Though seldom remembered today, former Virginia governor Henry A. Wise played a key role in aligning Virginia with the Confederacy. He served as a Confederate general throughout the war, lost his eldest son, and surrendered with Lee at Appomattox Court House. A (sometimes reluctant) secessionist, he was nevertheless not an enthusiastic supporter of slavery, despite…
Continue reading ➞ When and How Did Henry A. Wise Enter the Fight?
As secession divides West Point’s cadets, Class of ’61 follows fractured friendships from the academy to the battlefield at Bull Run. But how well does its sprawling fictional drama capture the historical upheaval of the Civil War’s opening months? Written by Jonas McCord, directed by Gregory Hoblit, and produced by Steven Spielberg, Class of ’61…
Continue reading ➞ Class of ’61: Civil War History Lost in a Tangled Drama
In July 1861, Francis H. Pierpont defended the unionist government at Wheeling as Virginia’s lawful authority and denounced secession as a conspiracy that sacrificed the state to Confederate interests. His extraordinary-session address reveals how loyal Virginians made a constitutional, economic, and political case for restoring Virginia to the Union. On June 20, 1861, in Wheeling,…
The release of Battlelog 1.7 represents a major milestone: narratives for all 39 military actions in Virginia and West Virginia from May through July 1861 have been completed and revised with the most accurate and up-to-date information on what happened, where, when, and why. So what's next for our encyclopedia? Well, we have the military…
Continue reading ➞ All 39 Battle Narratives Have Been Updated – Now What?
On Tuesday, April 16, 1861, the Virginia Convention in Richmond entered secret session to debate secession and a potential alliance with the Confederate States. The next day, delegates voted 88 to 55 in favor of secession, pending a popular referendum set for May 23. Ten days into the session, on April 25, they approved ordinances…
Continue reading ➞ 165 Years Ago: Virginia Convention Calls for Alliance with the Confederate States
John Beauchamp Jones (1810–1866) served as a senior clerk in the Confederate War Department, having spent much of his earlier life in Missouri and Maryland. A novelist and newspaper publisher, he owned the pro-Southern Southern Monitor in Philadelphia before the war. In Richmond, he witnessed many of the Confederacy’s defining moments and recorded them in…
On Sunday, April 7, 1861, former congressman and outspoken Virginia unionist John Minor Botts met with President Abraham Lincoln in Washington, D.C., to discuss how to keep Virginia in the Union. Botts was a private citizen, not even a delegate to the Richmond Convention, and his account provides the only record of the meeting. Botts…
At the beginning of April, after only one month in office, President Abraham Lincoln (via Secretary of State William H. Seward) requested an urgent meeting with George W. Summers, a former Congressman from Kanawha County and leader among the unionists at the Virginia Convention in Richmond. Seward sent attorney Allan B. Magruder, brother of "prince…
One hundred sixty-five years ago, the Commonwealth of Virginia set itself on a course that would alter its history forever. The decision placed the state on the losing side of a devastating war that claimed hundreds of thousands of American lives, displaced families, split the commonwealth in two, and left farms, villages, and towns in…
In the spring of 1861, Virginia was in an ambiguous position. Although its Secession Convention had voted to secede, the state had not yet officially joined the Confederacy. During this period, volunteers rushed to form armed companies, regiments, and batteries, sometimes clashing with federal troops and naval ships. What, then, should we call these state…
Continue reading ➞ What’s in a Name? Secessionist, Southern, or Confederate?
