were a relative of Thomas Jefferson’s, and Moses Ezekiel, an internationally renowned sculptor (good bio here:  http://www.jewish-history.com/civilwar/moses_ezekiel.html).

We made our way through the farm and orchard, and across the battlefield, eventually coming upon a cannon placement that reminded me of how vulnerable the troops advancing through that field of fire would have been.  I honestly don’t know how I would have reacted to such a challenge, had I ever been called to do so.

Finally, as I mentioned before, Mary and I visited here in 1993.  The bluffs at the edge of the farm gave me my first look at the Shenandoah River.  How far we’ve come, eh?

Here are the links to the article about the battle, and about the museum.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_New_Market

http://www2.vmi.edu/museum/NM/index.html

Civil War History Moment

It is hard to get away from the topic of the US Civil War in the Shenandoah Valley:  there is a weekly column in our own Page News and Courier newspaper that features some aspect of the action; along the Hawksbill Greeway in Luray there are two markers commemorating nearby battles; and nearby at New Port there is the Catherine Furnace, a supplier of Confederate pig iron during the war.  Those are just a few reminders - they are truly all over, up and down the Valley.

A few months ago a colleague at work told me he'd had a project a few years ago to do market analysis for a museum on the Civil War located in the Valley - I don't recall which one or even where the museum was to be located.  Among the items he referred to during the research stage was a book by Michael G. Mahon, entitled The Shenandoah Valley 1861-1865:  The Destruction of the Granary of the Confederacy. (Amazon link below).

There is plenty of lore about the agricultural wealth of this region - and I was fortunate enough to see the modern status of this reputation during my agribusiness internship this summer.  That experience, coupled with the Civil War anecdote that I heard at Skyline Premium Meats during the Page County Grown farm tour only made me more interested in the topic.

In the anecdote, Mr. Burner shared the story of how the current barn was saved after Sheridan's calvary marched through the Valley in 1864, with the mission to destroy every element of agricultural production that could be useful to the Confederate war effort.  He told us that the men had fled in advance of the cavalry's march and went into hiding in the mountains, with the women and other family members left behind.  In this case, the family offered a "Sunday dinner" to the raiders, who spared the barn in gratitude.

Mahon's book is well researched, drawing from anecdotes like this that he was able to discover in letters and other documentation in various Virginia libraries.  His version of the story contradicts the traditional view of the Valley as the Conferderate breadbasket, based on the argument that while there was a strong agricultural tradition as the war began, by 1864, the years of conflict had taken their toll on the Valley so that there was barely enough food to support the local population.  There are plenty of tables and charts with data that help make the point.

Having read a few books on the impact of World War II on Eastern Europe, I'm not surprised by these findings and find them easy enough to accept.  Still there seems to be some discussion about Mahon's findings, they are disputed in the literature and anecdotally.

I'll close with a short passage from the book, which is actually part of the back cover material:

"Sheridan has been credited with burning out the Valley and denying the Conferderates the use of its resources, and his statements of what he destroyed have been readily accepted as fact and have never truly been challenged.  But on closer examination, it is clear that he grossly magnified - and in numerous instances invented - the figures of what his forces captured or destroyed during the campaign....The prevailing vie of the campaign has been that...Sheridan dispersed his three divisions of cavalry across the width of the Valley with orders to destroy anything that could support the enemy....But the reports of his officers disclose that Sheridan's three divisions of horsement actually spent very little of their time savaging the countryside."

Here's the Amazon link to the book if you would like to check it out: