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As a Southerner and native of the Shenandoah Valley, I offer reflections on the Civil War-era South… and sometimes a little more. But… expect the unexpected
Browsing All Posts filed under »Shenandoah Valley history«
Passion for history is good, but…
March 1, 2017 by The Wild Pretanī
While I haven’t taken my foundations in rhetoric course yet (it’s on the horizon… Fall 2017), I think I’ve got a good handle on how the three modes of persuasion in rhetoric play out in the writings of some people (and I’m especially interested in how some contemporary historians use rhetoric… letting their passions get […]
Shenandoah Valley men on the Mexican border
October 25, 2016 by The Wild Pretanī
This is outside my normal “field of operations”, but… putting my stories of the antebellum Shenandoah, and news reports of those buried alive in the same period, on the side for today… I want to share a reminder that we’re just about to enter the WWI Centennial (the US version… Europe has been at it a while, already). Of […]
A new “area” Civil War blog
October 20, 2016 by The Wild Pretanī
It’s been a long time since I’ve acknowledged a new Civil War blog on the scene, but, in that this new one also focuses on a portion of the area which holds my interest… it merits a shout-out. So, for those who are interested in western Maryland… and that general area, thereabouts, in the Civil […]
The Richmond Dispatch’s first mention of John Brown’s Raid on Harper’s Ferry
October 16, 2016 by The Wild Pretanī
… didn’t appear until October 18, 1859… two days after the raid was initiated. For those who know the story, it’s also interesting to read the exaggerated numbers involved in the raid, and the reference to a “Captain Anderson” instead of John Brown.
Discussing secession, OTD, 1851
September 23, 2016 by The Wild Pretanī
The following clip comes from the Spirit of Jefferson (Charles Town, VA), from 165 years ago, today. Of course, reading through this, there are some lines that seem to see a decade ahead. I was particularly interested in the remarks near the end… Our blood ran cold as he described an army devastating this Valley… […]
A decade of Southern Unionist studies
September 19, 2016 by The Wild Pretanī
After receiving a comment last night on a recent post, and while driving into work this morning, I realized that, for over a decade, I’ve been involved in the study of Southern Unionists in the Shenandoah Valley. It was ten years ago this fall when I started writing my thesis on Southern Unionism and disaffected […]
“I’ve got through crying long ago” – a refugee from the Shenandoah
September 13, 2016 by The Wild Pretanī
A few months ago, I came across an old sketch on Ebay showing a woman and her children above the title “Flight from the Shenandoah Valley”. Wanting to know the source, I found it in the Pictorial Book of Anecdotes and Incidents of the War of the Rebellion, by Richard Miller Devens (1824-1900). While there […]
“Perfidious Wretch!” – The developing story of Mr. Dorsey horsewhipping Dr. Gordon, OTD, 1840
September 10, 2016 by The Wild Pretanī
I came across a number of articles in the Virginia Free Press pertaining to an altercation between one A.G. Gordon and Dr. H. Dorsey, both… I think… were from Charles Town, (West) Va. There’s a lot going on in the exchanges I’ve found in the various clippings (spanning about four issues, so far), so, I’ll […]
A Shippensburg, Pa. newspaper on emigration of liberated slaves to Liberia (1856)
September 9, 2016 by The Wild Pretanī
As some may recall, last summer, I started transcribing a pamphlet from the American Colonization Society (ACS). It wasn’t because I just then discovered the story of the ACS, but rather, I became intrigued with the activity of the ACS in the Shenandoah Valley. Additionally, my decision to transcribe the pamphlet was based on 1) the fact […]
Following the drinkin’ gourd? OTD, 1831
September 8, 2016 by The Wild Pretanī
The clip below is taken from the Torch Light and Advertiser (Hagerstown, Maryland), from September 8, 1831, but the subject of the clipping is a slave named Paul Taylor, who escaped from Frederick County, in the Shenandoah Valley. As he made his escape on August 13, by the time this appeared in the newspaper, he […]
Poke Root poultice for snake bite, OTD, 1826
September 7, 2016 by The Wild Pretanī
News had an interesting way in making it up and down the Valley… and even into the next Valley over. Take, for example this clipping which notes how an article about a Poke Root poultice, originally published in the Staunton Spectator and later republished in the Torch Light and Public Advertiser (Hagerstown, Md.), saved a […]
All was not innocence and harmony (OTD, Augusta County, 1852)
September 7, 2016 by The Wild Pretanī
I’m thinking that… in between blog posts which take time to construct, I’m going to start posting brief “On This Day” (OTD) material, shedding some light on news within the Shenandoah Valley (and, perhaps, the Cumberland Valley, to offer a chance for comparative analysis), during the antebellum. The hope is to provide a look at what life was really like […]
If you like an interpretation of history, why not also find the flaws in it?
