Eliza Clinedinst

Eliza Clindinst

Courtesy of the Virginia Military Institute Archives

Quick Facts

Place of Birth:

New Market, Virginia

Date of Birth:

1838

Place of Death:

New Market

Date of Death:

1931

Place of Burial:

New Market

Cemetery Name:

Emmanuel Lutheran Church Cemetery

Eliza Clinedinst was born in 1838. She was 26 years old when the Battle of New Market raged through her back yard on May 15, 1864. During the battle, Eliza ran to the battlefield to help the wounded that lay in the fields. After the battle her and other women of the area assisted in bringing the wounded to field hospitals that were scattered throughout the area. She came across one wounded VMI Cadet by the name of Thomas Garland Jefferson. Jefferson was brought to her house in an ambulance the day following the battle by his friend and fellow cadet, Moses Ezekiel. Both Eliza and Moses cared for Thomas in her home until he passed away on May 18, 1864. Eliza recalls him in a post war letter when she says, “He was about sixteen years of age, was blue-eyed, and had golden hair. I will never forget him and his sweet, boyish face. He was shot in the breast, and the bullet was cut out of his back. His sufferings were intense, but he bore up so well and never complained. Cadet Ezekiel nursed him very tenderly. His own mother could not have done more for him.” Following the war Eliza would marry and her last name would change to Crim. She would pass away in 1931 and is buried in the Emmanuel Lutheran Church Cemetery in New Market Virginia, she was 92.