New & On The Library's Shelves---The Great Valley Road of Virginia In The Heart and Mind

The Great Valley Road of Virginia: Shenandoah Landscapes from Prehistory to the Present, Warren R. Hofstra et al., University of Virginia Press, 320 pages, extensive maps, photographs, charts and illustrations, notes, index, 2010, $50.00.

The Great Valley Road of Virginia contains historic landscapes from frontier to modern times. It is not a coffee table book but is an fine combination of academic history and popular culture. An accessible narrative with a foundation of solid research in local, state and regional documents contains much on the American Civil War and ranges from the Shenandoah Valley's prehistory to the presetn.

Native Americans had used this great Appalachian valley for kinship and commerce travelling before Europeans began their settlements. A segment of a path that began in southeastern Pennsylvania and ended in northern Georgia, the Valley Road was essential to Native American communities. Americans used the Valley Road as a route through the Cumberland Gap to Tennessee and Kentucky.

When the Valley Road became a turnpike and played a vital role in the economic and social life of Virginia and the South before the Civil War. During the war it was the focus of two great Confederate military campaigns: Jackson's in 1862 and Early's in 1864. After the war the Valley Road was essential to the recovery of western Virginia. US Route 11 and Interstate 81 now carry the traffic.

There are eight chapters in the book; the 30 page fifth chapter that covers 1836 to 1865 is entitled 'Strategy and Sublimity: A Gallery of Valley Pike Images during the Civil War'. There are 24 illustrations selected by an associate professor of art; the text is written by an associate professor of history. Both are on the faculty of at Shenandoah University in Winchester, Virginia. For anyone who reads and studies Civil War history, The Great Valley Road of Virginia: Shenandoah Landscapes from Prehistory to the Present offers much in every chapter. The mindset aand cultural heritage of Virginia troops from the Shenanhoah Valley is revealed on nearly every page. CWL recommends this book to those who wish to understand what Virgina's western soldiers brought to the war.

To Find Out More: Great Valley Road

CWL ---- A New Meaning for the Term 'Guard Mount': Alexandria and Richmond, Virginia in 1861

"Prostitution in Virginia," first chapter in Sexual Misbehavior in the Civil War: A Conpendium, Thomas P. Lowry, XLibris Corporation, 2006.

If there was no change since the 1860 census, in May 1861 when the Union army seized Alexandria, Virginia, it found seven whores gainfully employed in two houses of prostitution in the city. The next month, women passing from Union-held Alexandria to the Confederate camps were suspected of being prostitutes by Captain Thomas Jordan, on Beauregard's staff and in charge of efforts to smuggle information out of Washington, D.C.

Thomas Radcliffe, captain in the 118th NY was dismissed from the service in late 1862 for behavior in summer of 1861; he had lived with a prostitute whom he had frequently but not consistently passed off as his wife. Hamiltion Hare, a lieutenant of the 31st NY was court-martialed for being drunk on a reconnaissance mission, exposing his penis while in camp, consorting with a prostitute in his tent while he kept the tent flaps open. Consorting consisted of singing obscene songs, quarreling and falling asleep naked.

Three men of the 16th West Virginia, in October 1862, testified against Lieutenant H.D. Davis; his behavior was that of a pimp who was associated with at least two whorehouses, one was located on Railroad Steet and employed six negro wenches. After the testimony, the provost gaurd was sent to pick up Davis. The gaurd found evidence that been to four Alexandrian houses of prostitution that day and finally located him at his 'headquarters' on King Street; he was drunk and asleep in his bunk. Both the 16th West Virginia and the 53rd New York were entirely disbanded before ten months had passed on their three year enlistment.