On a rain-soaked morning of 15 May 1864, a group of teenage cadets from the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) marched into one of the most memorable battles of the American Civil War. Most of the cadets were between 15 and 21 years old and had little combat experience, but when General John C. Breckinridge found his battle line collapsing during the Battle of New Market in the Shenandoah Valley, he reluctantly summoned cadets into the fight. Their charge across a freshly ploughed wheat field, where mud pulled off shoes from their feet, permanently christened the site as the “Field of Lost Shoes.” According to Atlas Obscura, the name commemorates the battlefield’s treacherous conditions as well as the courage and sacrifice shown by the young cadets who helped turn the tide of the battle.
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