In 2025, we leapfrogged past last year’s accomplishments, publishing 69 blog posts containing over 57,400 words. We also published 122 new pages, including 109 transcriptions of primary sources (letters and reports). Here is a rundown of the additions to our encyclopedia in 2025:
- 69 blog posts
- 109 new primary sources
- 4 new battle pages (39 total)
- 5 new personality pages (26 total)
We had a few breakthroughs in research as well.
First, we made a major discovery that the Skirmish at Arlington Mills had not only occurred at Cloud’s Mill, three miles away, but also on the night of May 31, not June 1. We were forced to throw out everything we had written about Arlington Mills and start over, fundamentally altering our understanding of events immediately following the Union advance into northeastern Virginia. This new information will hopefully lead to the removal or revision of an inaccurate Civil War Trails sign at the Arlington Mills site.
Then, appearing in the Spring 2025 issue of Ohio Valley History, “‘A Kind of Dreamland’: Upshur County, WV at the Dawn of Civil War” by M.A. Kleen was the first academic article to emerge from our work here at Spirit of ’61. Using a variety of primary sources (some of which were very difficult to find), the article meticulously pieces together the events of May – July 1861 around the town of Buckhannon, which for a brief time, was at the center of George McClellan’s campaign to wrest northwest Virginia from the Confederacy.
But that’s not all:
- We published four new maps, and revised our map of the Ohio Front.
- Launched our Patreon and Substack.
- We visited the sites of two 1861 Civil War fortifications: the redoubt at Farr’s Crossroads and Fort Pocahontas on Jamestown Island.
- Revised and expanded our Timeline of events.
- In 2025, we also updated and revised every battle page to conform to a new standard layout that will, hopefully, be easier to read and find information. For the first time, every battle page has a complete narrative, and we are now on version 1.4 of the Battlelog.
- Published a Project Charter and Policy on Academic Integrity and Artificial Intelligence.
- And, last but not least, Spirit of ’61 is now a Virginia Nonstock Corporation, putting us one step closer to achieving 501(c)(3) status.
2026 is a special year because it will be 165 years since 1861, so we have a lot of anniversaries coming up. It’s hard to believe this website is five years old already, but after all we’ve accomplished, I can’t wait to see what the next five years has in store!
Spirit of '61 