http://encyclopediavirginia.org http://encyclopediavirginia.org/img/EV_Logo_sm.gif This is the url http://encyclopediavirginia.org The first and ultimate online reference work about the Commonwealth /Dyer_Carrie_Victoria_1839-1921 Fri, 17 May 2013 09:28:11 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Dyer_Carrie_Victoria_1839-1921 Fri, 17 May 2013 09:28:11 EST]]> /Fay_Lydia_Mary_ca_1804-1878 Fri, 17 May 2013 09:22:26 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Fay_Lydia_Mary_ca_1804-1878 Fri, 17 May 2013 09:22:26 EST]]> /Dean_Jennie_Serepta_1848-1913 Fri, 17 May 2013 09:21:13 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Dean_Jennie_Serepta_1848-1913 Fri, 17 May 2013 09:21:13 EST]]> /Barrett_James_D_1833-1903 Wed, 15 May 2013 14:38:34 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Barrett_James_D_1833-1903 Wed, 15 May 2013 14:38:34 EST]]> /Daniel_Raleigh_Travers_1805-1877 Wed, 15 May 2013 14:35:05 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Daniel_Raleigh_Travers_1805-1877 Wed, 15 May 2013 14:35:05 EST]]> /Curtiss_Gaston_G_1819-1872 Tue, 14 May 2013 17:20:38 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Curtiss_Gaston_G_1819-1872 Tue, 14 May 2013 17:20:38 EST]]> /Carr_David_Green_1809-1883 Tue, 14 May 2013 17:17:51 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Carr_David_Green_1809-1883 David Green Carr served as a member of the Convention of 1867–1868 and the Senate of Virginia (1869–1871). He was born in Otsego County, New York, in 1809 and purchased a Dinwiddie County farm in 1853. He became active in Virginia's Republican Party after the American Civil War, and in 1867 Dinwiddie and Prince George county voters elected him as one of their two representatives to the state constitutional convention. He voted in favor of the new constitution, which included such reforms as universal manhood suffrage and the establishment of a public school system. In 1869 Carr, a member of the party's radical faction, won a seat in the state senate. He became Petersburg's collector of customs in 1870. He left the position by 1874, but he reacquired the job in 1877 and held it until his death in 1883.
Tue, 14 May 2013 17:17:51 EST]]> /Bowser_Rosa_L_Dixon_1855-1931 Tue, 14 May 2013 10:48:12 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Bowser_Rosa_L_Dixon_1855-1931 Tue, 14 May 2013 10:48:12 EST]]> /Daniel_John_Warwick_1842-1910 Tue, 14 May 2013 10:41:22 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Daniel_John_Warwick_1842-1910 Tue, 14 May 2013 10:41:22 EST]]> /Brooks_Albert_Royal_c_1817-1881 Fri, 10 May 2013 17:30:11 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Brooks_Albert_Royal_c_1817-1881 Fri, 10 May 2013 17:30:11 EST]]> /Daniels_Edward_Dwight_1828-1916 Fri, 10 May 2013 11:23:32 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Daniels_Edward_Dwight_1828-1916 Fri, 10 May 2013 11:23:32 EST]]> /Cromwell_John_Wesley_1846-1927 Fri, 10 May 2013 11:14:06 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Cromwell_John_Wesley_1846-1927 Fri, 10 May 2013 11:14:06 EST]]> /Blair_Francis_Simpson_1839-1899 Thu, 09 May 2013 16:39:12 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Blair_Francis_Simpson_1839-1899 Thu, 09 May 2013 16:39:12 EST]]> /Atwell_Joseph_Sandiford_1831-1881 Thu, 09 May 2013 16:36:50 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Atwell_Joseph_Sandiford_1831-1881 Thu, 09 May 2013 16:36:50 EST]]> /Blackwell_James_Heyward_ca_1864-1931 Thu, 09 May 2013 16:33:47 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Blackwell_James_Heyward_ca_1864-1931 Thu, 09 May 2013 16:33:47 EST]]> /Brooks_Robert_Peel_1853-1882 Thu, 09 May 2013 13:08:07 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Brooks_Robert_Peel_1853-1882 Thu, 09 May 2013 13:08:07 EST]]> /Bolling_Stith_1835-1916 Wed, 08 May 2013 13:20:35 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Bolling_Stith_1835-1916 Wed, 08 May 2013 13:20:35 EST]]> /Commodore_Aaron_1819_or_1820-1892 Wed, 08 May 2013 13:18:10 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Commodore_Aaron_1819_or_1820-1892 Wed, 08 May 2013 13:18:10 EST]]> /Coleman_Asa_d_after_February_24_1893 Wed, 08 May 2013 13:07:41 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Coleman_Asa_d_after_February_24_1893 Wed, 08 May 2013 13:07:41 EST]]> /Allan_Edgar_1842-1904 Wed, 08 May 2013 11:51:41 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Allan_Edgar_1842-1904 Wed, 08 May 2013 11:51:41 EST]]> /Cottrell_Sally_d_1875 Wed, 08 May 2013 11:31:05 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Cottrell_Sally_d_1875 Wed, 08 May 2013 11:31:05 EST]]> /Bouldin_Powhatan_1830-1907 Wed, 08 May 2013 11:26:19 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Bouldin_Powhatan_1830-1907 Wed, 08 May 2013 11:26:19 EST]]> /Branch_Tazewell_1828-1925 Wed, 08 May 2013 11:15:29 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Branch_Tazewell_1828-1925 Wed, 08 May 2013 11:15:29 EST]]> /Cocke_Edmund_R_1841-1922 Tue, 07 May 2013 17:05:36 