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What Virginian Won Five Navy Crosses?

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 14:17:42 +0000

Lewis Burwell “Chesty” Puller, whose barrel chest and blunt manner inspired his nickname, was a thirty-seven-year veteran of the United States Marine Corps who rose from enlisted man to the rank of lieutenant general. Puller was born in West Point, Virginia, on June 26, 1898. A second cousin of General George S. Patton and the grandson of a Confederate veteran, he enrolled at the Virginia Military Institute in 1917 but left after a year with hopes of fighting in World War I.

The most-decorated Marine in history, he earned five Navy Crosses, the U.S. Navy’s second-highest decoration, for fighting in Nicaragua, at Guadalcanal and in New Guinea during the World War II, and at the Chosin Reservoir during the Korean War.

Puller was loved by enlisted men for his constant actions to improve their lot–so much so that even now, many Marines end the day with “Goodnight, Chesty, wherever you are.”

After Puller and his wife retired to a quiet life in rural Virginia, he always welcomed all passing or visiting Marines in his home and would gladly talk to them about the Marine Corps. Puller died on October 11, 1971, at the age of seventy-three and was buried in Saluda, in Middlesex County, Virginia.

Are There Castles in Virginia?

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 11:57:40 +0000

Bacon’s Castle is the oldest datable brick residence in Virginia, a rare surviving example of Jacobean architecture in America. Built in 1665 by immigrant Arthur Allen, a supporter of the colonial governor and member of the House of Burgesses, Allen was driven from his house in 1676 when Nathaniel Bacon and men staged an uprising in Virginia against the Colonial government. After burning Jamestown to the ground, Bacon’s forces retreated to Gloucester. He sent William Rookings and seventy men to establish a stronghold in Surry County. Rookings took over Arthur Allen’s home and occupied it for four months. The men ate Allen’s cattle and depleted his stock of wine. The Rebellion came to an end when Bacon died of an illness at his headquarters in Gloucester. His men deserted their posts at the house, allowing the family to return. Allen later sued the men who had occupied the house for the damages incurred. The name Bacon’s Castle is not one Allen would have endorsed. However, by the late nineteenth century, the name became popular. Bacon’s Castle was restored and opened to the public in 1983.

Additional Resources:

What is a Watershed and Does Virginia Have One?

VFHwebdev — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 12:00:04 +0000

Actually, Virginia has many watersheds. All the land that drains to a particular body of water is called a watershed. A river’s watershed is made up of smaller watersheds as creeks and streams filter into larger ones before finally flowing into a single river. Virginia has 13 major watersheds, with the most dominant being the Chesapeake Bay system (Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation). Within their drainage basins, the four major Virginia rivers defining the Chesapeake Bay watershed—the Potomac, Rappahannock, York, and James—provide habitats for native animals, trees, and assorted plant life, while supplying water for various human uses including drinking, irrigation, and transportation.

Watersheds have played a vital role in the development of Virginia, serving as transportation routes, means of communication between communities, and the determining factor in the location of towns, cities, and farms, and in some cases, battles.

Today, Virginia’s watersheds have often been the battleground when environmental, industrial, and agricultural issues have come into conflict. Dealing appropriately and decisively with theses issues is one of the major challenges facing 21st Century Virginians.

For Further Reading:

Curtin, Philip, Grace Brush, and George Fisher, eds. Discovering the Chesapeake: The History of an Ecosystem. Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.

Does Virginia Have a Geological Region?

VFHwebdev — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:25:42 +0000

Yes, five major ones. A geological region is a specific land area, each differentiated by rock strata and elevation. The environmental character of Virginia’s regions has led to differences in agricultural planning, energy resource availability, and workforce and industrial opportunities.

The sand, silt, and clay of the Tidewater region on the coast of Virginia and the southern Chesapeake Bay have historically offered a constrained range of agricultural opportunities while creating other economic ones such as shipping and fishing.

The Piedmont region, bordered on the east by the Tidewater area and on the west by the rising Blue Ridge Mountains, provided fertile conditions for the production of tobacco.

