Virginia Vignettes

Virginia Indians played a variety of roles during the Civil War. What about tribes in other states? Statistics show that not quite 3,600 Native Americans served in the Union Army during the war. Perhaps the best known of their number was Brigadier General Ely Parker (Seneca), who served as an aide to Union general-in-chief Ulysses [...]

The response of Virginia Indians to the American Civil War varied from tribe to tribe. Several Pamunkey men served the Union Army as gunboat pilots, not fighting directly as soldiers. These men were thrown off the rolls of the local Colosse Baptist Church for aiding the “enemy.” The Pamunkey chose to serve the North because [...]

Lee Chapel, whose spired clock tower rises above the tree-shaded campus of Washington and Lee University (formerly Washington College) in Lexington, Virginia, is the final resting place of Confederate general Robert E. Lee and is popularly known as “The Shrine of the South.” Lee commanded the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia during the Civil War. [...]

Turner Ashby was a Confederate cavalry general who served under Stonewall Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1862 during the Civil War. An expert horseman, Ashby was arguably the Confederacy’s most renowned combat hero before his death in 1862. His competency for high command is still debated among historians, but it’s clear that his [...]