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Cocke_Edmund_R_1841-1922 Tue, 07 May 2013 17:05:36 EST]]> /Boland_Robert_J_1850-1918 Tue, 07 May 2013 16:53:23 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Boland_Robert_J_1850-1918 Tue, 07 May 2013 16:53:23 EST]]> /Chamberlaine_William_W_1836-1923 Tue, 23 Apr 2013 11:04:36 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Chamberlaine_William_W_1836-1923 Tue, 23 Apr 2013 11:04:36 EST]]> /Browne_William_Washington_1849-1897 Tue, 23 Apr 2013 10:40:47 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Browne_William_Washington_1849-1897 Tue, 23 Apr 2013 10:40:47 EST]]> /Blackford_W_W_1831-1905 Tue, 23 Apr 2013 10:28:30 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Blackford_W_W_1831-1905 Tue, 23 Apr 2013 10:28:30 EST]]> /Allan_William_1837-1889 Tue, 23 Apr 2013 10:24:36 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Allan_William_1837-1889 Tue, 23 Apr 2013 10:24:36 EST]]> /Carter_James_B_ca_1816-1870 Mon, 22 Apr 2013 15:21:06 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Carter_James_B_ca_1816-1870 Mon, 22 Apr 2013 15:21:06 EST]]> /Canada_David_fl_1867-1868 Mon, 22 Apr 2013 15:08:30 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Canada_David_fl_1867-1868 Mon, 22 Apr 2013 15:08:30 EST]]> /Brown_George_O_1852-1910 Mon, 22 Apr 2013 15:04:06 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Brown_George_O_1852-1910 Mon, 22 Apr 2013 15:04:06 EST]]> /Brown_Edward_Wellington_d_1929 Mon, 22 Apr 2013 15:00:40 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Brown_Edward_Wellington_d_1929 Mon, 22 Apr 2013 15:00:40 EST]]> /Dabney_Robert_Lewis_1820-1898 Fri, 19 Apr 2013 15:42:16 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Dabney_Robert_Lewis_1820-1898 Fri, 19 Apr 2013 15:42:16 EST]]> /Cooke_Philip_St_George_1809-1895 Fri, 19 Apr 2013 14:53:47 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Cooke_Philip_St_George_1809-1895 Fri, 19 Apr 2013 14:53:47 EST]]> /Butt_Martha_Haines_1833-1871 Wed, 17 Apr 2013 12:46:02 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Butt_Martha_Haines_1833-1871 Wed, 17 Apr 2013 12:46:02 EST]]> /Brock_Sarah_Ann_1831-1911 Wed, 17 Apr 2013 11:03:47 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Brock_Sarah_Ann_1831-1911 Wed, 17 Apr 2013 11:03:47 EST]]> /Breckinridge_Cary_1839-1918 Wed, 17 Apr 2013 10:44:39 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Breckinridge_Cary_1839-1918 Wed, 17 Apr 2013 10:44:39 EST]]> /Braxton_Carter_Moore_1836-1898 Wed, 17 Apr 2013 10:34:26 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Braxton_Carter_Moore_1836-1898 Wed, 17 Apr 2013 10:34:26 EST]]> /Beale_R_L_T_1819-1893 Mon, 15 Apr 2013 15:50:38 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Beale_R_L_T_1819-1893 Mon, 15 Apr 2013 15:50:38 EST]]> /Baldwin_John_Brown_1820-1873 Mon, 15 Apr 2013 15:33:43 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Baldwin_John_Brown_1820-1873 Mon, 15 Apr 2013 15:33:43 EST]]> /Bagby_George_William_1828-1883 Mon, 15 Apr 2013 15:16:01 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Bagby_George_William_1828-1883 Mon, 15 Apr 2013 15:16:01 EST]]> /Archer_Fletcher_H_1817-1902 Mon, 15 Apr 2013 14:06:09 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Archer_Fletcher_H_1817-1902 Mon, 15 Apr 2013 14:06:09 EST]]> /Anderson_Joseph_Reid_1813-1892 Mon, 15 Apr 2013 12:57:06 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Anderson_Joseph_Reid_1813-1892 Mon, 15 Apr 2013 12:57:06 EST]]> /Ambler_James_M_1848-1881 Mon, 15 Apr 2013 11:38:14 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Ambler_James_M_1848-1881 Mon, 15 Apr 2013 11:38:14 EST]]> /Alfriend_Edward_M_1837-1901 Mon, 15 Apr 2013 11:26:24 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Alfriend_Edward_M_1837-1901 Mon, 15 Apr 2013 11:26:24 EST]]> /Dabney_John_ca_1824-1900 Mon, 15 Apr 2013 09:43:17 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Dabney_John_ca_1824-1900 Mon, 15 Apr 2013 09:43:17 EST]]> /Copeland_Walter_Scott_1856-1928 Mon, 15 Apr 2013 09:30:58 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Copeland_Walter_Scott_1856-1928 Mon, 15 Apr 2013 09:30:58 EST]]> /Mahone_William_1826-1895 Mon, 08 Apr 2013 11:57:08 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Mahone_William_1826-1895 Mon, 08 Apr 2013 11:57:08 EST]]> /Disfranchisement Thu, 04 Apr 2013 15:57:43 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Disfranchisement Thu, 04 Apr 2013 15:57:43 EST]]> /Slavery_at_the_University_of_Virginia Tue, 05 Mar 2013 17:02:07 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Slavery_at_the_University_of_Virginia Tue, 05 Mar 2013 17:02:07 EST]]> /University_of_Virginia_Board_of_Visitors_Minutes_July_5-6_1865 Wed, 27 Feb 2013 10:38:22 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/University_of_Virginia_Board_of_Visitors_Minutes_July_5-6_1865 Wed, 27 Feb 2013 10:38:22 EST]]> /Democratic_Party_of_Virginia Thu, 31 Jan 2013 17:31:12 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Democratic_Party_of_Virginia