Valley of the Shadow

In the Presence of Mine Enemies

  1. The following account is drawn from the Memoir of Alansa Rounds Sterrett, undated entry, fall 1860.
  2. Staunton Vindicator, January 4, 1861, page 1, column 3.
  3. Memoir of Alansa Rounds Sterrett, undated entry, January, 1861.
  4. Staunton Vindicator, January 4, 1861, page 2, column 2.
  5. Staunton Vindicator, January 4, 1861, page 2, column 3.
  6. Staunton Vindicator, January 4, 1861, page 2, column 2.
  7. Staunton Vindicator, January 4, 1861, page 2, column 5.
  8. Staunton Spectator, January 15, 1861, page 2, column 1.
  9. Letter from Alexander H. H. Stuart to Frances Stuart, undated [January 1861], Stuart Family Papers, Virginia Historical Society. Note: this is the correct citation.
  10. Letter from Alexander H. H. Stuart to Frances Stuart, undated [January 1861], Stuart Family Papers, Virginia Historical Society. Note: this is the correct citation.
  11. Staunton Spectator, January 22, 1861, page 2, column 3. The following account is drawn from this article.
  12. Letter from Alexander H. H. Stuart to Frances Stuart, undated [January 1861], Stuart Family Papers, Virginia Historical Society. Note: this is the correct citation.
  13. Staunton Spectator, January 22, 1861, page 1, column 5.
  14. Staunton Spectator, January 22, 1861, page 1, column 5.
  15. Letter from Casper Branner to his father, January 10, 1861, Casper C. Branner Letters, University of Virginia.
  16. Letter from Andrew Brooks to his sister, January 23, 1861, private collection on the Valley of the Shadow website.
  17. Letter from J. H. Cochran to his mother, January 12, 1861, Cochran Family Papers, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Note: Correct date is January 12, 1861.
  18. Staunton Vindicator, January 18, 1861, page 2, column 3; January 25, 1861, page 2, column 3; Staunton Spectator, January 22, 1861, page 1, column 6; January 22, 1861, page 2, column 4.
  19. Staunton Vindicator, January 25, 1861, page 2, column 6.
  20. Staunton Vindicator, January 18, 1861, page 2, column 3.
  21. Staunton Vindicator, January 18, 1861, page 2, column 4.
  22. Staunton Vindicator, January 18, 1861, page 2, column 5.
  23. Staunton Vindicator, January 25, 1861, page 2, column 1.
  24. Staunton Spectator, January 29, 1861, page 2, column 3.
  25. Staunton Vindicator, January 25, 1861, page 2, column 3.
  26. Staunton Spectator, January 29, 1861, page 2, column 1.
  27. Entry by Frank Sterrett in memoir of Alansa Rounds Sterrett, February 4, 1861.
  28. Staunton Vindicator, February 8, 1861, page 2, column 1.
  29. Letter from John Imboden to Greenlee Davidson, February 15, 1861, quoted in Daniel Crofts, Reluctant Confederates: Upper South Unionists in the Secessionist Crisis (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993), p. 154.
  30. Staunton Vindicator, February 8, 1861, page 2, column 1.
  31. Crofts, Reluctant Confederates, p. 175.
  32. Staunton Spectator, January 22, 1861, page 1, column 3; Valley Spirit, February 27, 1861, page 2, column 3.
  33. Abraham Lincoln to John A. Gilmer, December 15, 1860, in Michael P. Johnson, ed., Abraham Lincoln, Slavery, and the Civil War: Selected Writings and Speeches (Boston, MA : Bedford/St. Martin's, 2001), pp. 97-98
  34. Letter from Abraham Lincoln to William Seward, February 1, 1861, in Johnson, Lincoln, pp. 101-102.
  35. Speech by Abraham Lincoln, delivered in Cleveland, Ohio, February 15, 1861, in Johnson, Lincoln, p. 106.
  36. Abraham Lincoln to Lyman Trumbull, December 10, 1860, in Johnson, Lincoln, p. 97.
  37. Richmond Dispatch, February 9, 1861, quoted in Crofts, Reluctant Confederates, p. 153.
  38. Letter from William Garvin to Simon Cameron, January 24, 1861, Simon Cameron Papers, Historical Society of Dauphin County, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
  39. Valley Spirit, January 2, 1861, page 4, column 4.
  40. Valley Spirit, January 16, 1861, page 4, column 2.
  41. Address by J. McD. Sharpe to Franklin County Democrats, delivered February 13, 1861. Text printed in Valley Spirit, February 20, 1861, page 4, column 1. The remainder of his quotations are drawn from this article.
  42. Letter from John Berryhill to Simon Cameron, January 11, 1861.
  43. Staunton Vindicator, February 8, 1861, page 2, column 7. The Vindicator reprinted comments originally printed in the Staunton Spectator.
  44. Letter from George Imboden to John Howard McCue, February 12, 1861, McCue Family Papers, University of Virginia.
  45. Letter from J. H. Cochran to his mother, February 14, 1861.
  46. Letter from Casper Branner to his father, February 9, 1861.
  47. Robert J. Driver, The Staunton Artillery--McClanahan's Battery (Lynchburg, Va.: H. E. Howard, 1988), p. 2.
  48. Staunton Vindicator, March 1, 1861, page 1, column 6.
  49. Henry Thomas Shanks, The Secession Movement in Virginia, 1847-1861 (Richmond, Va.: Garrett and Massie, 1934), p. 158.
