Block · one region of the page, as the scanner read it. It may hold a whole story, part of one, several, or an advertisement; stitching blocks into articles is the next step. Text is supplied OCR.
Page 3 · column 1 of 6 · from the scan, no model involved
By Rob Sherwood
Events Coordinator,
Blue Ridge Civil War Round Table
Along with their undisputed valor in battle, Robert E. Lee, Thomas J. (Stonewall) Jackson, and John Singleton Mosby also shared a little known similarity: none of them espoused the cause of succession at the outbreak of the Civil War. Only their beloved state Virginia’s vote for succession on April 17, 1861, brought these future pivotal commanders into the fray on the side of the Southern cause.
Similarly, many Southerners never embraced succession. Many counties faced issues of divided loyalties, but perhaps none more so than Loudoun County in Northern Virginia. Civilians in this border county, according to Civil War historian and novelist Meredith Bean McMath, virtually fought a mini-Civil War of their own. The county had a mix of many divergent groups: proConfederates, pro-Union pacifists (Quakers), pro-Union men willing to fight (who formed Virginia’s only Union troop), slaves and freedmen.
In Loudoun, the Civil War catch phrase of “brother fighting brother” was often a reality. McMath’s detailed research into the journals of local families and Civil War history archives has yielded a rich portrait of this diverse and divided community, a portrait she intends to elaborate on at the next meeting, July 16 of the Blue Ridge Civil War Round Table with a presentation entitled, “The Civilians’ Civil War: Life for the ‘Left Behind’ in Loudoun County, Virginia.”
The Round Table meets at the Old Sperryville Book Shop on Tuesday, July 16,. from 7:30 to 9 p.m. (44 Main Street, Sperryville, Va., 987-8444). Everyone is encouraged to attend; the meeting is free to non-members (who are
95.9%