Thu, 31 Jan 2013 17:31:12 EST]]> /Poll_Tax Thu, 03 Jan 2013 16:53:00 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Poll_Tax Thu, 03 Jan 2013 16:53:00 EST]]> /Lee_Fitzhugh_1835-1905 Thu, 20 Dec 2012 16:20:58 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Lee_Fitzhugh_1835-1905 Thu, 20 Dec 2012 16:20:58 EST]]> /Confederate_Battle_Flag Thu, 06 Dec 2012 01:25:05 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Confederate_Battle_Flag Thu, 06 Dec 2012 01:25:05 EST]]> /Civil_War_Widows Tue, 04 Dec 2012 08:27:09 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Civil_War_Widows Civil War widows in Virginia are defined as women married to Confederate soldiers who died during the American Civil War (1861–1865). The numbers of these women are difficult to determine—historians estimate between 4,000 and 6,000—but their characteristics are clearer. They were relatively young and their marriages had been relatively brief; if they had children, they were still too young to be of help in supporting the family. About half of all widows remarried during or after the conflict, with the youngest ones the most likely to do so; however, because of the war's toll on young men, they were substantially more likely to marry men who were much older or younger than themselves. Few of these women worked, but beginning in 1888, some were eligible for a state pension that provided the minimal support of $30 per year.
Tue, 04 Dec 2012 08:27:09 EST]]> /Grand_Fountain_of_the_United_Order_of_True_Reformers Tue, 04 Dec 2012 08:22:23 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Grand_Fountain_of_the_United_Order_of_True_Reformers Tue, 04 Dec 2012 08:22:23 EST]]> /Thomas_George_H_1816-1870 Tue, 04 Dec 2012 08:21:28 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Thomas_George_H_1816-1870 Tue, 04 Dec 2012 08:21:28 EST]]> /Lee_Robert_Edward_1807-1870 Tue, 04 Dec 2012 08:09:24 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Lee_Robert_Edward_1807-1870 Tue, 04 Dec 2012 08:09:24 EST]]> /Clark_Matt_ca_1844-after_1892 Mon, 19 Nov 2012 09:43:25 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Clark_Matt_ca_1844-after_1892 Mon, 19 Nov 2012 09:43:25 EST]]> /Swanson_Claude_A_1862-1939 Tue, 13 Nov 2012 15:42:18 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Swanson_Claude_A_1862-1939 Tue, 13 Nov 2012 15:42:18 EST]]> /Letter_from_Henry_S_Randall_to_James_Parton_June_1_1868 Thu, 08 Nov 2012 14:36:34 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Letter_from_Henry_S_Randall_to_James_Parton_June_1_1868 Thu, 08 Nov 2012 14:36:34 EST]]> /_Life_Among_the_Lowly_No_3_by_Israel_Jefferson_December_25_1873 Wed, 07 Nov 2012 10:23:17 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/_Life_Among_the_Lowly_No_3_by_Israel_Jefferson_December_25_1873 Wed, 07 Nov 2012 10:23:17 EST]]> /American_Civil_War_and_Virginia_The Tue, 06 Nov 2012 16:52:10 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/American_Civil_War_and_Virginia_The Tue, 06 Nov 2012 16:52:10 EST]]> /Letter_from_Thomas_Jefferson_Randolph_to_the_Pike_County_Republican_ca_1874 Mon, 22 Oct 2012 14:58:34 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Letter_from_Thomas_Jefferson_Randolph_to_the_Pike_County_Republican_ca_1874 Mon, 22 Oct 2012 14:58:34 EST]]> /Ku_Klux_Klan_in_Virginia Fri, 12 Oct 2012 15:49:46 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Ku_Klux_Klan_in_Virginia Fri, 12 Oct 2012 15:49:46 EST]]> /Lee_Robert_E_in_Memory Wed, 19 Sep 2012 16:16:07 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Lee_Robert_E_in_Memory Robert E. Lee, a Confederate general during the American Civil War (1861–1865) and president of Washington College in Lexington until his death in 1870, is one of the most revered figures in American history. Lee's place in history is complicated, however, and the way that he has been remembered has changed over time. During his own life, Lee modeled himself after the courtly and self-controlled George Washington and cultivated a sense of himself as a character in a drama and a prisoner of fate. After his death, Lee was less likely to be branded a traitor; instead, he became a symbol of the Lost Cause interpretation of the war, transformed into a crucial agent of sectional reconciliation. The Civil War, according to the Lost Cause, was not about slavery but about states' rights and, ultimately, the honor and bravery of white soldiers on both sides. In this regard, Lee served the needs of not just the Confederacy or of the South, but of all America. The civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s encouraged historians to engage a broader social and political canvas when writing about Lee, and this has led some scholars to challenge traditional conclusions about Lee's significance and meaning. Like Washington, Lee is the seminal figure in a transformational moment, but of a different sort. He is the symbol of a vision that failed, and yet also the redeemer of a cause that has lived a long and often tragic afterlife.
