Virginia at War, 1861 (eBook)

More Civil War battles were fought on Virginian soil than on that of any other Confederate state. No state suffered more from invasion and occupation than the Old Dominion, and none witnessed as much of the war. Virginia's story of the Civil War stands unique among the Confederate States. Virginia at War, 1861 looks at Virginia on the eve of secession, detailing the activities of the convention that finally took the state out of the Union and explaining how Richmond became the capital of the new Confederate nation. Chapters in the book examine Virginia's private state army and its little-known state navy, as well as the impact that secession and the first year of the war had on Virginia's black community, both slave and free. Virginia was the only Confederate state to suffer an internal secession, and the story of that "other Virginia" that broke away and became West Virginia is explored in all its bizarre complexity. Virginia at War, 1861 is the first in a new five-volume series, edited by William C. Davis and James I. Robertson Jr. for the Virginia Center for Civil War Studies at Virginia Tech. Each volume will bring together leading Civil War historians to study one year of the Civil War in Virginia.

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The first volume in this comprehensive history of Virginia during the Civil War examines the early phases of secession, struggle and conflict.   Several Southern states preceded Virginia in seceding from the Union, but until Virginia joined them in April 1861, the Confederacy lacked cohesion. Richmond was immediately named the capital of the fledgling nation. By the end of spring, Virginia had become the primary political and military theater of the Civil War.   The first in a series of five volumes examining Virginia’s years as a Confederate state, Virginia at War, 1861, vividly portrays the process of secession, the early phases of conflict, and the struggles of ordinary Virginians to weather the brutal storms of war. Essays by eight noted Civil War scholars provide a comprehensive view of Virginians' experiences during the first year of the War Between the States.   In addition to recounting the military events taking place in Virginia in 1861, this collection examines a civilian population braced for war but divided on crucial questions, an economy pressed to cope with the demands of combat, and a culture that strained to reconcile its proud heritage with its uncertain future. In exacting detail, Virginia at War, 1861 examines the earliest challenges of the Civil War, the changes war wrought, and the ways in which Virginians withstood and adapted to this profound, irrevocable upheaval.