"New Market" Topic

So I watched a movie on the battle (field of lost shoes or similar) – not a bad flick.

But I do have a question. The movie kept making a deal about how young the cadet were. Is that correct?

If VMI were similar to West Point, wouldn't the cadets be "college age" more or less. Would they be all that much younger than privates of the same time?

So I watched a movie on the battle (field of lost shoes or similar) – not a bad flick.

Did you and I watch the same film? "Field of Lost Two Hours" was a 'Lost Cause' flick that made "Gods and Generals" look like Eisenstein.

Yes, they were college age more or less,not like the boys in "The Horse Soldiers."

Did I read somewhere the average age of troops in the Civil War was 26?

According to the VMI website:

"the ages ranged from 15 to 24, most cadets were between 17 and 21 years old"

They were more like a high-school with rather young freshmen. They would have stuck out as being young because most line regiments had a wide range of ages in its ranks. Mainly 20s, but there would have been much older men, up through the 40s and perhaps older.

I though it was a good movie too, but YMMV.

I haven't seen the movie, but I can speak to the age of the VMI Cadets. As Tgunner and COL Scott point out, the school was more like the German Gymnasium which starts at a much younger age than college. There were, indeed, 15-year-olds in the ranks at New Market. Sending those boys into battle was described as "eating our seed corn."

Off topic a little, there were plenty of underage boys serving in the ranks of the volunteer regiments on both sides.