CW 150 Legacy Project: Virginia Memory Scanning Project

It seems that victories, albeit tiny in comparison to the grand spectacle of the war itself, continue to surface during the sesquicentennial years.  Documents, once privately-held, are continuously

There was a recent post on the Virginia Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission's Facebook page about an ongoing project conducted by the Library of Virginia and the Virginia Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission.  The article, appearing on progress-index, talks about two members of the Legacy Project scanning documents in Dinwiddie found by a woman who decided to save them from a soon to be demolished house in Sussex County.  As with all documents for the project, these rare pieces of history will be made available for download on the Legacy website in due time. 
 
According to the CW 150 Legacy Project Website, its mission is to:

Document Digitization and Access is a multi-year initiative to locate, digitize and provide world-wide access to the private documentary heritage of the American Civil War era located throughout Virginia.  Utilizing Local Sesquicentennial Committees established by the Virginia Sesquicentennial of the American Civil War Commission and through a partnership with the Library of Virginia and a network of statewide connections, the Civil War 150 Legacy Project will provide individuals an opportunity to have their historic letters, diaries and other collections scanned to preserve their valuable intellectual content.

I figured it might be interesting to see if anything involving the Civil War navies.  To be honest, I did not expect anything to come up.  Just do a simple Google search between civil war army vs. civil war navy.  You can see why there was little hope that any documents have been scanned relating to the "webbed feet" of the war.  I was quite surprised with what I found. 

When you go to the main website index for the available online documents on the CW 150 Legacy Project, I simply typed in "Navy." Only one hit came back, but it proved to be quite interesting.

Diary of Camilla Frances Loyall

Norfolk, Virginia

1862

Amongst several entries detailing the capture of Norfolk and the Hampton Roads area during the War, Camilla has several references to not only the CSS Virginia, but her intrepid cousin David Glasgow Farragut as well.  This is highly interesting, as her diary entry begins in May 1862, just days after Farragut's successful assault on New Orleans, Louisiana.  The first entry (1 May 1862) has several references to her cousin at New Orleans:

"Our papers are today taken up with the fall of New Orleans, and the mysterious manner in which it was taken.  Lizzie Mitchell is very unhappy about her husband who is on board the Louisiana.  She has not heard from him since the taking of New Orleans."

The second entry (2 May 1862) details more information on her curious viewpoint towards the war, specifically as the cousin of a Union naval officer who is herself sympathetic to Dixie:

"Today called on Lissie Mitchell (a cousin).  Found her in wretched spirits as she had just received a telegram from Captain Whittle stating that her husband had not been heard from as all communications were cut off from the Louisiana.  She says that Capt. Farragut is much blamed for this.  I cannot possibly believe that Captain Farragut would capture a ship with the flag of truce flying.  I hope some light will be thrown on the subject."

2 tacks to combat piracy

Year's end finds 2 countries setting different courses to combat the recent spate of pirate attacks in the Gulf of Aden off the coast of Somalia.
In the United States, just before Thanksgiving, a federal jury in Virginia returned convictions for piracy and other offenses against 4 Somali defendants. (credit for detail from 2010 courtroom sketch by Alba Bragoli/AP) The verdict came one month after the judge in the case, United States v. Hasan, sustained a charge brought under 18 U.S.C. § 1651. The statute provides, in language dating to 1819:

Whoever, on the high seas, commits the crime of piracy as defined by the law of nations, and is afterwards brought into or found in the United States, shall be imprisoned for life.

Yet in the same courthouse a few months earlier, a different federal judge, in the case of United States v. Said, had dismissed a piracy charge brought against 6 other Somali men. Tripping the latter judge up was Congress' reference in § 1651 to "the law of nations."

The opposite rulings reflect uncertainties about whether an old legal framework presents the proper way to proceed against 21st C. pirates. It's a puzzle addressed in this discussion by our OJ colleagues, and in many IntLawGrrls posts available here.

In the United States, the discrepancy next awaits consideration by the Virginia-based Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit.

France, meanwhile, has taken another tack.

France also has been involved in policing piracy in the Gulf of Aden. (credit for March 2010 of French naval vessel, with "Somali pirate skiffs" in foreground) France also has found that its old laws fell short -- and so it's opted for a legislative fix.

Shortly before Christmas, the Sénat voted unanimously in favor of the Loi de lutte contre la piraterie et d'exercice des pouvoirs de police de l'Etat en mer -- a bill to ease the pursuit and punishment of pirates that the legislature's lower house already had approved.

