Editor’s Note

Volume 6, number 2 will mark a transition in the new series of West Virginia History. Ronald L. Lewis and Susan E. Lewis will be retiring from their duties for the journal. They have been instrumental in reviving and making this enterprise a success and keeping alive a publishing venue for historical scholarship on West Virginia. Ron brought the journal to West Virginia University and served as editor for volume 1 before turning it over to me. He has maintained a close relationship with the journal as associate editor for the past five years, and has been a font of wise counsel on so many matters. Susan’s work has been no less important. Authors who have contributed to the journal have witnessed firsthand her remarkable copyediting skills and her unsurpassed knowledge of the Chicago Manual of Style. They will both be greatly missed, but hopefully we can uphold the high standards they instilled in the new series of the journal.

The next issue will add Kevin Barksdale as associate editor. Kevin’s ability as a historian of the Appalachian region is already widely appreciated. He is the author of The Lost State of Franklin (University of Kentucky Press, 2009) which originated, appropriately enough, as a dissertation directed by Ron Lewis. Taking over for Susan will be Rachel King, who comes highly recommended from her work with West Virginia University Press, which publishes the journal. I am looking forward to working with both Kevin and Rachel, and will be sure to let them know that they have big shoes to fill.

One more note, this issue includes the text of a talk delivered by West Virginia native and notable Appalachian historian, Ronald D Eller. His talk, which summarizes many of the lessons he has learned from a career in Appalachian scholarship was the keynote address of the third meeting of the Society of Appalachian Historians, held in Morgantown in late May 2012. We felt that it had much to say to the readers of West Virginia History, and Ron was kind enough to allow us to include it in this issue. We also have a very interesting piece on western Virginians who emigrated to Liberia in the mid-nineteenth century, portions of a previously unpublished diary kept by a private in the West Virginia Cavalry during the Civil War (part 2 will come later), Harold Forbes’s annual update of publications dealing with West Virginia, and our usual number of book reviews. Enjoy.