Virginia Vignettes

Virginia women, many of whom “wished they were a man,” assisted the cause of rebellion. Manpower shortages forced them to take over plantations and assume jobs as nurses, government clerks, and factory workers. Women served as spies, knit socks and sewed clothing for soldiers, made soap, and sacrificed for the war effort by limiting entertainment [...]

Blacks certainly served the Confederacy. They constituted half the labor force at Richmond’s Tredegar Iron Works, which made the iron plates for the Virginia, rails for Confederate railroads, and most of the South’s cannon. They also worked the mines and railroads of the Confederacy. Most slaves remained on the plantations raising food for the armies, [...]

In their public rhetoric, delegates to Virginia’s secession convention justified their vote to secede in April, 1861 because the Lincoln Administration in Washington with its attempt to re-supply Fort Sumter and its subsequent call-up of troops was subverting constitutional authority and states’ rights and practicing tyranny. In reality, secession was a mechanism to address fears they [...]

In August 1831, Nat Turner initiated the most significant slave insurrection in American history. Turner was a slave of Joseph Travis in Southampton County. Having learned to read at a young age, he studied the Bible and became an inspirational preacher among his fellow slaves, seeing himself as an agent of God. Although not mistreated, [...]