Key components:

► An 1825 French antipiracy law having been abrogated in 2007, the newly adopted law reintroduces into the penal code the crime of piracy -- a crime may be pursued via universal jurisdiction. The new law applies to acts of piracy "within the meaning of" the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, "committed ... on the high seas," "in maritime spaces outside any state's jurisdiction," and "when international law permits, in a state's territorial waters." That Convention is an artifact of the law of nations to which France has been a state party since 1996, but to which, as posted, the United States does not belong.

► The new statute further establishes a legal regime for detaining suspects onboard French naval vessels while they are being transported to judicial authorities. These Mesures prises à l'encontre des personnes à bord des navires respond to a March 2010 judgment, Affaire Medvedyev et Autres c. France, in which the European Court of Human Rights held that France had violated the guarantee of liberty and security of person in Article 5 of Europe's human rights convention by its high-seas detention in 2002 of members of a ship's crew who were suspected of trafficking in drugs.

(Deep thanks for invaluable assistance with this post to University of California-Davis LL.M. student Johann Morri, on leave this year from his post as a French administrative law judge.)

'Nuff said

(Taking context-optional note of thought-provoking quotes)

Teresa Lewis Is Dead. Outcome Is Right, More Or Less.

-- headline of a biting Faculty Lounge commentary, by Drexel Law Associate Dean Dan Filler, on Thursday's execution of a woman with a 72 IQ on the ground that she was the "mastermind" of a double murder. Yesterday, Washington Post writer Maria Glod published an eyewitness account of Lewis' death by lethal injection at a prison in Virginia. (photo credit)

Rule of Law, Environmental Clinics, Justice, and Academic Freedom

At Washington and Lee University School of Law’s commencement ceremony last weekend, ABA President Carolyn Lamm made a call for the critical role of lawyers in forwarding justice. Talking about the rule of law, in particular, she said: “it is not just the rule of law that we are called upon to strengthen but the rule of just law.”
Her remarks made me reflect upon the current attacks on U.S. clinical legal education, and especially environmental clinics, by state legislatures in light of my experiences helping to develop clinical legal education in China almost ten years ago. As a Yale-China Legal Education Fellow at Sun Yat-Sen University’s law school, I taught civil rights law and helped the school launch its first legal clinic, which focused on labor law. The Ford Foundation has played a critical role in launching clinical legal education programs around the world, including in both the United States and China.
During my time working with clinical legal education in China, I often heard this Ford Foundation clinical initative described as playing a critical role in developing the rule of law there. Because they provided students with an active learning experience and practical understanding of the law, these clinical experiences helped them to bridge the gap between school and practice. They also provided students with the chance to reflect upon professional responsibility under the guidance of their professors. Whenever I have encountered people who scoff at the notion that I was teaching law in China out of a sense that there is not meaningful law there, I describe a day I spent observing students provide legal advice to injured workers in a manner very much like what takes place in clinics in this country.
From my own experiences of clinical legal education in both countries and the stories of my students and colleagues, I am quite certain that clinics play a critical role in helping our students strengthen the “rule of just law.” As the Society of American Law Teachers (SALT), which I serve on the board of governors of, has articulated in its responses (here and here) to these clinic attacks, clinics play a crucial role in preparing our students to be ethical lawyers and in serving populations (like those injured farm workers in China) who would not otherwise be able to have needed legal assistance. When state legislatures threaten to impede the operation of these clinics, they put at risk our student’s education and law schools’ provision of a needed service to those who are disadvantaged in our society.
Moreover, these attacks are part of a broader, troubling pattern exemplified by the Virginia Attorney General’s recent request that UVA provide information on climate scientist Michael Mann. Law schools and the universities in which they are located need academic freedom in order to provide important knowledge to society and educate the next generation effectively. These attacks are wrong not simply because they are politically motivated—supported by powerful corporations facing suit by clinics or by those who disagree with climate science—but because they make it harder for universities to be places in which people learn through the free flow of ideas. If we create a climate of fear around research already being scrutinized through a peer-review system or around teaching people to provide needed representation to a broad range of clients, we undermine the ability of universities and their law schools to serve society. As our country and the world faces a broad range of vexing problems, such service is more needed than ever.

