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It was the twilight of the Confederacy in the spring of 1865. Federal armies were tramping throughout the southern states, burning, pillaging, and destroying anything of value, with little resistance from the remnants of the Confederate army. In late March of 1865 Union General John T. Croxton was given orders to take his cavalry force of 1500 troopers to Tuscaloosa and “destroy the bridge, factories, mills, university, and whatever else may be of benefit to the rebel cause.” Three hundred young men from the Alabama Corps of Cadets ranging in ages from 15 to 20 years old were all that stood before the invading force.

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The Young Lions: Confederate Cadets at WarYoung gentlemen,” Confederate Major General John C. Breckinridge told the cadets of the Virginia Military Institute before the Battle of New Market, Virginia, in 1864, “I hope there will be no occasion to use you, but if there is, I trust you will do your duty.”They were used at New Market, and they did do their duty, creating martyrs and a military legend. Throughout the Civil War the cadets of V.M.I. and the three other surviving military colleges in the Confederate South were often used in battle–always reluctantly–and they always did their duty.More @ History