Showing results for "dranesville a troubled town"
Dranesville: A Troubled Town, Part 4
Part 4 of a series. In 1860 James Coleman owned thirteen people. The oldest was 62 years old; the youngest, five months. Eight of them were females, including the baby, and five were males, and together they helped propel Coleman to a net worth of $11,000. With Coleman’s death in Jan. 1861, the thirteen-enslaved people […]
Read more...Dranesville: A Troubled Town, Part 3
Part three in a series. Part One is here, and Part Two is here. War had come, and the people of Herkimer County, New York answered. Located towards the center of the state, the New Yorkers soon heard of Lincoln’s call for 75,000 volunteers to put down the rebellion. “This was stimulated by sermons bristling […]
Read more...Dranesville, a Troubled Town: Part 2
Part One Can Be Found Here. The white men of Virginia went to the polls on a warm May 23, 1861 to vote on the secession referendum passed a month earlier by a delegates’ convention. By the time the ballots were counted, the secessionists outvoted the Unionists by almost 100,000 ballots.[1] In Fairfax County there […]
Read more...December 20, 1861: The Battle of Dranesville and the Confederate Battle Flag’s Debut
On a chilly morning, four regiments of Confederate infantry started off from their camps near Centreville, Virginia. They accompanied a battery of four cannon, 150 cavalry troopers, somewhere between 200-400 wagons, and were led by Brig. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart. The force, equaling about 2,500 men, did not know that they were headed to the small […]
Read more...Symposium Spotlight: Dranesville
Welcome back to another installment of our 2019 Emerging Civil War Symposium Spotlight. This week’s sneak peak comes to us from longtime ECW member Ryan Quint. Ryan has spent a lot of time researching the forgotten battle of Dranesville. Today he shares just a small sample of what he will be exploring in August.
Read more...A Commemoration to Remember Dranesville
I’ve been to my fair share of battle commemorations. I’ve listened to “Taps” every half hour while working at a National Cemetery’s Memorial Day service. I’ve laid carnations at Fredericksburg’s famous stone wall. But just a little while ago, I went to one of the most unique, touching, and well-done observances of a battle’s anniversary.
Read more...In the Wake of Ball’s Bluff
In his diary on October 22, 1862, John Haley of the 17th Maine recounted his experience camping near the Ball’s Bluff battlefield a year after the battle: “[W]e were sent on picket on a strip of land between the Potomac and the Baltimore & Ohio Canal, nearly opposite Ball’s Bluff, a place of most unhappy […]
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