News---Virginia's 150th: Serious, All-Inclusive

Virginia Seeks Balance In Marking Civil War's 150th Anniversary, Rosalind S. Helderman, Washington Post, May 3, 2010.

When Virginia and the rest of the nation set out to mark the 100th anniversary of the Civil War in 1961, the party got off to a rocky start. Intricate plans were made to mark the military conquests of the Confederate and Union armies, but little attention was paid to the experience of individuals -- soldiers, civilians and slaves.

A massive reenactment of the Battle of Bull Run at Manassas was marred by too little water and too few bathrooms. Most jarringly, some adopted the events as an opportunity to celebrate the Confederacy in the face of the burgeoning civil rights movement. At last, President John F. Kennedy called on a 31-year-old historian to take over as the centennial's executive director, refocusing it on sober education.

Virginia has turned to the same man -- James I. Robertson Jr., a history professor at Virginia Tech and a Civil War expert -- to help the state avoid the same kinds of problems as it prepares to mark next year's 150th anniversary of the start of the war. With Robertson's guidance, a commission established by the General Assembly to plan the state's sesquicentennial events has spent four years trying to avoid the impression that they will amount to a celebration of the Confederacy.

There are no Confederate battle flags on the commission's homepage. One of its first events is a scholarly conference titled "Race, Slavery and the Civil War: The Tough Stuff of American History and Memory." Commission members, a bipartisan collection of 15 legislators, historians and others, even shy from the word "celebrate," preferring to use "commemorate" instead. "We're going to make it a serious thing, an all-inclusive thing," Robertson said. Virginia officials hope they can attract tourist dollars from war buffs from across the country during four years of events in the state with more Civil War battlefields than any other. The commission, founded in 2006, is funded through a $2 million annual appropriation from the legislature, as well as private grants. But they are keenly aware that Virginia was the capital of the Confederacy and home to many of its most famous figures. The commonwealth got a reminder of the sensitivities involved when Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) declared last month Confederate History Month, a proclamation he said would bring attention to the 150th anniversary.

McDonnell quickly apologized after facing stinging national criticism for omitting references to slavery. But an amended version that called slavery an abomination did not satisfy those who thought it was still too deferential to Virginia's role in a losing rebellion. At a recent event marking the preservation of a new 85-acre section of the battlefield at Chancellorsville, McDonnell told a crowd that the 150th anniversary will be about more than the Confederacy.

"I think people from all over this country and around the world will come here next year to learn the Civil War battles," he said on a podium set up in front of rolling field that saw a bloody Confederate charge during the 1863 battle. "They will also come to learn of a battle that pitted brother against brother and divided this nation like no other event in American history. They will pause to see the sites, like this one here at Chancellorsville, of the most bloody conflict on American soil. They will also pause to reflect on the fact that this was the war that eliminated the abomination of slavery from American soil."

After the event, McDonnell said the anniversary will provide additional opportunities to preserve battlefields as well as to educate Virginia's children. "I look forward to being a champion for racial reconciliation during that time," he said. One place he might start is at the September conference on slavery at Norfolk State University, which has 1,200 registrants. It will be chaired by James O. Horton, professor emeritus of African American history at George Mason University and an expert on slavery. Horton called the conference "very important to understanding the Civil War, understanding the issues that really shaped the tremendous and heated debates of history."

Slavery plays an important role, too, in a two-disc DVD set that's been produced by the commission and distributed to every school in the state. It emphasizes the experience of soldiers on both sides, African Americans -- free and enslaved -- as well as civilians on the home front. And in February, a 3,000-square-foot exhibit will open at the Virginia Historical Society with an emphasis on telling the Civil War story from all perspectives. After a run in Richmond, the exhibit will tour the state. The commission also has plans for high-tech kiosks at state parks and other sites with information about local battlefields and databases of soldiers who fought there, allowing visitors to track their ancestors. The Library of Virginia will make a major push to digitize newly unearthed Civil War-related letters and diaries.

The commission's work has not been without critics. The Richmond Free Press, a black-owned newspaper, has run several editorials criticizing the commission as a waste of taxpayer money whose work is bound to invite four years of Confederate flag waving. "Most eighth-graders know that Virginia's participation [in the war] was hardly worthy of promoting," publisher Raymond H. Boone wrote last year.

