Gen. John C. Breckenridge’s Confederate brigades, joined by the 247-man cadet corps of the Virginia Military Institute, repulsed the Union forces at the Civil War battle of New Market on May 15, 1864, thus preserving the supply and communication lines between the Army of Northern Virginia and the Shenandoah Valley. This victory permitted Gen. Robert E. Lee to concentrate his full efforts toward halting the Union advance on Richmond. In their only engagement of the war, the VMI cadets, the eldest of them under eighteen, distinguished themselves with a gallant charge and the capture of a battery and an enemy flag. Some 160 acres of the Shenandoah County battlefield are maintained by the Commonwealth as the New Market Battlefield Historical Park and memorialize the cadets who fought and died there. On the eastern edge of the battlefield is the restored Bushong House, used by both sides as a hospital.
Many properties listed in the registers are private dwellings and are not open to the public, however many are visible from the public right-of-way. Please be respectful of owner privacy.
Abbreviations:
VLR: Virginia Landmarks Register
NPS: National Park Service
NRHP: National Register of Historic Places
NHL: National Historic Landmark
Programs
DHR has secured permanent legal protection for over 700 historic places - including 15,000 acres of battlefield lands
DHR has erected 2,532 highway markers in every county and city across Virginia
DHR has registered more than 3,317 individual resources and 613 historic districts
DHR has engaged over 450 students in 3 highway marker contests
DHR has stimulated more than $4.2 billion dollars in private investments related to historic tax credit incentives, revitalizing communities of all sizes throughout Virginia