Remembering the Fallen

Remembering the Fallen. "The Vacant Chair". , This is a place where men died. This is hallowed ground., There were 1,372 casualties at the Battle of New Market - 1 out of 8 soldiers who fought here, a casualty rate of 13%, a rate higher than battles such as Fredericksburg, Cold Harbor, and Malvern Hill., After the fighting had ended, the scenes on the battlefield were sobering. As one historian wrote, "The dead lay scattered thickly." A Confederate cavalryman said, "The yankeys lay dead and [wounded] and dying in abundance." And that night, a local resident remembered, "Many on the battlefield died in the dreary rain.", Each death was a life snuffed out too early, and an unfathomable loss to those who knew and loved them., Today, this ground is a monument and memorial to those who fell here... especially those who never returned home, who left, in the words of the famous wartime poem and song, "the vacant chair" by the fireside.,

Casualties at New Market (estimates) , Confederate , 43+ Killed , 474 Wounded , 3 Missing , 531 Total, (The total is higher than the individual estimates because it is clear that the number of killed and wounded were higher than those counted.), Union , 96 Killed , 520 Wounded , 225 Missing , 841 Total

, (Captions):, "Stanard Had Breathed His Last" , VMI Cadet Beverly "Jack" Stanard, who was killed at New Market. Fellow cadet John S. Wise found Stanard after the battle but said "I had come too late. Stanard had breathed his last but few moments before... His body was still warm... Poor Jack!" , Image courtesy VMI Archives., "Somebody's Darling" , Artist Jame Taylor came across and sketched this soldier "young in years" who was killed at Fisher's Hill - a boy typical of those who fell on battlefields in the Valley. , Image courtesy Western Reserve Historical Society., "Disturbing the Dying" , Union Capt. Patrick Graham, who was wounded and captured at New Market. Col. William S. Lincoln, who was also captured, described how Graham "Had been shot directly through the right lung, and each breath he drew sent the air whistling through the wound, disturbing the dying, who laid near.", "All is Still as Death" , This eyewitness account of the battlefield from a witness who walked the ground after the fighting appeared in a Raleigh, North Carolina newspaper on June 8, 1864