At the same time, members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans say the commission is running a politically correct event that will ignore their ancestors' sacrifices. "I think they're so afraid of offending someone, hurting someone's feelings, that they're just going to do this generic, bland commemoration, where at the end, we know we've commemorated something, but we're not quite sure what," said Frank Earnest, a Virginia Beach resident and chief of the heritage defense for the group.

This article continues at this Text Source: Washington Post

Top Image Source: Robertson

Middle Image Souce: Virginia 150th

Bottom Image Source: Richmond Virginia's 150th

Human Rights in My Backyard: Feeling Blue About Being Purple

My home state of Virginia is supposed to be a purple state, but it hasn’t felt very purple lately.
On Wednesday, the Virginia General Assembly voted to restrict state funding for abortions when the health of the mother is at risk. According to the Washington Post:

On a 20 to 19 vote, the Democratic-led Senate agreed to an amendment proposed by McDonnell (R) that would limit state funding for abortions to those performed in cases of rape or incest or when the life of the mother is at risk. Nothing in state law previously prohibited Medicaid-funded abortions in instances when the health of the mother was in jeopardy.

The proposal to restrict state funding came from Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, a staunch conservative who took office on January 16, 2010. Abortion rights supporters fear that the measure will affect all Medicaid abortions at public hospitals in the state except those that fit into the narrow exceptions for rape, incest, and life of the mother. This latest insult to women’s rights comes on the heels of McDonnell’s comments about a week ago, in which he declared April to be Confederate History Month and intentionally omitted anti-slavery language in his Proclamation. He infuriated civil rights leaders in the state and attempted to defend his actions by minimizing the role of slavery in the war. McDonnell’s efforts to mobilize the conservative base in this purple state may do real harm in the lives of women and people of color in the state – and may, regrettably move us from purple to red.

News: Central Virginia Civil War Park Open By Advance Reservation Only Beginning January 2

Historical Park Soon to Close Doors to Public, VillageNewsOnline.com
Dec 3, 2008

Effective January 2, 2009, Pamplin Historical Park and the National Museum of the Civil War Soldier in Dinwiddie County will be open by reservation only. Guests wishing to visit the Park may do so by making a reservation forty-eight hours in advance. Admission fees for non-members will be $100 for a group of up to ten people, and $10 per adult for groups of more than ten. Park members may make reservations twenty-four hours in advance with no minimum numbers and no admission fee.

The Park will continue to offer all reservation-based programming as usual, including its popular school field trips, battlefield tours, Annual Symposium, Civil War Adventure Camps, Summer Teacher Institutes, and History Day Camps. The severe economic downturn has undercut the ability of the Pamplin Foundation to support the Park at current levels, says Pamplin Historical Park President, A. Wilson Greene. We deeply regret the necessity to curtail normal daily operations to meet this new fiscal reality.

None of the Parks four museums will be altered and the Park will continue to maintain its four historic structures, ten reconstructed buildings, and three miles of interpretive trails. There will be no changes to the Park's extensive artifact collection. Should economic conditions improve, we hope to restore some regular public operating hours next spring, adds Greene.

The Park will continue to accelerate its use of the internet to fulfill its educational mission through on-line programming. Pamplin Historical Park and the National Museum of the Civil War Soldier preserves 422 acres near Petersburg, Virginia, including the Breakthrough Battlefield, a National Historic Landmark. It is owned and operated by the Pamplin Foundation of Portland, Oregon. The Park opened in 1994 as Pamplin Park Civil War Site and debuted the National Museum of the Civil War Soldier in 1999, when it adopted its current name.


Text Source: VillageNewsOnline.com

Image: portion of Pamplin Park Mural created by Keith Rocco

On August 20

On this day in ...
... 1998 (10 years ago today), President Bill Clinton announced in a televised address that the United States had struck "terrorist bases in Afghanistan and a facility in Sudan" in retaliation for the bombings of 2 U.S. embassies in Africa on August 7. Whether in fact all targets were linked to terrorism remains a point of controversy. (credit for photo of ruins of bombed pharmaceutical plant in Sudan)
... 1831, 32-year-old Nat Turner and 6 others launched a slaves' rebellion in Virginia, killing slaveowning families. Eventually they numbered "more than 40 slaves, most on horseback." Most were captured in a few days; Turner himself was located in late October and executed in mid-November. His Confessions were dictated during his imprisonment and later published in the pamphlet at right.

