The phrase "American Revolutionary War Hero" usually brings to mind George Washington, John Paul Jones and other famous officers. Heroes, however, existed throughout the ranks during the Revolution, and many made their marks without ever receiving proper recognition. These portraits of 28 Virginia Revolutionary soldiers expand the historical record of those who can be called a "hero." Whether as infantryman, cavalryman, marine, militiaman, spy, frontier fighter or staffer, all performed with distinction that contributed to victory. A strongman who performed superhuman feats during battle; a woman who fought as a soldier; a militiaman who sounded a fateful alarm--some gave their lives, others were terribly wounded, but all demonstrated heroism beyond the call of duty.
Unsurpassed as a single-volume history, John E. Selby's masterpiece analyzes the political, administrative, and military history of Virginia during the American Revolution. Stressing the contributions, in both men and material, that the state made to the new nation's war effort, Shelby shows how Virginia's leaders responded to the need to expand the state's administration and mobilize its people for war while at the same time looking westward to the vast territory beyond the Appalachians. Now available for the first time in paperback and with a new foreword by the historian Don Higginbotham, this classic is a must-read for anyone interested in the origins of our nation.
In this provocative reinterpretation of one of the best-known events in American history, Woody Holton shows that when Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and other elite Virginians joined their peers from other colonies in declaring independence from Britain, they acted partly in response to grassroots rebellions against their own rule. The Virginia gentry's efforts to shape London's imperial policy were thwarted by British merchants and by a coalition of Indian nations. In 1774, elite Virginians suspended trade with Britain in order to pressure Parliament and, at the same time, to save restive Virginia debtors from a terrible recession. The boycott and the growing imperial conflict led to rebellions by enslaved Virginians, Indians, and tobacco farmers. By the spring of 1776 the gentry believed the only way to regain control of the common people was to take Virginia out of the British Empire. Forced Founders uses the new social history to shed light on a classic political question: why did the owners of vast plantations, viewed by many of their contemporaries as aristocrats, start a revolution? As Holton's fast-paced narrative unfolds, the old story of patriot versus loyalist becomes decidedly more complex.
By the sixth year of the American Revolution, Britain determined that Virginia would be the key to subduing the entire rebellion. The American War for Independence was fought in nearly every colony, but some colonies witnessed far more conflict than others. In the first half of the war, the bulk of military operations were concentrated in Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Following the battle at Monmouth Courthouse, New Jersey, in 1778, British strategy moved to the South, where their armies clashed with Continental troops in Georgia and South Carolina. Surprisingly, Virginia saw little fighting up to this point in the war. This changed suddenly in 1781, when the turncoat Benedict Arnold led 1,600 seasoned British troops on a successful raid up the James River to Richmond, destroying Patriot property along the way. Arnold's bold stroke demonstrated Virginia's vulnerability to attack and the possibility that the colonies could be divided and subdued piecemeal. British General Henry Clinton decided to reinforce Arnold in Virginia, while events in North Carolina, including the battle of Guilford Courthouse, convinced British General Charles Cornwallis that defeating the Patriots in Virginia was the key to ending the war. As historian Michael Cecere relates in The Invasion of Virginia 1781, the war's arrival in the largest colony had unintended consequences for Cornwallis and his powerful British force. -- Inside jacket flap.
Virginia's American Revolution focuses on the remaking of colonial Virginia into a republican society. It considers this topic with a focus on particular episodes, such as the Richmond Ratification Convention of 1788 and the adoption of the Virginia Resolutions of 1798, that b...
Already renowned as a statesman, Thomas Jefferson in his retirement from government turned his attention to the founding of an institution of higher learning. Never merely a patron, the former president oversaw every aspect of the creation of what would become the University of Virginia. Along with the Declaration of Independence and the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, he regarded it as one of the three greatest achievements in his life. Nonetheless, historians often treat this period as an epilogue to Jefferson’s career. In The Illimitable Freedom of the Human Mind, Andrew O’Shaughnessy offers a twin biography of Jefferson in retirement and of the University of Virginia in its earliest years. He reveals how Jefferson’s vision anticipated the modern university and profoundly influenced the development of American higher education. The University of Virginia was the most visible apex of what was a much broader educational vision that distinguishes Jefferson as one of the earliest advocates of a public education system. Just as Jefferson’s proclamation that "all men are created equal" was tainted by the ongoing institution of slavery, however, so was his university. O’Shaughnessy addresses this tragic conflict in Jefferson’s conception of the university and society, showing how Jefferson’s loftier aspirations for the university were not fully realized. Nevertheless, his remarkable vision in founding the university remains vital to any consideration of the role of education in the success of the democratic experiment.
The history of African Americans in southern Appalachia after the Civil War has largely escaped the attention of scholars of both African Americans and the region. In Facing Freedom, Daniel Thorp relates the complex experience of an African American community in southern Appalachia as it negotiated a radically new world in the four decades following the Civil War. Drawing on extensive research in private collections as well as local, state, and federal records, Thorp narrates in intimate detail the experiences of black Appalachians as they struggled to establish autonomous families, improve their economic standing, operate black schools within a white-controlled school system, form independent black churches, and exercise expanded—if contested—roles as citizens and members of the body politic. Black out-migration increased markedly near the close of the nineteenth century, but the generation that transitioned from slavery to freedom in Montgomery County established the community institutions that would survive disenfranchisement and Jim Crow. Facing Freedom reveals the stories and strategies of those who pioneered these resilient bulwarks against the rising tide of racism.
A “deeply researched and bracing retelling” (Annette Gordon-Reed, Pulitzer Prize–winning historian) of the American Revolution, showing how the Founders were influenced by overlooked Americans—women, Native Americans, African Americans, and religious dissenters. Using more than a thousand eyewitness records, Liberty Is Sweet is a “spirited account” (Gordon S. Wood, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Radicalism of the American Revolution) that explores countless connections between the Patriots of 1776 and other Americans whose passion for freedom often brought them into conflict with the Founding Fathers. “It is all one story,” prizewinning historian Woody Holton writes. Holton describes the origins and crucial battles of the Revolution from Lexington and Concord to the British surrender at Yorktown, always focusing on marginalized Americans—enslaved Africans and African Americans, Native Americans, women, and dissenters—and on overlooked factors such as weather, North America’s unique geography, chance, misperception, attempts to manipulate public opinion, and (most of all) disease. Thousands of enslaved Americans exploited the chaos of war to obtain their own freedom, while others were given away as enlistment bounties to whites. Women provided material support for the troops, sewing clothes for soldiers and in some cases taking part in the fighting. Both sides courted native people and mimicked their tactics. Liberty Is Sweet is a “must-read book for understanding the founding of our nation” (Walter Isaacson, author of Benjamin Franklin), from its origins on the frontiers and in the Atlantic ports to the creation of the Constitution. Offering surprises at every turn—for example, Holton makes a convincing case that Britain never had a chance of winning the war—this majestic history revivifies a story we thought we already knew.
