Virginia Vignettes

Winfield Scott was a hero of the Mexican War (1846–1848), the last Whig Party candidate for U.S. president, and commanding general of the United States Army at the start of the American Civil War (1861–1865). Known as “Old Fuss and Feathers” for his equal love of discipline and pomp, Scott by 1861 had served in [...]

After the fall of Richmond in April 1865, the state government briefly relocated to Lynchburg for four days. Lynchburg, which is located just east of the Blue Ridge Mountains on the banks of the James River, was founded by John Lynch, who established a ferry service there in 1757. On the eve of the American [...]

The America we know today is forever in debt to a pivotal decision made on December 15, 1791. On this day, the Bill of Rights, drafted by Virginian James Madison, went into effect as a vote of ratification came from Virginia, the 10th and final state to do so to gain the necessary two-thirds approval. [...]

Colonial Williamsburg is the restored and reconstructed historic area of Williamsburg, Virginia, a small city between the York and James rivers that was founded in 1632, designated capital of the English colony in 1698, and bestowed with a royal charter in 1722. It was a center of political activity before and during the American Revolution [...]

John Buchanan Floyd was born on the Smithfield plantation in Montgomery County, Virginia, on June 1, 1806, the son of John Floyd, who was governor of Virginia (1830–1834).  The younger Floyd was governor of Virginia (1849–1852), secretary of war in the administration of United States president James Buchanan (1857–1860), and a Confederate general during the [...]

Claude A. Swanson was a powerful Democratic Party leader and one of the most successful Virginia politicians of his era. He served seven terms in the United States House of Representatives (1893–1906), was governor of Virginia from 1906 until 1910, and U.S. senator from 1910 until 1933. In addition, Swanson served as secretary of the [...]

James H. Price was a governor of Virginia (1938–1942) who advocated for a series of progressive policies designed to help those hurt by the Great Depression of the 1930s. His most notable achievement came in 1938 with the enactment of an Old Age Assistance Plan that enabled Virginians to receive federal Social Security benefits. Throughout [...]

Henry A. Wise was a lawyer, a member of the United States House of Representatives (1832–1844), U.S. minister to Brazil (1844–1847), governor of Virginia (1856–1860) during John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry, and a brigadier general in the Confederate army during the American Civil War (1861–1865). Born in Accomack County on Virginia’s Eastern Shore, Wise [...]

In 1909 a few Virginia women organized the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia to educate Old Dominion citizens on the issue of woman suffrage. They were following the path blazed by two unsuccessful late nineteenth-century efforts to obtain the vote for women in Virginia. Rejecting radicalism for a more moderate approach, the suffragists capitalized on [...]

The Ruffner Pamphlet was an economic argument for the gradual emancipation of slaves in western Virginia put forth in 1847 by Henry Ruffner, president of Washington College in Lexington. Ruffner was no William Lloyd Garrison; like the congressman and University of Virginia professor George Tucker, he opposed slavery for practical, not moral, reasons and made [...]