On May 29

On this day in ...
... 2007, in Bermuda, Dame Lois Browne-Evans (right), "a pioneer in many fields," died from a stroke 3 days short of her 80th birthday. In 1953, Browne-Evans became the 1st woman called to the bar of the island state. She became the 1st black woman to be elected a Member of Bermuda's Parliament " in the history-making 1963 election, in which adults who did not own property received the right to vote for the first time." In 1968, she became the 1st woman to lead an opposition party anywhere in the British Commonwealth; 30 years after that, she was named Bermuda's 1st woman Attorney General. "Her career," the Bermuda Sun wrote at the time of her death, "was defined by one in which she championed the rights of black and working-class Bermudians, who stood on the margins of power, back in the 50s and 60s."
... 1677, Cockacoesk, the weroansqua, or female ruler, of the Pamunkey tribe, and her son called "Captain John West," the weroance, or male ruler, of the Nansemond, signed The Treaty of Middle Plantation, referring to what is now Williamsburg, Virginia, part of the Chesapeake Bay area shown at left. By this treaty certain Native Americans -- "the Powhatan captives" -- held captive by English settlers were to be returned to their tribes. "Because this treaty is still in force, the Pamunkey and Mattaponi still pay "tribute" of game to the governor of Virginia each autumn."

Other Voices: Fredericksburg's 145th Anniversary

Historian Leads Brigade Through Streets Of City; 145th Anniversary of Battle of Fredericksburg, Corey Byers, Writer, Robert A. Martin, Photographer, Free-Lance Star, 12/10/2007

Sprigs of boxwood shrubbery were tucked into the caps of Civil War re-enactors gathered at the city dock yesterday morning. The sprigs were worn by actual Union soldiers more than 140 years ago--chosen for the green color to compliment the North's own Irish Brigade.

National Park Service historian and author Frank O'Reilly led a tour of about 125 people, in addition to some re-enactors, through the streets of Fredericksburg yesterday afternoon, recounting the brigade's hellish trip from the Rappahannock River to the front lines at Marye's Heights. Throughout the weekend, battle re-enactments played out on city streets along with living-history camps and other historical tours. The next five days mark the 145th anniversary of the Battle of Fredericksburg, fought Dec. 11-15, 1862.

For two hours, O'Reilly's group made their way from Sophia Street to the Kirkland Memorial on Sunken Road. The National Park Service held an anniversary ceremony for the Battle of Fredericksburg at the memorial site. O'Reilly read historical accounts of the brigade's arduous trip, recounting how soldiers from New York, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts had to watch and listen to their compatriots die as they made their way to the front.

Despite low morale and heavy artillery fire coming at them, members of the brigade tried to keep it light. O'Reilly recounted one tale of a general who was grazed by a bullet, only to joke with his men about what had happened. "Only the Irish can laugh in the face of what is coming," O'Reilly said.

O'Reilly said 565 men in the brigade were killed, wounded or went missing in a battle that "destroyed troops physically but elevated them spiritually." "Today the military considers ten percent lost a disaster," O'Reilly told the crowd. "The Irish Brigade lost almost fifty percent." Those who followed O'Reilly's lead braved the brisk 50 degree weather, overcast skies and misty conditions. Ann Marie Keech, of Newport News, came for a weekend of Civil War events and described the park service walk as "you-are-there type of history." She described herself as a little bit of a Civil War buff.

"They paint the picture for you, so if you want to get into it you can," Keech said of the Park Service tour and the re-enactors. "When I close my eyes I'm not sleeping, I'm visualizing." Michael Beard, of Stafford County, said he went from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Saturday, taking in various historic events. Beard, like his friend Keech, didn't mind the weather, which was similar to what Civil War soldiers encountered so many years ago--minus a sky darkened by gun smoke from Union and Confederate forces. "It's more realistic because this is the weather they had."

Source: http://www.fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2007/122007/12102007/339975

CWL --- Four Fronts: Land Operations in Virginia, 1861

Land Operations in Virginia in 1861, Craig L. Symonds, in Virginia At War, 1861, William C. Davis and James I. Robertson Jr., University of Kentucky Press, 2005, pp. 26-44.

