Crucible of the Civil War: Virginia from Secession to Commemoration

Preface

Preface This volume originated in the graduate history program at the University of Virginia. While working on an essay about Virginia’s decision to secede from the Union, I found myself struck by how little attention the state had received in the literature on the American Civil War. Despite an overwhelming number of books on the battles, leaders, and armies that figured prominently in military events across the state, few works have examined the diverse scenes of life that played out on Virginia’s home front. Indeed , for the state that held more slaves and sacrificed more soldiers to the Confederate cause than any other, Virginia has been strangely neglected. At the same time, I began reading the work of current and former University of Virginia graduate students. Their research upended much of the conventional wisdom about the war, questioning assumptions historians often make about the Old Dominion, and convinced me that much of the story of Civil War Virginia had yet to be told. Turning away from the welltrod field of military events in the state, their work concentrated instead on the ways in which the war affected Virginia’s economic, social, and political networks. Some of their essays challenged older interpretations by reexamining Virginia’s secession, the development of Confederate nationalism , and how Virginians chose to remember the war after its close. Others addressed areas largely untouched by historians, such as the wartime intersection between race and religion, the development of Confederate social networks, and the war’s effects on slavery in the state. All the essays pointed to the profound uncertainty that confronted men and women, black and white, throughout the era. Their collected work revealed a Virginia that I had rarely seen in the literature on the war, a place where confusion and ambiguity reigned. From the secession crisis through Reconstruction, Virginians confronted difficult choices, widespread hardships, and often discord among them- viii K preface selves. Indeed, the secession crisis forced Virginians to make some of the most agonizing decisions of their lives, producing heated debates within the state. Once the fighting began, Virginians who went into the armies struggled to sort out what it meant to be a soldier and citizen of the Union or the new Confederacy. Those left behind dealt with the privations common to war, questioned how Virginia’s cherished social and economic institutions would survive, and wondered whether their loved ones in the armies would ever return. While embracing the confusion and turmoil of the era, the essays also pointed to common threads that ran throughout wartime Virginia. Slavery , for example, remained the central touchstone of the conflict in the Old Dominion. Driving everything from secession to the ways in which people later chose to remember the war, the institution continued to exert a powerful influence on the state throughout the conflict. In a similar way, the essays also revealed the remarkable commitment that white Virginians of all backgrounds demonstrated for their new Confederate nation. Though they often lamented the hardships of war, citizens across the state remained ardently committed to their country and cause, even in the years after 1865. In all of these things, it seemed to me, the essays offered new ways to approach and understand life in wartime Virginia. Edward Ayers and Gary Gallagher quickly saw the potential of such a collection and agreed to help turn it into a book. Richard Holway, our editor at the University of Virginia Press, gave us his steadfast support from the beginning and helped marshal the manuscript to completion. Two anonymous readers reviewed the manuscript for the Press and offered insightful and supportive advice on strengthening the essays, for which we are grateful. We believe the essays in this volume offer new windows into Civil War Virginia. Each piece considers a different aspect of wartime Virginia, breaking new ground by telling stories about the complicated choices that confronted those who lived through the conflict. Yet when placed beside one another, the collected essays also tell a larger story about the rhythms of life in Virginia from the time of secession through the decades after the war’s end. What emerges is a portrait of the Old Dominion that dwells on the complex experience of life in the Confederacy’s most important state during one of the most turbulent periods in American history. —Andrew J. Torget CRUCIBLE...