Our third blog on the Civil War in Virginia considers a biographical focus, social history and local histories during the Civil War. Starting with Confederate General “Robert E. Lee”, the review is paired with bibliographical references to five other prominent Civil War Virginians. “Southern Lady, Yankee Spy” is both biography and social history. Individual biographies are followed by social histories.
The “Last Generation” of Virginian slaveholders looks at second-eschelon regimental officers of the Army of Virginia, and “Virginians at War”, addresses the Civil War experiences of seven Confederates, both men and women.
“Virginia’s Private War” considers the economic conditions of Virginia as a battlefield state centering on three Virginia localities, and “Yankee Town, Southern City” is a social and economic history of Lynchburg. It is followed by bibliographical references to four Civil War Richmond histories.
See also blogs, Civil War in Virginia part one conceding Virginia as a military theater, and Civil War in Virginia part two addressing developments of slavery and emancipation during the war. Additional reviews on books about the Civil War are available at Antebellum, Civil War and Reconstruction under the subheading “Wars in Virginia, 1820-1883”.
Robert E. Lee
Emory M. Thomas wrote Robert E. Lee – a Biography in 1995. It is available on Kindle and online new and used. Seeking a biography somewhere between the laudatory work of Douglas Southall Freeman half a century ago, and revisionists focusing on faults in character and generalship, Thomas has addressed Lee the man in a new history to study the man in his time and circumstance.
The study highlights Lee’s own words to assess his actions in various roles as son, army engineer, slave owner, husband and father, loyal subordinate and army commander. Despite depressing racial attitudes and war leadership to sustain slavery, Thomas finds an historical figure who the modern can admire. Learn more to buy “Robert E. Lee” here for your bookshelf.
*James I. Robertson, Jr. wrote Stonewall Jackson—the Man, the Soldier, the Legend in 1997. It is out of print but available online used. Learn more to buy “Stonewall Jackson” here for your bookshelf.
*Craig Simpson wrote A Good Southerner: The Life of Henry A. Wise of Virginia in 1985. It is out of print but available online used. Learn more to buy “Life of Henry A. Wise” here for your bookshelf.
*F.N. Boney wrote John Letcher of Virginia: The Story of Virginia’s Civil War Governor in 1966. It is available online new and used. Learn more to buy “John Letcher” here for your bookshelf.
*Edward P. Crapol wrote John Tyler, the Accidental President in 2006. It is available on Kindle and online new and used. Learn more to buy “John Tyler” here for your bookshelf.
*James W. Young wrote Senator James Murray Mason: Defender of the Old South in 1998. It is out of print, but available online new and used. Learn more to buy “James Murray Mason” here for your bookshelf.
Southern Lady, Yankee Spy
Elizabeth R. Varon wrote Southern Lady, Yankee Spy: The True Story of Elizabeth Van Lew, a Union Agent in the Heart of the Confederacy in 2003. It is available on Kindle and in paperback. Not the mythical “Crazy Bet” said to have feigned madness to gain access to Union soldiers, Elizabeth Van Lew attended wounded in Richmond hospitals and prisons. She not only extended her pre-war Underground network among Richmond Unionists, white and black, she led a resistance movement as well.
Daughter of a transplanted Yankee Whig slave owner, she educated her slave, Mary Jane Richards, freed her and sent her to Liberia for a time. Other slaves were rented out so as to purchase their freedom. Her reform of Richmond’s post office included the efficient use of women and freedmen where she served as Postmistress until the end of Reconstruction. Learn more to buy “Southern Lady, Yankee Spy” here for your bookshelf.
*Cornelia Peake McDonald wrote A Woman’s Civil War: A Diary, with Reminiscences of the War, from March 1862 in 1992. It is out of print but available online new and used. Learn more to buy “A Woman’s Civil War” here for your bookshelf.
The Last Generation
Peter Carmichael wrote The Last Generation: Young Virginians in Peace, War and Reunion in 2005. It is now available on Kindle and paperback. Virginians born between 1831 and 1843 and attending the University of Virginia were slave holding rebels who rejected the “old fogies” who had led Virginia into economic and political decline. The rejected the old Cavalier agrarian ideal for industrialization and as war loomed, demanded immediate secession to preserve slavery, religious orthodoxy and an independent community.
The 121 men studied all remained in Virginia after graduation and became regimental officers of the Army of Virginia, noted for mediating between general staff and the army’s rank and file yeomanry. They encouraged religious revivals, assisted in home front relief, provided furloughs and forgave minor infractions. In postwar Virginia they sought sectional reconciliation, and by the 1890s adopted a Lost Cause ideology. Learn more to buy “Last Generation” here for your bookshelf.
