The Bloody Cedars

As the Battle of New Market unfolded on May 15, 1864, Confederate troops under Gen. John C. Breckinridge heavily assaulted the left flank of Union Gen. Franz Sigel's army. Sigel counterattacked with Gen. Julius Stahel's cavalry, which charged down the Valley Turnpike (present-day U.S. Route 11). The Confederates repulsed the attack, and Stahel's men fell back in disorder, leaving the 54th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment to anchor the Union left flank. Sigel then ordered his infantry to launch another attack. The 1st West Virginia Infantry, posted to the right of the 54th Pennsylvania, advanced first, and Col. Jacob Campbell ordered the 54th to charge as well. Under heavy fire, the West Virginians retreated unexpectedly, and the men of the 54th Pennsylvania, now alone, came over the crest of the cedar-covered hill and found large numbers of Confederates waiting in a ravine to the south. Heavy Confederate infantry fire tore into the unsupported Union troops, and Campbell withdrew to save his command as his men made two defensive stands among the cedars during the retreat. Of the regiment's 566 soldiers, 32 were killed, 100 wounded, and 42 captured, a loss of more than 30 percent of the unit, the second-highest regimental loss at the Battle of New Market. The 54th named this part of the battlefield The Bloody Cedars. In October 1905, surviving veterans of the 54th Pennsylvania Infantry returned to dedicate a monument to their regiment's valor, the only statue in Virginia memorializing Pennsylvania's Civil War soldiers, and afterward took cedar seedlings from Jacob Bushong's field, some of which still survive at the cemetery in Johnstown, Pa., where many of the regiment's veterans are buried.

Virginia · United States