The Blue Ridge Mountains provided fishing and hunting grounds for various Native American groups, and today provides some of Virginia’s most beautiful scenery, enticing tourists and outdoor enthusiasts alike.

The Shenandoah Valley, an area sometimes referred to as the breadbasket of the state, is a rich agricultural zone in the northwestern part of the state.

The Appalachian Highlands, the mountainous area to the west, is a coal-rich, mountainous region of higher elevation, harsher soil content, and more distinct climatic seasons.

These five major geological regions combine to make the Commonwealth a land of outstanding biodiversity.

For Further Reading:

Hofstra, Warren. The Planting of New Virginia: Settlement and Landscape in the Shenandoah Valley. Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005.

Kirby, Jack Temple. “Virginia’s Environmental History: A Prospectus,” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 99 (1991): 449–488.

What rights did women have in Colonial Virginia?

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 12:00:34 +0000

Not many! An unmarried, divorced, or widowed woman possessed a legal personality as feme sole and was solely responsible for her affairs. She could own titles and sign contracts and wills. On the other hand, a married woman was under the cover of her husband’s authority as feme covert and had few property rights. Land she brought to the marriage became her husband’s to manage as he saw fit, although he normally could not sell her inherited property unless he got her permission to do so. A widow did receive one-third interest in her husband’s estate.

All women were proscribed in their civil rights. They could not vote, serve in the militia, or hold public offices. They could not act as jurors, but they could give testimony. Seventeenth-century observers ridiculed assertive women as unruly and disorderly and held them responsible for social discord. ”Brabbling” or quarrelsome speech among women was a crime, punishable by fines or the humiliation of a public ducking.

Further Reading

Linda Sturtz, Within Her Power: Propertied Women in Colonial Virginia;

Terri L. Snyder, Brabbling Women: Disorderly Speech and the Law in Early Virginia.

Who Was Wesley Culp?

EV — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 12:30:03 +0000

Private Wesley Culp of the 2nd Virginia Infantry was killed on or near Culp’s Hill at the Battle of Gettysburg on July 2, 1863. Culp was born in Gettysburg in 1839. A relative of his, Henry Culp, owned Culp’s Hill and the adjacent land, which the family had farmed since 1787. An apprentice carriage maker, Wesley Culp followed his employer to Shepherdstown, Virginia, in 1858, and there joined the local militia. Come 1861, he followed his fellow guardsmen, and not his family, by joining the Confederate army. (Wesley’s brother William joined the 87th Pennsylvania Infantry.) One of his officers, Henry Kyd Douglas, described Culp as “twenty-four years old and very little, if any, over five feet, and when captain of the company I procured a special gun for him.” He fought with that gun at Gettysburg and died with it. Various legends surround Culp – for instance, that Henry Culp was his father or perhaps his uncle. The historian Thomas A. Desjardin has argued that Henry Culp was, in fact, “a distant cousin he may scarcely have known.” This would make it less likely that Wesley spent summers playing on the fields where he was killed, as is often claimed.

Further Reading:

William Alan Blair and William Pencak, Making and Remaking Pennsylvania’s Civil War (2001)

Thomas A. Desjardin, These Honored Dead: How the Story of Gettysburg Shaped American Memory (2003)

Who Was Elizabeth Van Lew?

EV — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 12:25:33 +0000

Elizabeth Van Lew was a Richmond Unionist and abolitionist who spied for the United States government during the Civil War. Leading a network of a dozen or so white and African American women and men – possibly including Mary Elizabeth Bowser, a former Van Lew family slave who worked as a servant in the Confederate White House – she relayed information on Confederate operations to Union generals. She also assisted in the care and sometimes escape of Union prisoners of war being held in the capital, including 109 from Libby Prison in 1864. Van Lew, who was codenamed “Babcock” and worked with invisible ink and ciphered messages, has been called “the most skilled, innovative, and successful” of all Civil War-era spies. Some historians have claimed she was open about her politics, deflecting suspicion by behaving as if she were mentally ill, wandering town in shabby clothes, muttering to herself, and singing nonsense songs. Others have argued that these “Crazy Bet” stories are a myth. After the war, she served as postmaster of Richmond during the administration of U.S. president Ulysses S. Grant, one of the generals to whom she had once fed information.

