Crippled Corps and V.M.I. Cadets Form Inner Defenses in Old City Cemetery

Crippled Corps and V.M.I. Cadets Form Inner Defenses in Old City Cemetery. Battle of Lynchburg, June 18, 1864. A week before the city of Lynchburg was to be invaded by 18,000 Union troops, the city lay vulnerable, unprotected by Confederate forces., Brigadier General Francis T. Nicholls, a double amputee, who had recovered in a Lynchburg hospital, organized a corps of convalescing Confederates from Lynchburg’s numerous hospitals to defend the city during that critical week. Over 700 “cripple corps” manned the barricades along with 200 Virginia Military Institute cadets who had rushed to the city., The initial line of inner defenses ran through Old City Cemetery where V.M.I. cadets bivouacked for the night., The cadets and convalescents protected Lynchburg until the Confederate Second Corps and other units arrived to repel the Union attack the next day.