Intelligence Report--Cadets At War: The True Story of Teenage Heroism at the Battle of New Market

​Cadets at War: The True Story of Teenage Heroism at the Battle of New Market
By Susan Provost Beller
Ages 9-12
3 Stars 

Earlier this week, I shared the story of the VMI Cadets' coming of age.  On May 15, 1864, 257 cadets from the Virginia Military Institute ranging in age from 15 to 19 years old put their military training to the test.  For many of these cadets, this was the first time in a live combat situation. They were supposed to be the reserve of the Confederate Army operating under General Breckinridge.  After a Confederate regiment from Missouri was cut to pieces, General Breckinridge gave the order he dreaded:  “Put the boys in, and may God forgive me for the order.”

This book from Susan Provost Beller looks at personal letters and cadet files in the VMI archives to give a voice to that small number of cadets who helped the Confederates turn the tide of the battle.  Beller begins with providing a bit of background, takes us with the cadets as they march north (“down the valley”) toward New Market, advance around the Bushong Farm House and through a muddy field (the Field of Lost Shoes) and finally as they defend their honor in the press and public perception years after the guns have gone silent.

The book is less than 100 pages long, so the background on the cadets and the battle is necessarily brief.  The battle scenes have urgency and don’t get bogged down in lots of minutia.  Beller’s use of the words and stories of only a few of the cadets gives the book focus.

However, the maps are hand drawn and difficult to read.  The illustrations, with the exception of the cadet photos, did not reproduce well.  Both maps and illustrations fail to adequately support the text. The writing style is very casual; the author writes how I imagine she speaks.  She mentioned in the introduction she has shared this story with school groups many times, and it sounds as if she simply provided a transcription of one of those presentations.  It is probably beneficial for young readers, but for me, it lacked authority.

One final thing that that is only incidental to the story but that bothers me enough to correct--or perhaps better explain--why going north through the Shenandoah Valley is actually “down the valley” while going south is “up the valley.”   She gives a vague reason tied to Pennsylvania settlers moving south away from civilization and into the unknown, so they called it going “up the valley.”  The real answer is much more concrete and even simpler: the Shenandoah River flows from south to north toward its confluence with the Potomac River at Harpers Ferry, WV.  Therefore going south is going upriver—up the valley—and going north is going downriver—down the valley.  It almost makes me call into question all of the research she did for this book.  Thankfully, she quoted letters and official records enough that the voices of the cadets are authentic.