The Bravest Confederate Cadet You've Never Heard Of and Why He Marched to His Death

On the rainy morning of May fifteenth, eighteen sixty-four, two hundred and fifty-seven cadets from the Virginia Military Institute, the youngest only fifteen, marched into the Battle of New Market. Major General John C. Breckinridge, a former Vice President of the United States, gave the order he said he would carry for the rest of his life: "Put the boys in, and may God forgive me for the order. They crossed a wheat field so deep with mud that the boys walked out of their own shoes. They closed the gap. They captured a Union cannon. Ten of them never came home. This is the story of Cadet Thomas Garland Jefferson, seventeen years old, and the school they died to defend, burned to the ground less than a month later. They were not monsters. They were not heroes. They were boys, and they were there. 🔔 Subscribe for Civil War stories the textbooks cleaned up. 💬 Tell us where you're watching from in the comments. 📚 Sources: John S. Wise, "The End of an Era" (1899); Eliza Clinedinst Crim letter (1909); Charles R. Knight, "Valley Thunder"; VMI Archives; American Battlefield Trust. #CivilWar #AmericanHistory #NewMarket #VMI #ShenandoahValley #ForgottenHistory #BattleOfNewMarket #FieldOfLostShoes #CivilWarStories #1864 #MilitaryHistory #Breckinridge #ConfederateHistory #UnionArmy #AmericanCivilWar