Further Reading:

Elizabeth R. Varon, Southern Lady, Yankee Spy: The True Story of Elizabeth Van Lew, a Union Agent in the Heart of the Confederacy (2003)

Who Was Belle Boyd?

EV — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 12:30:02 +0000

Belle Boyd was one of the most famous Confederate spies during the Civil War, repeatedly and under dangerous circumstances managing to relay information on Union troop strengths and movements to Confederate commanders in the field. According to Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson, the intelligence she provided helped the general to win victories in the Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1862. Authorities suspected her of being a spy almost from the start, and the Union imprisoned her multiple times, but Boyd was a master of manipulation. Her ability to exploit a soldier’s sense of chivalry and the Victorian male’s natural deference to “ladies” became legendary and may help explain why so many of the war’s best spies were women. In 1864, she fled to London, England, where she married one of her captors and later penned a memoir, Belle Boyd in Camp and in Prison (1865), that detailed her exploits and attracted international attention.

Further Reading:

Boyd, Belle, Belle Boyd in Camp and in Prison (1865)
Faust, Drew Gilpin. “Boyd, Maria Isabella ‘Belle,’” Dictionary of Virginia Biography, Vol. 2 (2001)
Francis Hamit, The Shenandoah Spy: Being the True Life Adventures of Belle Boyd, Csa, the “Confederate Cleopatra,” a novel (2008)

How was Christmas Celebrated in Early Virginia?

VFHwebdev — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 14:13:12 +0000

In 1686, a French Huguenot named Durand was traveling through the colonies, recording his observances in a journal. Shortly before Christmas, he stopped at the home of Colonel William Fitzhugh, “whose houses stand along the banks of the great Pethomak river,” where he was treated to a lavish celebration. William Fitzhugh was one of the most successful planters in Virginia and his extravagance was typical only of the emerging upper class.

In their eagerness to imitate English lords, other wealthy plantation owners entertained in a similar manner. William Byrd, a large landowner and faithful diarist, enjoyed celebrating Christ with friends. Over the Christmas season, Byrd’s guests came and went. They played billiards and cards, danced, drank wine, “slid and skated on the ice,” and enjoyed festive dinners. The Byrd servants and slaves celebrated as well.

Most colonists, however, could only aspire to such excess. For the vast majority of Virginians, Christmas probably meant no more than a worship service at church, if one were near, and the best food and spirits they could afford to set on the table. For the indentured servant class, Christmas rarely brought more than a welcome respite from work and an extra ration of food and drink.

Excerpted from Four Centuries of Virginia Christmas, Mary Miley Theobald and Libbey Hodges Oliver, Dietz Press, Petersburg, VA, 2000 (http://www.dietzpress.com/)

Brought to you by Encyclopedia Virginia at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities.

Who were the Levys and what is their connection to Monticello?

VFHwebdev — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 12:00:10 +0000

Heavily indebted after Thomas Jefferson’s death, the Jefferson family was forced to sell Monticello in 1828. Charlottesville druggist James Barclay purchased the property in hopes of creating a silkworm farm, which failed; in 1836, he sold the estate to Commodore Uriah Levy, a War of 1812 veteran and a pioneering Jewish officer in the Navy, where he combated anti-Semitism and helped end flogging. Levy revered Jefferson as one of history’s “greatest men,” and set to work meticulously restoring the property. Though he never lived at Monticello, his widowed mother Rachel did until her death in 1839; she is buried there. On Levy’s death in 1862, it was learned he had bequeathed Monticello to the United States to be used as an agricultural school for orphans of naval warrant officers; Congress refused the donation, and the Confederacy later seized and sold it. The Levys re-acquired Monticello, and in 1879, the Commodore’s nephew, Jefferson Monroe Levy, took control of the estate, whose renovation he continued. In 1923, under political pressure, he sold it to the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, which converted it into a museum. Only in the past quarter-century has this Jewish family’s role in preserving Monticello been fully recognized and honored.

For Further Reading:

Marc Leepson, Saving Monticello: The Levy Family’s Epic Quest to Rescue the House that Jefferson Built