Wed, 19 Sep 2012 16:16:07 EST]]> /Civil_War_Pensions Thu, 13 Sep 2012 15:10:16 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Civil_War_Pensions In the immediate postwar years, Virginia tried to provide aid to its soldiers who had suffered significant disabilities during the American Civil War (1861–1865), especially those who had lost limbs. Over time the state shifted its artificial-limbs program to a commutation payment. By 1888 the state had begun to create a pension system that would allot annual payments not only to severely disabled veterans, but also to widows—women whose husbands had died during the conflict. Over the next three decades the state legislature liberalized the requirement for this program to the point that it became an old age pension system for Confederate veterans. Relative to the federal pension program and the other former Confederate states that gave pensions, the amount of Virginia's pensions was much smaller.
Thu, 13 Sep 2012 15:10:16 EST]]> /Corprew_E_G_ca_1830-1881 Thu, 09 Aug 2012 14:07:31 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Corprew_E_G_ca_1830-1881 E. G. Corprew was an African American pastor who, during the American Civil War (1861–1865), lobbied for emancipation in Virginia. He was a missionary for the American Baptist Home Mission Society and may also have served in the 1st United States Colored Cavalry, although the historical evidence is ambiguous. Following the war, Corprew became pastor of the Zion Baptist Church in Portsmouth, Virginia, and moderated the Colored Shiloh Baptist Association, the state's largest and most important black Baptist association.
Thu, 09 Aug 2012 14:07:31 EST]]> /Colored_Shiloh_Baptist_Association Thu, 09 Aug 2012 14:05:19 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Colored_Shiloh_Baptist_Association The Colored Shiloh Baptist Association was a union of individual black congregations in central Virginia formed on August 11, 1865, just after the end of the American Civil War (1861–1865). A similar association had been formed in Norfolk the year before, but the Richmond-based Colored Shiloh Baptist Association was soon larger and more influential, with both groups helping to provide blacks the opportunity to worship on their own terms.
Thu, 09 Aug 2012 14:05:19 EST]]> /Christian_William_S_1830-1910 Thu, 02 Aug 2012 15:37:46 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Christian_William_S_1830-1910 William S. Christian was a Confederate army officer, a temperance organization leader, and a doctor who worked in Middlesex County. In 1859 Christian raised a cavalry company known as the Middlesex Light Dragoons, which became Company C of the 55th Virginia Infantry Regiment during the American Civil War (1861–1865). Christian was wounded twice during the war: first at the Battle of Glendale (1862) and then again at the Battle of Chancellorsville (1863). Christian participated in the Army of Northern Virginia's advance into Pennsylvania in the summer of 1863 and was captured by Union forces after the Gettysburg campaign (1863). He was imprisoned for less than a year at Johnson's Island in Ohio, where he composed a long poem entitled "The Past." After the war Christian returned to Urbanna to practice medicine. From 1876 to 1881 he served as state head of the Independent Order of Good Templars, an international temperance league. In 1880 he set up a segregated Dual Grand Lodge in Richmond, accommodating members who believed African Americans should be admitted to the society while pacifying white southerners who resisted that notion. Christian was also a member of the Medical Society of Virginia and Middlesex County's board of health and, from 1890 to 1909, the superintendent of Middlesex County's public schools. He died on December 10, 1910.
Thu, 02 Aug 2012 15:37:46 EST]]> /Jackson_Giles_B_1853-1924 Fri, 04 May 2012 13:44:07 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Jackson_Giles_B_1853-1924 Giles B. Jackson, although born enslaved, became an attorney, entrepreneur, real estate developer, newspaper publisher, and civil rights activist in the conservative mold of his mentor, Booker T. Washington. During the American Civil War (1861–1865), he served as a body servant to his master, a Confederate cavalry colonel. After the war, Jackson worked for the Stewart family in Richmond, where he learned to read and write. Subsequently, he was employed in the law offices of William H. Beveridge, who tutored Jackson in the law. In 1887, Jackson became the first African American attorney certified to argue before the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals. The next year, he helped found a bank associated with the United Order of True Reformers, and in 1900 became an aide to Washington, who had just founded the National Negro Business League in Boston. Jackson organized and promoted the Jamestown Negro Exhibit at the Jamestown Ter-Centennial Exposition of 1907 in the face of criticism from some black intellectuals that his attempt to highlight black achievement was itself an accommodation of Jim Crow segregation. He published a newspaper designed to publicize the exhibition and, in 1908, a book detailing its history. His efforts at the end of his life on behalf of a congressional bill aimed at addressing interracial labor problems failed. Jackson died in 1924.