Virginians at War
John G. Selby wrote Virginians at War: The Civil War Experiences of Seven Young Confederates in 2002. It is available on Kindle and online. It is a study of the youth culture of the last generation of slaveholders in Virginia who participated in the Civil War as soldiers and women administering slave households. Alternate chapters address military service and homefront, including battles, motivation and morale, southern nationalism and the role of women.
Letters and diaries communicate elements of their character and faith through early months of elation, trials of wartime, devastation of defeat and middle class lives reconstructed in postwar Virginia. Some made Confederate nationalism the center piece of their lives, some tried to forget, some re-invented their experience in later commemorations. Learn more to buy “Virginians at War” here for your bookshelf.
*Ervin L. Jordan, Jr. wrote Black Confederates and Afro-American Yankees in Civil War Virginia in 1995. It is out of print but available online used. Learn more to buy “Black Confederates” here for your bookshelf.
Virginia’s Private War
William Blair wrote Virginia’s Private War: Feeding Body and Soul in the Confederacy, 1861-1865 in 1998. It is now available on Kindle and in paperback. It is a Virginia state and local study of Lynchburg and Campbell County, Charlottesville and Albemarle County, and Staunton and Augusta County. Hardships and loss of liberty were accommodated in a shared suffering for common cause. The “rich man’s war, poor man’s fight” ended with revoking substitutes, slave impressment and requiring farmers to sell food to soldiers families as less than market.
While Virginia’s unflinching popular support of the Davis administration was not reflected in southerly states removed from the actual fighting, Virginians in these communities did not abandon their commitment to Confederate nationalism until the winter of 1864-65 under the duress of battlefield reverses. Learn more to buy “Virginia’s Private War” here for your bookshelf.
*George G. Kundahl wrote Alexandria Goes to War: Beyond Robert E. Lee in 2004. It is out of print but available online used. Learn more to buy “Alexandria Goes to War” here for your bookshelf.
*Daniel E. Sutherland wrote Seasons of War: The Ordeal of a Confederate Community, 1861-1865 (Culpeper County, Virginia) in 1995. It is out of print but available online new and used. Learn more to buy “Seasons of War” here for your bookshelf.
Civil War Lynchburg
Steven Elliott Tripp wrote Yankee Town, Southern City: Race and Class Relations in Civil War Lynchburg in 1997. It is available on Kindle and online new and used. Tripp focuses on race and class divisions undercutting a tradition of elite paternalism that began with the industrialization of the tobacco industry, endured throughout the Civil War and persisted in postwar Virginia. Tobacco made Lynchburg the second wealthiest city per capita in 1859 America, based on the city’s wage earning industrial slaves.
There were deep divisions among white elites attending Presbyterian and Episcopalian churches, artisans attending Methodist and Baptist churches, and laboring classes more often frequenting grog shops. Learn more to buy “Yankee Town, Southern City” here for your bookshelf.
*Brian Steel Wills wrote The War Hits Home: The Civil War in Southeastern Virginia in 2001. It is out of print but available online new and used. Learn more to buy “The War Hits Home” here for your bookshelf.
Civil War Richmond
*Emory M. Thomas wrote The Confederate State of Richmond: A Biography of the Capital in 1971 and it was reprinted in 1998. It is out of print, but available new and used online. Learn more to buy “Confederate State of Richmond” here for your bookshelf.
*Charles B. Dew wrote Ironmaker to the Confederacy: Joseph R. Anderson and the Tredegar Iron Works in 1999. It is out of print but available used online. Learn more to buy “Ironmaker to the Confederacy” here for your bookshelf.
*Nelson K. Lankford wrote Richmond Burning: The Last Days of the Confederate Capital in 2002. It is out of print but available online new and used. Learn more to buy “Richmond Burning” here for your bookshelf.
*Ernest B. Furgurson wrote Ashes of Glory: Richmond at War in 1996. It is out of print but available online. Learn more to buy “Ashes of Glory” here for your bookshelf.
These books are all used in bibliographies found in peer-reviewed surveys of Virginia history of scholarly merit currently used in Virginia university history departments. Additional insights are used from articles in the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, the Journal of Southern History and the Journal of American History.
For book reviews at The Virginia Historian.com in this historical period addressing other topics, see the webpage for Antebellum, Civil War, Reconstruction. General surveys of Virginia History can be found at Virginia History Surveys. Other Virginia history divided by topics and time periods can be found at the webpage Books and Reviews.