September 6, 2016 by The Wild Pretanī
Lately, in the midst of the arguments being made about standing for the National Anthem, I’ve seen a fair number of folks attach themselves to an interpretation of some aspect of history and then attempt to defend that position (actually, it’s more a matter of them going on the offensive, using that interpretation as if […]
An enduring and iconic feature in the Shenandoah
August 16, 2016 by The Wild Pretanī
For almost 177 years, the Virginia Military Institute has been an iconic part of the history of the Shenandoah Valley. Today, I happened upon the following clip from the August 13, 1859 edition of the Richmond Dispatch: Having set the context with this clip… the more things change, the more… well, you know. While the number of new “Rats” […]
Huckleberries, mountain fires, and meaning
May 14, 2016 by The Wild Pretanī
Perhaps it’s the mountain fires we’ve had in the Shenandoah Valley recently, but I’ve found myself thinking about something more commonly associated with summer… that incredible wild fruit known as the humble huckleberry. What do mountain fires have to do with huckleberries? Well, ultimately fires help huckleberry crops, of course. Yet, these raging mountain fires […]
Special “representation” at the Carlisle Blue-Gray Reunion of 1881
May 10, 2016 by The Wild Pretanī
Yesterday, an article (“South Dakota tribe seeks children’s century-old remains from War College site“)* popped up in my news feed which, ironically, followed some information I came across just last week regarding “Indian School” attendees at the Blue-Gray reunion at Carlisle, in September 1881. That reunion was actually the second in two months, the first […]
Faulkner explains his Confederate service
April 30, 2016 by The Wild Pretanī
150 years ago this past week, a letter (though dated April 13) from Charles J. Faulkner (he appears in a few of my blog posts from the past) appeared in the Charles Town, West Virginia newspaper, detailing his “connexion” with the Confederate army. At first I thought, perhaps, he was replying to those who doubted any […]
Selling Col. R.K. Meade’s livestock (1833)
April 26, 2016 by The Wild Pretanī
The title of this post might lack the hook that would draw in a crowd, but that shouldn’t detract. For those who are truly curious about what antebellum life was like in the Valley (and might be well-acquainted with the area of the Valley in which this piece discusses), this piece offers an opportunity to […]
The SPLC’s report… more “purposed” opinion than history?
April 22, 2016 by The Wild Pretanī
I saw, today, that the Southern Poverty Law Center issued their “Whose Heritage? Public Symbols of the Confederacy” report, yesterday. Anyone who has watched the SPLC over the years knows how they are inspired and, to be clear, they simply don’t recognize complexities in the story of anyone associated with the Southern Confederacy. Of course, it’s […]
150 years ago this week – properties listed for sale in the Rockingham Register
March 5, 2016 by The Wild Pretanī
Does a listing of properties for sale, as of March 1866, tell us something about the Shenandoah Valley and the inability of some to recover from war? From the March 2, 1866 issue of the Rockingham Register (Harrisonburg):
Northern aid to the Shenandoah Valley (1865)
March 2, 2016 by The Wild Pretanī
Scanning through some (relatively) local postwar newspapers, I ran across the mention of a relief society for the Shenandoah Valley… that’s right, Northern aid for civilians of the Shenandoah Valley in the wake of “The Burning”. The only article (in Hagerstown’s Herald and Torch) available to me via newspaper.com, about this society, dated to […]
The “battle” for the eastern panhandle of West Virginia
February 29, 2016 by The Wild Pretanī
I posed a question yesterday, via Facebook, asking if it was only historians who wondered what Berkeley and Jefferson counties would be like if they were returned to Virginia in the years immediately after the Civil War. Of course, I have my doubts that it is only historians that wonder about such things, but I suspect, […]
Looking forward in the Shenandoah (Jan. 1866)
February 19, 2016 by The Wild Pretanī
Perusing some Valley newspapers recently, I ran across an interesting article in the Spirit of Jefferson (Charles Town) which did not reflect on the devastation left by war, but on the future of the Valley and its residents. There is no portion of the whole agricultural district of the Union richer than the Valley of […]
Which has greater value – Literary Product or Revealed Intellectual Process?
October 26, 2015 by The Wild Pretanī
Not long ago, I ran across an article (2011) from the Richmond Times-Dispatch, in which the author (Kirk Richardson) seems to have minimized the significance of an early Virginia author. Alone [the first published book (1854) by Marion Harland, aka Mary Virginia Terhune] is a lot like other sentimental novels of the mid nineteenth-century; it’s […]
Just having missed a “Nathaniel Parker Willis, of the Shenandoah”
October 4, 2015 by The Wild Pretanī
In my pursuit of the “Shenandoah Literari” of the nineteenth century, I encounter some unusual twists and turns in the history of the Valley. One family’s “brush” with the area’s history, for example, presents an interesting “what if”. Now, I’m not really a fan of “what ifs” in regard to history, but I do find […]
A placemarker in my considerations of the American Colonization Society
August 12, 2015 by The Wild Pretanī
For those who have continued to follow my ramblings through old annual reports of the American Colonization Society, I’ve got a little more to follow. I’ve skipped around a bit between the 1820s and the 1850s, and looking at a few other resources at my disposal, I found something worthwhile from the 1850s regarding the […]
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Southern Unionists Chronicles
- 34th Massachusetts POWs and Harrisonburg Unionists
- Letter from Botts, laying “bare the tyranny of Jeff. Davis”, November 21, 1863
- Hensley-Lamb (Rockingham & Page County) refugees, documented in Gettysburg newspaper
- In the case of Mr. Nicholas Breeden, Rockingham County, Virginia
- When a Confederate soldier came-a-courtin’ a Southern Unionist’s daughter
- Rebecca Wright: Winchester Unionist and Sheridan’s “Little Quaker Girl”
- “The reign of terror in Loudoun, Va.”
- Looking for photos of Galvanized Yankees
- Reuben Kite’s story
- New markers in Waterford, Va. highlight Southern Unionism there
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March 4, 2017 by The Wild Pretanī
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