Fri, 04 May 2012 13:44:07 EST]]> /Pierpont_Francis_H_1814-1899 Thu, 22 Mar 2012 14:17:20 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Pierpont_Francis_H_1814-1899 Francis H. Pierpont was a lawyer, early coal industrialist, governor of the Restored government of Virginia during the American Civil War (1861–1865), governor of Virginia (1865–1868) during the first years of Reconstruction (1865–1877), and a state senator representing Marion County in West Virginia (1869–1870). Pierpont was an antislavery member of the Whig Party and delegate to the First and Second Wheeling Conventions in 1861, during which Unionist politicians in western Virginia resisted the state's vote to secede by establishing the Restored government of Virginia. The second convention unanimously elected him governor. Although never actually governor of West Virginia, he is still remembered as one of the state's founding fathers.
Thu, 22 Mar 2012 14:17:20 EST]]> /Jefferson_Davis_s_Imprisonment Thu, 02 Feb 2012 13:49:53 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Jefferson_Davis_s_Imprisonment Union cavalrymen arrested former Confederate president Jefferson Davis near Irwinville, Georgia, on May 10, 1865. Davis was taken into custody as a suspect in the assassination of United States president Abraham Lincoln, but his arrest and two-year imprisonment at Fort Monroe in Virginia raised significant questions about the political course of Reconstruction (1865–1877). Debate over Davis's fate tended to divide between those who favored a severe punishment of the former Confederate political leaders and those who favored a more conciliatory approach. When investigators failed to establish a link between Davis and the Lincoln assassins, the U.S. government charged him instead with treason. U.S. president Andrew Johnson's impeachment hearings delayed the trial, however, and in the end the government granted Davis amnesty.
Thu, 02 Feb 2012 13:49:53 EST]]> /Mosby_John_Singleton_1833-1916 Mon, 23 Jan 2012 09:27:14 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Mosby_John_Singleton_1833-1916 John Singleton Mosby was a Confederate colonel during the American Civil War (1861–1865). As a private in the 1st Virginia Cavalry, Mosby chose his commander, General J. E. B. Stuart, as his role model and mentor. Stuart and General Robert E. Lee came to value Mosby's skills as a scout and raider. In June 1863 Confederate secretary of war James A. Seddon permitted Mosby to form and recruit soldiers for Company A, 43rd Battalion Virginia Cavalry (Partisan Rangers). The battalion expanded steadily to the size of a regiment (approximately 1,900 men served in the command during its existence) and Mosby was accordingly promoted to colonel. The raids of "Mosby's Men" helped to demoralize Union cavalry and rally Southern support for the war. Wounded seven times, the combative Mosby disbanded his troops, rather than surrender, on April 21, 1865. After the war he resumed his career as a lawyer and turned Republican. Mosby served as U.S. consul to Hong Kong, and from 1904 until 1910 worked as assistant attorney general in the U.S. Justice Department. An excellent writer, Mosby devoted his latter years to letters, articles, and books defending the actions and reputation of his own command, the reputations of J. E. B. Stuart and Ulysses S. Grant, and arguing that slavery was the main cause of the war. Mosby died in Washington, D.C., in 1916.
Mon, 23 Jan 2012 09:27:14 EST]]> /Museum_of_the_Confederacy Wed, 18 Jan 2012 10:19:39 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Museum_of_the_Confederacy The Museum of the Confederacy opened in the former Confederate capital of Richmond in 1896 as the Confederate Museum. One of Richmond's oldest museums, it is the only institution in Virginia that began as a Confederate shrine and transformed itself into a modern history museum. The museum was a preservation effort on two levels: it rescued from destruction the former Confederate executive mansion and displayed in the mansion's rooms the artifacts—"relics" as they were called in the 1890s—of Confederate soldiers and civilians from the American Civil War (1861–1865) and the postwar Lost Cause era.
Wed, 18 Jan 2012 10:19:39 EST]]> /Cook_Fields_ca_1817-1897 Tue, 22 Nov 2011 15:08:24 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Cook_Fields_ca_1817-1897 Tue, 22 Nov 2011 15:08:24 EST]]> /Maury_Dabney_Herndon_1822-1900 Thu, 09 Jun 2011 10:20:50 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Maury_Dabney_Herndon_1822-1900 Dabney Herndon Maury was a Confederate general during the American Civil War (1861–1865). The nephew of renowned scientist Commodore Matthew Fontaine Maury, he fought in the Western Theater, rising quickly in the ranks after the battles of Pea Ridge, Iuka, and Corinth in 1862. As commander of the District of the Gulf in the war's last two years, he became known for his tenacious defense of the port of Mobile, Alabama. After the war, however, he struggled with poverty. In 1869, he helped to found the Southern Historical Society, which became an important institution for advocates of the Lost Cause view of the war. His 1894 memoir, Recollections of a Virginian in the Mexican, Indian, and Civil Wars, was marked by Maury's distinctively intelligent affability. In fact, he was rare among former Civil War officers on either side for his willingness to maintain an equitable view of the Civil War.
Thu, 09 Jun 2011 10:20:50 EST]]> /Harrison_Burton_Mrs_1843-1920 Thu, 09 Jun 2011 08:42:40 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Harrison_Burton_Mrs_1843-1920 Mrs. Burton Harrison, also known as Constance Cary Harrison, was a prolific American novelist late in the nineteenth century who came from a prominent Virginia family. As a young woman, she witnessed the destruction of the American Civil War (1861–1865) and nursed the Confederate wounded in Manassas and Richmond. After the war, Harrison toured Europe, eventually married, and settled down in New York City. She was active in elite New York society and produced a large body of work, much of it popular serialized fiction and sentimental romance, in which she recorded the social mores of her time. The author of more than fifty works, including short stories, articles and essays, children's books, and short plays, she is best known for her 1911 autobiography, Recollections Grave and Gay.
