page_title: Battle of New Market
section_title: VMI casualties
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of New Market / VMI casualties
caption_attribution_description: English: The state of Virginia "Mourning Her Sons". The Virginia Military Institute Cadets killed at the Battle of New Market defending Virginia are buried behind the memorial and headstones appear as white "blocks".
context_page_description: The Battle of New Market was fought on May 15, 1864, in Virginia during the Valley Campaigns of 1864 in the American Civil War. A makeshift Confederate army of 4,100 men, which included cadets from the Virginia Military Institute, defeated Union Major General Franz Sigel and his Army of the Shenandoah. The cadets were integral to the Confederate victory at New Market and this event marks the only time in U.S. history wherein the student body of a functioning and operating college fought as an organized unit in pitched combat in battle. This event and battle was the 14th time VMI cadets were called into action during the Civil War.
  As a result of this defeat, Sigel was relieved of his command and replaced by Maj. Gen. David Hunter, who later burned VMI in retaliation for New Market.
context_section_description: Forty-seven VMI cadets were wounded in the battle (around 23%). The following ten cadets were killed outright or mortally wounded:
  The New Market Day ceremony is an annual observance held at VMI in front of the monument Virginia Mourning Her Dead, a memorial to the New Market Corps. It was sculpted by Cavaliere Moses Ritter von Ezekiel, VMI Class of 1866, who was a veteran of the battle. The names of all of the cadets in the Corps of 1864 are inscribed on the monument, and six of the ten cadets who died in the battle are buried at this site. 
  The ceremony features the roll call of the names of the cadets who lost their lives at New Market, a custom that began in 1887. As the name of each cadet who died is called, a representative from the same company in the modern Corps answers, "Died on the Field of Honor, Sir." A 3-volley salute is conducted by a cadet honor guard, followed by "Taps" played over the parade ground. To culminate this ceremony, the entire Corps passes Virginia Mourning Her Dead in review.
caption: Virginia Mourning Her Dead, sculpted by Moses Ezekiel, a New Market cadet
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