This volume invites readers to get up close and personal with one of the most respected and beloved writers of the last four decades. Carolyn J. Sharp has transcribed numerous table conversations between Walter Brueggemann and his colleagues and former students, in addition to several of his addresses and sermons from both academic and congregational settings. The result is the essential Brueggemann: readers will learn about his views on scholarship, faith, and the church; get insights into his "contagious charisma," grace, and charity; and appreciate the candid reflections on the fears, uncertainties, and difficulties he faced over the course of his career. Anyone interested in Brueggemann's work and thoughts will be gifted with thought-provoking, inspirational reading from within these pages.
This is the definitive work on Americans taken prisoner during the Revolutionary War. The bulk of the book is devoted to personal accounts, many of them moving, of the conditions endured by U.S. prisoners at the hands of the British, as preserved in journals or diaries kept by physicians, ships' captains, and the prisoners themselves. Of greater genealogical interest is the alphabetical list of 8,000 men who were imprisoned on the British vessel The Old Jersey, which the author copied from the papers of the British War Department and incorporated in the appendix to the work. Also included is a Muster Roll of Captain Abraham Shepherd's Company of Virginia Riflemen and a section on soldiers of the Pennsylvania Flying Camp who perished in prison, 1776-1777.
This exploration of Richmond's burial landscape over the past 300 years reveals in illuminating detail how racism and the color line have consistently shaped death, burial, and remembrance in this storied Southern capital. Richmond, Virginia, the former capital of the Confederacy, holds one of the most dramatic landscapes of death in the nation. Its burial grounds show the sweep of Southern history on an epic scale, from the earliest English encounters with the Powhatan at the falls of the James River through slavery, the Civil War, and the long reckoning that followed. And while the region's deathways and burial practices have developed in surprising directions over these centuries, one element has remained stubbornly the same: the color line. But something different is happening now. The latest phase of this history points to a quiet revolution taking place in Virginia and beyond. Where white leaders long bolstered their heritage and authority with a disregard for the graves of the disenfranchised, today activist groups have stepped forward to reorganize and reclaim the commemorative landscape for the remains of people of color and religious minorities. In Death and Rebirth in a Southern City, Ryan K. Smith explores more than a dozen of Richmond's most historically and culturally significant cemeteries. He traces the disparities between those grounds which have been well-maintained, preserving the legacies of privileged whites, and those that have been worn away, dug up, and built over, erasing the memories of African Americans and indigenous tribes. Drawing on extensive oral histories and archival research, Smith unearths the heritage of these marginalized communities and explains what the city must do to conserve these gravesites and bring racial equity to these arenas for public memory. He also shows how the ongoing recovery efforts point to a redefinition of Confederate memory and the possibility of a rebirthed community in the symbolic center of the South. The book encompasses, among others, St. John's colonial churchyard; African burial grounds in Shockoe Bottom and on Shockoe Hill; Hebrew Cemetery; Hollywood Cemetery, with its 18,000 Confederate dead; Richmond National Cemetery; and Evergreen Cemetery, home to tens of thousands of black burials from the Jim Crow era. Smith's rich analysis of the surviving grounds documents many of these sites for the first time and is enhanced by an accompanying website, www.richmondcemeteries.org. A brilliant example of public history, Death and Rebirth in a Southern City reveals how cemeteries can frame changes in politics and society across time.
This is the story of the author's Cottrell heritage from the early 1700s to the present with historical events woven into their lives as they arrived in Virginia from England and eventually moved Westward into Kentucky, Missouri, and California. The author's inclusion of historical events and descriptions of the hardships likely endured by his ancestors makes the Cottrell Story more captivating. Although this book is not meant to be a genealogical reference the events, dates, names, and locations are accurate and based on accepted proof standards unless they include descriptors such as likely, probable, or possible. This allowed the author to include additional information he believes to be true but lacks proof. Primary surnames include Cottrell, Brashear, Lashbrook, Taylor, and Cosby. Extensive sourcing is not included. However, a list of general references used by the author in his research of his Cottrell lineage is included. There is also an index of names to aid in locating specific people.