Thu, 09 Jun 2011 08:42:40 EST]]> /Lost_Cause_The Mon, 09 May 2011 09:35:42 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Lost_Cause_The The Lost Cause is an interpretation of the American Civil War (1861–1865) that seeks to present the war, from the perspective of Confederates, in the best possible terms. Developed by white Southerners, many of them former Confederate generals, in a postwar climate of economic, racial, and gender uncertainty, the Lost Cause created and romanticized the "Old South" and the Confederate war effort, often distorting history in the process. For this reason, many historians have labeled the Lost Cause a myth or a legend. It is certainly an important example of public memory, one in which nostalgia for the Confederate past is accompanied by a collective forgetting of the horrors of slavery. Providing a sense of relief to white Southerners who feared being dishonored by defeat, the Lost Cause was largely accepted in the years following the war by white Americans who found it to be a useful tool in reconciling North and South. The Lost Cause has lost much of its academic support but continues to be an important part of how the Civil War is commemorated in the South and remembered in American popular culture.
Mon, 09 May 2011 09:35:42 EST]]> /Republican_Party_of_Virginia Tue, 12 Apr 2011 09:10:52 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Republican_Party_of_Virginia The Republican Party is one of two major political parties in Virginia. Although founded in 1854 in opposition to the spread of slavery, the party did not take hold in Virginia until after the American Civil War (1861–1865). Even then, for nearly a century the Republicans were an ineffectual, minority party with only pockets of regional strength. During this period, the conservative Democratic Party dominated politics in Virginia and the rest of the South. After World War II (1939–1945), economic growth, demographic trends, electoral reforms, and policy debates combined to spur a realignment that gradually brought the Virginia parties into line philosophically with their national counterparts. As the center-right party in a conservative-leaning state, the Virginia Republican Party became consistently competitive. Following the mid-1970s, Virginia politics settled into a pattern characterized by active competition between the two major party organizations and their candidates. Partisan fortunes ebbed and flowed, but neither party established durable majority support on a statewide basis. In the twenty-first century Republican candidates in Virginia routinely compete with their Democratic rivals for the support of nonaligned voters (generally called "independents") in addition to mobilizing fellow partisans.
Tue, 12 Apr 2011 09:10:52 EST]]> /Munford_Mary-Cooke_Branch_1865-1938 Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:49:08 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Munford_Mary-Cooke_Branch_1865-1938 Mary-Cooke Branch Munford was an advocate of woman suffrage, interracial cooperation, education, health, and labor reforms. Armed with a pedigree that connected her to some of the wealthiest families of Virginia, she threw herself into such "unfeminine" pursuits as education reform and civil rights. She helped to found the Richmond Education Association, was the first woman to serve on the city's school board, was a member of the University of Virginia's Board of Visitors, and was the first woman to serve on the College of William and Mary's Board of Visitors. Munford also served on the board of the National Urban League, was a founding member of the Virginia Inter-Racial League, and became a trustee at the historically black Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:49:08 EST]]> /Lee_Mary_Anna_Randolph_Custis_1807-1873 Wed, 06 Apr 2011 16:42:57 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Lee_Mary_Anna_Randolph_Custis_1807-1873 Mary Anna Randolph Custis Lee was an artist, author, and early antislavery activist. The great-granddaughter of Martha Washington, she enjoyed virtually unequalled social status throughout her life. Tutored in history and philosophy, she became acquainted with the early republic's leaders, who visited her father's estate, Arlington. Following her mother's lead, she fought slavery, and helped to ease the lives of her own family's slaves. Her uncle's death in 1830 prompted a religious awakening, and marriage the next year to Robert E. Lee put her in the position of being an army wife, a somewhat uncomfortable role for someone of her background. She followed her husband to his various outposts, sketching her travels and becoming an artist of some note. While her connection to Lee did not immediately augment her social standing, when he led the Army of Northern Virginia during the American Civil War (1861–1865), she was accorded further deference. Mary Custis Lee had not supported secession, but she was a devoted Confederate, her grace under pressure making her a symbol of quiet strength in wartime Richmond. At the end of her life, she was embittered by the Union occupation of her beloved Arlington and felt betrayed by her family's former slaves. She died in 1873.
Wed, 06 Apr 2011 16:42:57 EST]]> /Longstreet_James_1821-1904 Tue, 05 Apr 2011 13:16:39 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Longstreet_James_1821-1904 James Longstreet was a Confederate General who served as Robert E. Lee's second-in-command for most of Lee's tenure as commander of the Army of Northern Virginia during the American Civil War (1861–1865). Longstreet fought in many of the most important battles of the conflict and ended the war as a respected figure. Lee affectionately called him "my old war horse," while his soldiers nicknamed him "the old bulldog" and "the bull of the woods." In the postwar period, however, Longstreet drew criticism for his support of Republican policies during Reconstruction (1865–1877), and controversy erupted over his conduct years earlier at the Battle of Gettysburg (1863). As southerners in general and Virginians in particular enshrined Lee's memory, Longstreet became a scapegoat for Lee's failures and the central figure in the emergent Lost Cause mythology white southerners developed to explain the loss of the war.
