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McCain Backgrounder
Here’s the background on the background for Sen. John McCain’s big speech today at Virginia Military Institute. You decide if it was a metaphorically questionable choice for a candidate supporting an unpopular war.
It’s a painting of young men in a battle that killed 10 and injured 47 of them in a losing war. They were sent into harm’s way by a Confederate leader who sought God’s forgiveness for doing so.
The Charge of the New Market Cadets was the nation’s largest military mural when it was painted in 1914. It commemorates the triumphant charge of VMI cadets at a May 15, 1864 Civil War battle.
The school notes it was the only time in U.S, history when “college students participated as a unit in a pitched battle.” They fought for the Confederacy.
“The cadets entered battle wearing their school uniform, marching under the school flag which is still used, when a gap was blown into the center of the Confederate line,” says a VMI information sheet about the mural.
Gen. John Brackenridge, the Confederate commander, turned to the VMI cadets and said, “Put the boys in, and may God forgive me for that order.”
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