up a jaunty tune as the cadets moved into
place down Shirley’s Hill. Shipp, at 24, was
scarcely older than the cadets he com-
manded, whose average age was 17. The
cadets were armed with Austrian rifles and
40 rounds of ammunition in their cartridge
boxes. Two 3-inch rifled cannons from the
school’s artillery section rattled along
behind them.
Shipp had not been briefed by the vet-
eran generals to rush his cadets down the
hill, and they moved at a leisurely rate, as
though they were still on the parade
ground. Suddenly, a Federal shell exploded
in the midst of Companies C and D. The
war had suddenly become all too real. Cap-
tain Govan Hill, an adult tactical officer in
Company C, dropped with a fractured
skull. Private Charles E. Read was struck
over the right eye by a shell fragment, and
James L. Merritt was hit in the abdomen by
a piece of shrapnel that knocked him down
but did not penetrate the skin. Pierre
Woodlief of Company B also fell. Beside
them, 17-year-old cadet John S. Wise was
also hit. He remembered the shell vividly:
“It burst directly in my face: lightning
leaped, fire flashed, the earth rocked, the
sky whirled around and I feel upon my
knees. Cadet Sergeant [William] Cabell
looked at me pityingly and called out,
‘Close up, men!’ as he passed. I knew no
more.” Finally, the rest of the corps reached
the safety of the valley below.
On a field lashed by heavy rains, a dou-
ble line of skirmishers from the 30th Vir-
ginia Battalion surged forward at 11 AM. A
Federal soldier conceded later that he and
his comrades had been taken by surprise.
“We were not looking for trouble,” he
said, being “in ignorance of the fact of the
proximity of Breckinridge’s forces.” As it
was, Imboden struck first, sending the
18th and 23rd Virginia charging through
the woods on the right and flushing out
the blue-clad pickets. The gray line moved
resolutely over the crest, down Shirley’s
Hill and through town, cheered on by cit-
izens. One resident remembered, “The lit-
tle town, which a moment before had
seemed to sleep so peacefully that Sabbath
morn, was now wreathed in battle smokeand swarming with troops hurrying to
their positions.”
When fully fleshed out, Breckinridge’s
extended line of battle stretched well
beyond the flanks of Moor’s defensive
position at Manor’s Hill, making his line
instantly untenable. A soldier in the 18th
Connecticut wrote, “As soon as the Con-
federate support came in sight we were
ordered to fall back.” Another bluejacket
from the 123rd Ohio recalled that the
Confederates came “sweeping like an
avalanche.” From atop Manor’s Hill,
Major Theodore Lang fired off five mes-
sages to Sigel, urging him to come up
quickly. Reinforcements dribbled in
throughout the morning from the strung-
out Federal column, and as they arrivedthey were met by wounded and stragglers
moving in the opposite direction. “As we
went up there was evidence of a heavy
fight going on in front,” grumbled one dis-
gusted artilleryman. “The road was lined
with stragglers who kept shouting to us to
give it to them, and then getting to the rear
as fast as they could.”
Sigel arrived on the field about noon and
almost immediately demonstrated his lack
of appreciation for the true conditions at
the front, rebuking Lang for being unnec-
essarily excited about the fate of the army.
With the Confederate juggernaut in full
view, driving everything before them, Lang
asked Sigel about the whereabouts of the
rest of the army. When Sigel nonchalantly
replied that they were coming, Lang coun-
tered with a searing “Yes, General, but too
late.” Sigel ordered Moor to evacuate his
position slowly and fall back to a new one.
Moor disengaged skillfully and withdrewseveral hundred yards, reforming on a
ridgeline known as Rice’s Hill. In the
process, he was compelled to give up the
town of New Market.
At this point in the battle, Breckinridge
stopped the advance, pausing to redress
ranks, shift positions, and adapt his plans
to the fluid circumstances. The halt con-
sumed less than an hour, and the Confed-
erates advanced again at 2 PM. Moor
recalled that he was “hardly in line when
the rebels heralded their advance by their
peculiar yell.” The onrushing Confederate
wave swept forward with considerable
momentum, and the second Federal posi-
tion of the day dissolved into a chaotic
withdrawal. However, Moor’s short strug-
gle had bought Sigel time to form a newline atop Bushong’s Hill. It ran for nearly
a mile and included the 54th Pennsylva-
nia, 34th Massachusetts, and 1st and 12th
West Virginia Regiments. As the Confed-
erates approached Sigel’s main line, one of
Breckinridge’s staff officers noted, “It was
evident that the enemy had determined to
make his final stand.”
Supporting the new Union line were four
batteries that began working with trip-ham-
mer rapidity and fearful precision. The Con-
federates continued to advance swiftly and
steadily in the face of galling fire. A Federal
artillerist observed: “On they came without
wavering, and closing up the gaps that four
batteries were cutting through them, and
yelling like demons. The order is passed for
two-second fuses. The next moment there is
a demand along the line for canister, the
men work with a will, and we pour the can-
ister among them and for about ten min-
utes we pour canister from twelve guns right“As we went up there was evidence of a heavy
fight going on in front,” grumbled one disgusted
artilleryman. “The road was lined with stragglers
who kept shouting to us to give it to them, and
then getting to the rear as fast as they could.”
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