Tue, 05 Apr 2011 13:16:39 EST]]> /Kemper_James_Lawson_1823-1895 Tue, 05 Apr 2011 13:03:55 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Kemper_James_Lawson_1823-1895 James Lawson Kemper was a Confederate general during the American Civil War (1861–1865), who later served as governor of Virginia (1874–1877). Kemper volunteered in the Mexican War (1846–1848), but returned to his civilian life as a lawyer. He served five terms in the Virginia House of Delegates (1853–1863), including time as Speaker of the House (1861–1863). There he garnered a reputation for honesty and attention to duty. Kemper volunteered for service in 1861, and with his promotion in June 1862 became the Confederacy's youngest brigade commander. Badly wounded at Gettysburg in July 1863, Kemper oversaw the Virginia Reserve Forces for the remainder of the war. He helped found the Conservative Party during Reconstruction (1865–1877). Soundly defeating the Republican candidate in the 1873 gubernatorial race, Kemper found himself, as governor, at odds with previous supporters over his progressive stance on civil rights, prison reform, and public school improvements. Still suffering from his wound, Kemper retired to his law practice, and died in Orange County in 1895.
Tue, 05 Apr 2011 13:03:55 EST]]> /Harland_Marion_1830-1922 Tue, 05 Apr 2011 12:55:42 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Harland_Marion_1830-1922 Marion Harland was a writer of novels, short stories, biographies, travel narratives, cookbooks, and domestic manuals whose career stretched across seven decades of sectional conflict and great change in American life. Harland chronicled much of that change, penning novels that suggested her own divided loyalties between North and South before establishing herself as an expert and often a sly and sarcastic commentator on the domestic arts of homemaking.
Tue, 05 Apr 2011 12:55:42 EST]]> /Stuart_Flora_Cooke_1836-1923 Tue, 05 Apr 2011 11:37:56 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Stuart_Flora_Cooke_1836-1923 Flora Cooke Stuart was the wife of Confederate general J. E. B. Stuart and the daughter of Union general Philip St. George Cooke. She met Stuart, a dashing subordinate of her father, while living in the Kansas Territory in the 1850s, and after marrying, the two settled in Virginia. Secession, however, split their family, with Cooke, a respected cavalryman, remaining in the United States Army and Stuart eventually becoming chief of cavalry of the Army of Northern Virginia. "He will regret it but once & that will be continually," Stuart said of his father-in-law's decision; he even renamed his and Flora's months'-old son, Philip St. George Cooke Stuart, after himself, James Ewell Brown Stuart Jr. During the American Civil War (1861–1865), Flora Stuart spent as much time as possible in camp with her husband, and chafed at the generous attention he received from admiring women in Virginia and across the South. When Stuart died after being wounded at the Battle of Yellow Tavern (1864), she donned mourning garb and wore it for the remaining fifty-nine years of her life. During that time, she served as headmistress of a women's school in Staunton that was subsequently named for her. She later moved to Norfolk, where she died in 1923.
Tue, 05 Apr 2011 11:37:56 EST]]> /Pickett_LaSalle_Corbell_1843-1931 Tue, 05 Apr 2011 10:44:50 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Pickett_LaSalle_Corbell_1843-1931 LaSalle Corbell Pickett was a prolific author and lecturer, and the third wife of George E. Pickett, the Confederate general best known for his participation in the doomed frontal assault known as Pickett's Charge during the American Civil War (1861–1865). After her husband's death in 1875, she traveled the country to promote a highly romanticized version of his life and military career that was generally at odds with the historical record. George Pickett emerged from the war with a strained relationship with Robert E. Lee—whom he partly blamed for the destruction of his division at Gettysburg (1863)—and accused of war crimes. But in his wife's history, Pickett and His Men (1899), this not-always-competent soldier was transformed into the ideal Lost Cause hero, "gallant and graceful as a knight of chivalry riding to a tournament." This image largely stuck in the American consciousness, leaving historians to spend much of the next century attempting to separate Pickett from his myth.
Tue, 05 Apr 2011 10:44:50 EST]]> /Willey_Waitman_T_1811-1900 Tue, 05 Apr 2011 10:19:22 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Willey_Waitman_T_1811-1900 Waitman T. Willey was a delegate to the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1850–1851, a delegate to the Virginia Convention of 1861 that voted to secede from the Union, a United States senator from the Restored government of Virginia (1861–1863), and, alongside Peter G. Van Winkle, one of the first two United States senators from West Virginia (1863–1871). A native of western Virginia, he was instrumental in the formation of the new state of West Virginia during the American Civil War (1861–1865). As a member of the U.S. Senate, he authored the Willey Amendment in 1863—a compromise on the question of the freedom of the state's African Americans that extinguished his hopes for compensated emancipation. Instead, it decreed that slaves younger than twenty-one years old on July 4, 1863, would become free once they reached that age. The compromise assured West Virginia's acceptance into the Union.