With the addition of Virginia to the Confederacy on April 17, 1861, many in the South thought independence was won. The second largest state in the Confederacy brought with it a navy yard near Norfolk, a canon foundry in Richmond, and more people than any other single state in the new nation. By the end of 1861, it became evident though that "the complex and often ontentious relationship between strategy and politics, and the squabbling between generals, many of whom had agenda of their own" were a severe impediment to a successuful rebellion. (p. 28)

In April, Robert E. Lee, major general commanding the state's militia and later military advisor to president Jefferson Davis, understood danger coming to Virginia from four directions: from Washington, D.C., from Harper's Ferry, VA, from the Ohio River Valley, and from Fortress Monroe on the Atlantic shore. Lee was right. The day after Virginia voters accepted the state convention's secession ordinance, Federal troops seized Alexandria, and within 60 General Benjamin Butler guided troops from Fortress Monroe to Big Bethel, which was about halfway to Yorktown.

During the same month, George B. McClellan directed a two pronged invasion from Ohio and into the western counties of Virginia. The crossroad towns of Grafton, Clarksburg and Romney in the eastern panhandle was captured. Wheeling and Grafton in the northern panhandle were seized as was the Kanawha River Valley in the western and central counties. The Cheat River valley was occupied after CSA forces were chased away. By September, the western counties of the state were held by Union troops. The drive was Washington, D.C. was thwarted in July at Manassas.

The loss of the western counties prompted Davis to send Lee to the front. He arrived and failed to achieve coordination between the two Confederate commanders, Floyd and Wise. Davis called former governor Wise to Richmond and sent 9,000 fresh troops to Lee. Rosecrans, front line Union commander in western Virginia, strategically withdrew to the mountiantops and let the foul weather do its work on the lines of the Confederate advance. On the Potomac front, the Federal debacle at Ball's Bluff in October and the Federal success at Dranesville in December, solidified a stalemante.

By the end of 1861 in Virginia, the Confederates knew that "one Reb could not whip three Yanks, at least not every time." The Federals understood the war would be lasting longer than 90 days. Both sides came to grips with "lessons not only about the management of troops, but about the care and feeding of political superiors." At the end of 1861, it was apparent that these four Virginian four front would see more military activity. 1861 in Virginia was militarily decisive but it would be in 1862. (pp. 42.43)

For more on the 1861 war for the western counties:
Lee Vs. McClellan: The First Campaign, Clayton R. Newell
Rebels At The Gate: Lee And Mcclellan On The Front Line Of A Nation Divided, W. Hunter Lesser

For More on Ball's Bluff:
A Little Short of Boats: The Fights at Ball's Bluff and Edward's Ferry, October 21-22, 1861, James Morgan (III)

For More on Bull Run/Manassas:
A Single Grand Victory: The First Campaign and Battle of Manassas, Ethan S. Rafuse

CWL --- 'At The Mercy of Decisions Made Elsewhere": Virginia's Secession Convention

The Virginia State Convention of 1861, James I. Robertson Jr., in Virginia at War, 1861, William C. Davis and James I. Roberston Jr. editors, University of Kentucky Press, 2005, pages 1-26.

Roberston sets forth three stages of the Virginia convention of 1861: February 13 through March 9, March 15 through April 3, and April 4 through April April 16. He traces the dissolution of the Unionist and Moderate ranks over the period of sixty days. The first stage begins with the failure of the Washington Peace Conference, the second stage ends with the submission of the Committee on Federal Relations report, and the third stage ends with Lincoln's call for 2,340 troops from Virginia.

On February 4, of the 152 delegates selected by 145,700 voters, less than 20% were secessionists. Of the remainder their were 92 moderates and 30 Unionists. These Unionist appeared to be conditional Union men; separation from the Union was unbearable unless the Federal government did not guarantee the protection of slavery in all states and territories. Pointedly, the Fugitive Slave Act had to be rigorously enforced. For these Unionist, the thought of Virginia leaving the Union was nearly unimaginable but the idea of taking up arms against the other slave holding states was unthinkable.

The March 4 inaugural speech of Lincoln did not guarantee the rigorous enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law and insinuated that the Federal government would leave slavery alone where it existed but expeditiously relief the territories of any expansionist threat by slaveholders. The April 12 firing on Sumter and the April 15 call for troops dissolved the commitment of the Unionist and moderate state convention. The first vote for secession was 88 in favor and 55 against. Surprising, the Valley representatives were 10 in favor and 17 against secession. The state referendum on May 23 produced 125,950 votes in favor of secession and 20,373 against.
The four northwest counties of Virginia, the panhandle of Wheeling and close to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania voted against secession by a 20-1 ratio of the popular vote.

