New Market, VA 
May 15, 1864
New Market, VA
Updated Thursday, July 29, 2010 8:00 PM
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New Market
May 15, 1864
Union Confederate
Maj. Gen Franz Sigel Maj. Gen John Breckinridge
Grant and Sherman had spent many nights sitting around the campfire in the early days of the war talking about what it would take to end the thing, while everyone on both sides was talking about a big win strategy, Grant and Sherman realized that the war would be won with a full court press: fighting on all fronts at once was actually pronounced insane for suggesting that the war would require big armies for years not months. By the conclusion of the battle at Gettysburg everyone else was forced to come around to Grant and Sherman’s point of view, no one was going to quit just because they lost one battle no matter how big. The result of this belated conversion was the appointment of Grant as the supreme commander of the Union forces and his movement out of the Western Theater back east to the Army of the Potomac.
As part of his grand strategy, Grant, busy with Robert E. Lee on his Overland Campaign, ordered attacks on all fronts. Unfortunately for Grant one of his generals in the field was Franz Sigel. Sigel responded by marching his army of 10,000 into the Shenandoah Valley, the breadbasket of the Confederacy. Breckinridge responded by marching his army of 4,700, including 257 VMI students, in to meet the Union threat Sigel and Breckinridge met at New Market.
VMI is intimately involved with the battlefield and the visitor center
Stop 1 Breckinridge advanced over this field to the Bushong farm ahead.
Stop 2 A nice view of the Hall of Vallor
Stop 3 Looking over toward the freeway and town.
Stop 4 The Bushong Farm.
At this point you cross under the freewy for the other half of the battle and then come back to Stop 5. Discriptions of the letter stops are at the bottom of the page. The tour tell you to go up to Stop 6 but this way cuts out quite a bit of walking.
Stop 5 Here along the fence and in the yard the Confederates reformed before advancing through the orchard.
Stop 6 The Confederates took positions along this fence line. This picture take where the VMI cadets stood.
They looked out across the Field of Lost Shoes. The VMI cadets charged over this open ground.
At the top of the hill to their left were cannon as well.
Stop 6a Missouri Monument
Stop 7 From the middle of the field the farm looks a long ways away.
Stop 8 The middle of the Union line.
Sigel really should not have lost this one.
Stop 9 The right flank and the top of the hill.
No way Sigel should have lost this one.
Follow the trail back along the river bluffs, very nice. There is a beautiful old stone wall and some river overlooks.
General Sigel had a checkered military career. On a good day, like at Pea Ridge, he could be quite effective; on a bad day, like at Wilson’s Creek, he could be worse than useless. So for the Union cause the question hung in the air as to which Sigel would show up at New Market.
For the South, General Breckinridge was a known quality, wounded at Shiloh Breckinridge established his reputation by capturing Port Hudson in the lower Mississippi Valley. He fought under Braxton Bragg at Stones River, Chattanooga, and Chickamauga. Later Breckinridge was given responsibility for the defense of the Shenandoah Valley which got him out from under Bragg.
As can be seen in the pictures the battlefield at New Market is an open landscape covered with low rolling hills. The Confederates appropriately enough moved in from the south and brushing back Union skirmishers off Manor’s Hill moved up to take positions on the Bushong Farm. The left of the Confederate line was anchored on the banks above the Shenandoah River and stretched east across the Valley Turnpike to Smiths Creek.
The Union took positions along the top of the ridge that formed Bushong’s Hill and stretched into a grove of cedars across the freeway. In a sense this left the Union left hanging. While the freeway wasn’t there in 1864 it oddly does divide the battlefield in two in a way that matches the day’s events quite appropriately. The battle can almost be looked at as two separate but related actions. I think this can be explained by another ridge running north and south that the freeway follows that and kind of channeled Confederate right into a series of gully’s that hid them from Union observation and protected them from fire.
The bulk of the Confederate forces took positions along the rail fence that separated the Bushong orchard from their back 40 field. The Union had the high ground and the center of the Confederate line caught hell as the two side banged away at each other. A gap opened in the line which Breckinridge filled with the VMI students, putting them in the middle of the worst part of the battlefield. Sigel saw the movement in the Confederate position and ordered an attack. The Union troop charged down across the field which turned out to be a muddy mess due to heavy rains earlier and lurched to a stop. Seeing the attack repulsed Sigel order the artillery to begin a withdrawal.
Breckinridge saw his opportunity and ordered an attack before the Union line could get reset after their failed attack. Charging across the same field, now even soupier, the Confederates gained the high ground and the VMI cadets captured a Union canon. Over on their left, the Union forces charged out of their cedars, crested a ridge, and discovered a whole lot of Confederates down in a gully. The Union fell back under heavy fire and in the process the 54th Pennsylvania became isolated. Taking advantage of the situation the Confederate launched a concentrated assault on the 54th. As the 54th fell back the 5th US Artillery Battery opened up on the Confederates slowing the attack and allowing the 54th to escape. Sigel pulled his forces out around 3pm. Some accounts say that the Union fled the field in a route; others say that Sigel pulled his forces back in good order. Either way, the Confederates were clearly left in possession of the battlefield and Sigel was force to retreat back out of the Shenandoah Valley. Breckinridge joined forces with Lee and served a significant roll repulsing Grant at Cold Harbor. Sigel was replaced first by Maj. Gen. David Hunter who was himself replaced by Maj. Gen. Phil Sheridan. Sheridan promised that a crow would have to pack a lunch to fly across the valley and he made good on his word.
The Lettered Stops
The small lettered stops are on the back of the capital lettered stops.
Stop A The path is the mowed strip. Note the rolling nature of the landscape.
Stops B & d The Confederates were sheltered in this gully.
Stops C & c The Confedertes in the gully caught the Yanks in the open.
Stops D & a Suddenly the Confederates saw the 54th by itself and saw an opportunity to destroy them.
Stop E