February 11, 2011 | Posted by javal National Park Rangers asked for assistance from local and State Police Thursday after serving a search warrant on a home in the city and finding a potentially live, Civil War-era, unexploded artillery shell.
The shell was discovered Thursday at around 1 p.m. after Park Rangers executed a search warrant on the home in the 1800 block [...]
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Tags: Virginia | 
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February 11, 2011 | Posted by javal A Civil War artifacts collector intends to fight to retain ownership of a valuable sword that Brown University claims was stolen from its museum more than 30 years ago.
Brown University in Providence, R.I., is suing Williamsburg art and artifacts collector Donald R. Tharpe in federal court seeking the return of the Col. Rush C. Hawkins [...]
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February 10, 2011 | Posted by javal As the Gazette recently noted, commemorations begin this year marking the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War. The milestone also is an opportune time to trace ancestors on both sides of the conflict in battles across Virginia, including the Williamsburg area.
A family connection is what recently brought my wife, Mary Lynch Rogers, [...]
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February 9, 2011 | Posted by javal The Civil War did not erupt until April 1861 — when rebel guns began firing on the federal garrison at Fort Sumter.
But the struggle that ultimately cost 600,000 lives reaches back much further in time, with the first signs of disunion appearing not long after the Revolution.
As early as the 1790s, Thomas Jefferson began thinking [...]
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February 8, 2011 | Posted by javal A friend recently asked me a question – “What happened to the women during The Civil War? It couldn’t all have been big skirts and fancy balls,“ she queried.
?This is a very intelligent, professional lady. It hadn’t occurred to me that this simple subject would be such a mystery; growing up in the South I [...]
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February 4, 2011 | Posted by javal –”The best thing I saw stolen during the war was in Fredericksburg,” a Union soldier bragged to his comrade. He described an ornate bronze statue of a “Crusader knight” mounted on horseback, standing 33 inches tall.
His details were so precise that the lady who overheard him in one of Baltimore’s public squares realized he was [...]
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February 4, 2011 | Posted by javal Confederate Civil War generals just seem to stay in the news in Culpeper.
For nearly a decade, the portrait of Gen. A.P. Hill, a Culpeper native, has been a center of controversy. Now a picture–actually two pictures in a single frame–of Gen. Robert E. Lee have been brought into the fray.
In a terse letter to the [...]
Categories: General, Relics/Artifacts | Tags: Virginia | No Comments »
February 3, 2011 | Posted by javal Campbell County residents had the opportunity Jan. 21 to share their privately owned Civil War documents and photos with the public.
The opportunity for all Virginians to contribute to an online database of manuscripts will last until at least June 2012.
The Library of Virginia and a state commission leading Virginia’s observance of the 150th anniversary of [...]
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February 2, 2011 | Posted by javal It’s been nearly 145 years since the end of the Civil War, and Walmart just surrendered.
The nation’s largest retailer recently announced it’s giving up plans to build a Supercenter near the site of an important Civil War battlefield.
The Battle of the Wilderness was fought over three brutal days in May 1864 – in the tangled [...]
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February 1, 2011 | Posted by javal One day in May of 1861, Washington County’s Ann Catron, 38, wrote her son:
“With all the timidity due to my sex, I am ready to offer you up in defense of your country’s rights and honor. and I now offer you, a beardless boy of 17 summers–not with grief, but thanking God that I have [...]
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