Tue, 05 Apr 2011 10:19:22 EST]]> /Beauregard_G_T_1818-1893 Thu, 31 Mar 2011 12:55:26 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Beauregard_G_T_1818-1893 G. T. Beauregard (also known as Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard) was a Confederate general during the American Civil War (1861–1865) and, after helping engineer victory at the First Battle of Manassas on July 21, 1861, one of the Confederacy's first war heroes. Raised in an aristocratic French home in New Orleans, Louisiana, Beauregard graduated from West Point and served in the Mexican War (1846–1848) before becoming the Confederacy's first brigadier general and later a full general. He commanded Confederate and South Carolina troops at Charleston Harbor in April 1861, forcing the surrender of Fort Sumter, and, with Joseph E. Johnston, routed Irvin McDowell at Manassas in July. Beauregard's Napoleonic pretensions did not suit the temperament of Confederate president Jefferson Davis, however, and the two quarreled for much of the war and postwar. Beauregard fought well at the Battle of Shiloh in April 1862, but left his army without leave for the summer and was transferred east. He was critical in the defense of Petersburg in 1864, but ended the war largely out of favor. After the war, he engaged in politics that were sympathetic to the civil rights of African Americans, criticized Davis and Johnston in a two-volume, ghostwritten memoir, and accumulated wealth that was unusual for a former Confederate commander. Beauregard died in New Orleans in 1893.
Thu, 31 Mar 2011 12:55:26 EST]]> /Fox_John_Jr_1862-1919 Tue, 23 Nov 2010 10:39:48 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Fox_John_Jr_1862-1919 John Fox Jr. was one of Virginia's best-selling writers in the first decade of the twentieth century. He chronicled in popular fiction the customs and characters of southern Appalachia and produced two of the first million-selling novels in the United States. Though he enjoyed enormous commercial success, especially with The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come (1903) and The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1908), today Fox is regarded as a fairly sentimental practitioner of the local-color genre, a style of writing that foregrounds place and regionalism. Still, he is fondly celebrated by the southwestern Virginia town Big Stone Gap, where he resided much of his life. The Kentucky-born, Harvard-educated Fox embodied a contrast that he often explored in his novels: the insular culture of Appalachia set against a more sophisticated outside world.
Tue, 23 Nov 2010 10:39:48 EST]]> /Lexington_During_the_Civil_War Mon, 11 Oct 2010 14:19:50 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Lexington_During_the_Civil_War The town of Lexington is the seat of Rockbridge County in the Shenandoah Valley. During the American Civil War (1861–1865), it was home to Washington College (now Washington and Lee University) and the Virginia Military Institute. Although not of great strategic importance, the town nevertheless smoldered in the atmosphere of war long before many other Virginian communities felt the conflict. In November 1859, a detachment of its resident corps of cadets from the Virginia Military Institute was deployed to Charles Town (in what is now West Virginia) to provide security at the execution of the infamous John Brown for his raid on Harpers Ferry. Unionist sentiments prevailed, however, until U.S. president Abraham Lincoln's call for troops, when many of Lexington's male citizens enlisted in service of the Confederate States of America. Events such as the burial of Confederate general Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson and Union general David Hunter's fiery raid brought the quiet mountain town momentary attention from the wider world, but the demands of the Civil War also siphoned its resources on a daily basis.
Mon, 11 Oct 2010 14:19:50 EST]]> /Page_Thomas_Nelson_1853-1922 Fri, 28 May 2010 15:12:06 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Page_Thomas_Nelson_1853-1922 Thomas Nelson Page was the most prominent writer among several southern local colorists whose poems, stories, and novels idealized the Old South and served as a kind of imaginative precursor to Margaret Mitchell's epic novel Gone with the Wind (1936). In fact, few writers have so lauded Virginia's plantation class as Page, or had so great an impact on the ideology of both Virginia and the American South during the Reconstruction period (1865–1877) that followed the American Civil War (1861–1865). In the context of the great social upheaval following that war, stories like Page's hugely influential "Marse Chan" (1884) promoted the image of an Old South replete with gracious aristocrats and loyal servants and a New South fraught with turmoil but ready for reconciliation with the North. This nostalgic, revisionist version of history was embraced with gusto by both northern and southern readers, and its vestiges remain even today in popular concepts of the South.
Fri, 28 May 2010 15:12:06 EST]]> /Martin_Thomas_Staples_1847-1919 Thu, 20 May 2010 15:12:58 EST http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Martin_Thomas_Staples_1847-1919 Thomas Staples Martin was a railroad attorney, a longtime U.S. senator from Virginia (serving from 1895 until 1919), and an architect of the state Democratic Party machine that during his time was known as the Martin Organization. A quiet, behind-the-scenes political player, Martin rose through the party ranks largely due to his influence with powerful railroad interests. Under the leadership of Martin's mentor, John S. Barbour Jr., Democrats reestablished control of state politics that, since Reconstruction (1865–1877), had been in the hands of Republicans and Readjusters. Then, in 1893, in a huge and unexpected upset, Martin defeated former Confederate general and Virginia governor Fitzhugh Lee for election to Barbour's U.S. Senate seat, allowing him to take control of the party and, to a large extent, the state. Accused by his critics of bribery and corruption, Martin stayed in power and managed to rise to the position of Senate Majority Leader at least in part because of his pragmatic willingness to forge coalitions between the competing conservative and progressive wings of the Democratic Party. As a result, Martin's political machine and its successor, the Byrd Organization, dominated Virginia politics until the 1960s.
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