Heroism in Defeat

The main Union line of battle extended from here for one-half mile to the Valley Turnpike, now U.S. 11. Throughout the morning and into the afternoon, the Union force exchanged musket and cannon fire with the Confederates, who had advanced more than a mile north from Shirley’s Hill to a fence along Jacob Bushong’s orchard. About 3 PM, Confederate Maj. Gen. John C. Breckinridge sensed that the tide of battle had turned and ordered an advance, with the cadets from VMI in the center. As the Confederate charge swept across the muddy wheat field, the cadets overwhelmed the exposed position of Capt. Alfred von Kleiser’s 30th Battery of New York Artillery. With many of his battery’s horses dead, von Kleiser abandoned two of his guns, and the cadets captured one of them. The Confederate charge forced the Union commander, Maj. Gen. Franz Sigel, to order a retreat. At this moment, Battery B, 5th U.S. Artillery, under Capt. Henry DuPont, arrived on the field at Rude’s Hill, two miles northeast of the Bushong Farm. Acting on his own initiative, DuPont deployed his battery of six 3-inch ordnance rifles in three sections of two guns each. As he fired and withdrew, leapfrogging his guns, he slowed the Confederate advance long enough for Sigel to withdraw the rest of his army north to safety. DuPont served in the Union Army for the rest of the war and received the Medal of Honor for his actions during the Battle of Cedar Creek. In June 1864 he reluctantly carried out orders to shell and burn the Virginia Military Institute. Fifty years later, as a United States Senator from Delaware, DuPont sponsored legislation to compensate VMI for the damage, while the Senate majority leader was Thomas Staples Martin of Virginia, who had fought as a VMI cadet at New Market. During the Union retreat at New Market, Sgt. James M. Burns of the 1st West Virginia Infantry earned the Medal of Honor by rallying a few men to support the colors when they were in danger of capture, carrying them to safety, and then going back a hundred yards under enemy fire to carry a severely wounded comrade from the field. The medal was awarded in 1896, as Burns, by then a major, neared the end of three decades of service in the U.S. Army.

New Market, Virginia · United States