New Market Battlefield Park

About 160 acres of rolling, mostly open farmland west of the Valley Pike near New Market, Virginia, preserve the ground where Confederate and Union forces fought on May 15, 1864. Trails cross the field and lead to the bluff where Federal cannon stood, and the Bushong House, used by both sides as a hospital, now serves as the visitor center. The battle came as Union Major General Franz Sigel advanced up the Shenandoah Valley toward Staunton as part of Grant's spring campaign. Confederate forces under John C. Breckinridge, including 247 Virginia Military Institute cadets, met and defeated him. It remains the only Civil War engagement in which cadets fought. Historian Douglas Southall Freeman argued that the victory protected the Virginia Central Railroad and kept the Valley from Federal occupation. George Collins, an institute graduate, bought most of the battlefield in 1944 and willed it to the school, which received it in 1964.