Robertson's essay, along with Ernest Ferguson's From Ashes to Glory: Richmond at War, emphasizes the place of Richmond newspapers as being one of the several excoriating forces at work during December 1860 through April 1861. On March 21 The Richmond Examiner stated "The conceited old ghosts who crawled from a hundred damp graves to manacle their State and deliver her as a hand-maid to the hideous Chimpanzee from Illinois have determined that not one word of their rubbish and gabble will be lost to posterity." To me this sounds much like how Hunter S. Thompson in the The Rolling Stone worked on Richard M. Nixon.

CWL --- A Thin Line: Christian Love, Christian Hate

Christian Love and Marital Violence: Baptists and War--Danger and Opportunities, Wayne Wei-siang Hsieh, in Virginia's Civil War, Wallenberg and Wyatt-Brown, eds., Univesity of Virginia Press, 2005, pp. 87-100.

Of all Virginians who were church members, 42% were Baptists; Virginia Baptists represented a substantial segment of white popular opinion during the war. Reconciling Christian love with state sanctioned violence was a delimma that fostered both despair for the cause of Christ and hatred for Northerners. The Army of Northern Virginia's religious revivals during winter encampments helped Baptists set aside their despair but not their hatred.

Before, during and after the 1860 presidential election, Baptist clergy were extremely reluctant to to engage in open political activity. During this season, pastors offer jeremiads, the style and content of which harkened back to sermons preached in colonial New England. Special destinies were linked to special obligations. Unfulfilled obligations merited punishments. Punishments led to penitance; penitance led to awakenings. From Baptist pulpits, jeremiads supported the cause of Unionism during 1860 and early 1861. The political faith of the Virginia Founding Fathers was the cause of Unionism. Falling away from this political faith would bring about punishments.

Despite their avoidance of politics before Lincoln's April 17 call for troops, the pastors embraced the rebellion the President's line in the sand. "Evangelicalism and Confederate nationalism were intertwined in a complex braid of meaning and causality . . . ." states the author. He dismisses Charles Royster's contention that Southerners had a Bible-generated tendency toward the acceptance of violence. Royster sees violence being moved forward by the Biblical notion of atonement, "a sacramental mystery, the central act of which is bloodshed." What Royster proports, Virginia Baptists deny. They do not exalt military slaughter as a necessary religious sacrafice states Hsieh.

Baptist clergymen did not call "for destructive and patriotic warfare but for a cautious recognition that the ends of God and man" may be vastly different. Did Virginia Baptists see the war as a means for atoning for sin? No. Did the Virginia Baptists see the war as a "stimulant for sin and demoraliztion? Yes. The occassion of war was an occassion full of temptations.
Drunkeness, gambling, immoral sexual behavior, and swearing were soldier's vices. The influence of hearth and family for moral behavior was absent in soldiers' camps. Separation from the home community was a separation from the affections, sympathies and influences of the Christian family.

Baptist authors feared that Southerners at war would fail to keep half of the Golden Rule. Love your enemy, even though he was a Federal soldier. Christians would have to be careful while striking the enemy; it must be done in the spirit of the Master. If this spirit was lacking, then hope for the Master's help would be disappointed. Conversely, some pastors would embrace the bloodlust of the war. F. McCarthy, a civilian minister who joined the CSA army possibly as an enlisted man, wrote to a Baptist newspaper in Richmond, "if any Southern man lacks the anger
. . . to march to the battlefield and butcher the monsters that have invaded our soil . . . [he should sit and reflect uopon the] putrid qualities of the Northern heart and their base designs upon us and ours . . . [and] no chain will be strong enough to keep him from their throats."

Most ministers understood salvation would not be enhanced by destructive bloodletting, but would be advanced though revival in the camps. In the late fall of 1962, and during the winters of 1863-1864 and 1864-1865, revivals swept through the Army of Northern Virginia. Though spiritually revived, did the Rebel army begin to lose battles because it had lost divine favor?

Historians Drew Gilpin Faust, Harry Stout, and Richard Grasso show that the answer is No. Revival buttressed Confederate nationalism, even during days of defeat. The author believes that Virginia Baptist pastors never wavered in support of the Confederate cause and deeply mourned its destruction. After the war, he finds no pastor declaring that God had judged the South, the arm of the Lord was the Federal army, and that punishment occured when Southern property was destroyed and Southern slaves were freed.