  50. Staunton Vindicator, March 1, 1861, page 1, column 6.
  51. Staunton Spectator, March 5, 1861, page 2, column 1.
  52. Shanks, Secession, pp. 161-62; Charles B. Dew, Apostles of Disunion: Southern Secession Commissioners and the Causes of the Civil War (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2001), pp. 59-73, quote from p. 62.
  53. George Reese, ed., Proceedings of the Virginia State Convention of 1861, February 13-May 1 (Richmond: Virginia State Library, 1965), vol. 1, February 28, 1861: pp. 271, 273, 282, 283, 284, 285, 286, 289, 291.
  54. Staunton Vindicator, March 8, 1861, page 2, column 5.
  55. Quoted in Johnson, Lincoln, pp. 108-15.
  56. Staunton Spectator, March 12, 1861, page 2, column 3.
  57. Staunton Vindicator, March 15, 1861, page 2, column 3.
  58. Staunton Vindicator, March 15, 1861, page 2, column 4.
  59. Dew, Apostles, p. 73.
  60. Reese, ed., Proceedings of the Virginia State Convention, vol. 2, March 21, 1861: pp. 138, 140, 142; March 23, 1861, pp. 210, 213, 216.
  61. Staunton Vindicator, March 15, 1861, page 2, column 4.
  62. Staunton Vindicator, March 29, 1861, page 2, column 6.
  63. Staunton Vindicator, March 29, 1861, page 2, column 6.
  64. Staunton Vindicator, March 29, 1861, page 3, column 4.
  65. Letter from John D. Imboden to John H. McCue, February 24, 1861.
  66. Letter of John Cochran to his mother, March 3, 1861.
  67. Staunton Vindicator, April 5, 1861, page 1, column 5.
  68. Staunton Vindicator, April 12, 1861, page 2, column 2.
  69. This account is based on John B. Baldwin, Interview between President Lincoln and Col. John B. Baldwin, April 4, 1861: Statements and Evidence (Staunton, Va.: Spectator Job Office, 1866).
  70. Crofts, Reluctant Confederates, pp. 301-07. Crofts, the closest student of this encounter, believes that "a strong case can be made for the integrity of Baldwin's testimony and that of his corroborative witnesses," even though much about the episode is confusing and contested.
  71. Staunton Spectator, April 9, 1861, page 2, column 4.
  72. Staunton Vindicator, April 12, 1861, page 2, column 2.
  73. Staunton Vindicator, April 12, 1861, page 2, column 3.
  74. Staunton Vindicator, April 12, 1861, page 1, column 4.
  75. Letter from John Cochran to his mother, April 14, 1861.
  76. Staunton Spectator, April 16, 1861, page 2, column 1.
  77. This episode is related in Driver, Staunton Artillery, pp. 2-3.
  78. On Wise, see Craig M. Simpson, A Good Southerner: The Life of Henry A. Wise of Virginia (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985), p. 249.
  79. Alexander Farish Robertson, Alexander Hugh Holmes Stuart, 1807-1891: A Biography (Richmond: William Byrd Press, 1925), pp. 188-92.
  80. Reese, ed., Proceedings of the Virginia State Convention, vol. 4, April 16, 1861, p. 9.
  81. Harold R. Woodward, Jr., Defender of the Valley: Brigadier General John Daniel Imboden, C.S.A. (Berryville, Va.: Rockbridge Publishing Company, 1996), pp. 23-24.
  82. Woodward, Defender, pp. 23-24.
  83. Staunton Spectator, April 16, 1861, page 2, column 2.
  84. Driver, Staunton Artillery, pp. 3-4.
  85. Shanks, Secession, pp. 18-21.
  86. Proclamation quoted in Johnson, Lincoln, April 15, 1861, p. 123.
  87. See Kenneth Stampp, "The Concept of Perpetual Union," The Imperiled Union: Essays on the Background of the Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980) and Phillip S. Paludan, "The American Civil War Considered as a Crisis in Law and Order," American Historical Review (October 1972): pp. 1013-34.
  88. Valley Spirit, April 10, 1861, page 4, column 4.
  89. Semi-Weekly Dispatch, April 19, 1861, page 2, column 1.
  90. Semi-Weekly Dispatch, April 19, 1861, page 2, column 2.
  91. Semi-Weekly Dispatch, April 19, 1861, page 2, column 5.
  92. Semi-Weekly Dispatch, April 19, 1861, page 3, column 1.
  93. Semi-Weekly Dispatch, April 19, 1861, page 3, column 1.
  94. Semi-Weekly Dispatch, April 19, 1861, page 3, column 1.
  95. Correspondence from W. E. Camp to Thaddeus Stevens, April 19, 1861, Thaddeus Stevens Papers, Library of Congress.
  96. Valley Spirit, April 24, 1861, page 2, column 1.
  97. Valley Spirit, April 24, 1861, page 2, column 1.
  98. Valley Spirit, April 24, 1861, page 4, column 1.
  99. Diary of Reverend Abraham Essick, entry dated May 8, 1861, Kittochtinny Historical Society.
  100. An excellent book that has influenced me as well as many others is Drew Gilpin Faust, The Creation of Confederate Nationalism: Ideology and Identity in the Civil War South (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988). Faust shows how Confederates quickly assembled some of the main building blocks of national identity. A complementary account for the North is Susan-Mary Grant, North over South: Northern Nationalism and American Identity in the Antebellum Era (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000).
  101. See James M. McPherson, For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997).
  102. Staunton Spectator, April 23, 1861, page 2, column 1.
  103. Staunton Spectator, April 30, 1861, page 1, column 5.
  104. Staunton Spectator, April 30, 1861, page 1, column 5.
  105. Staunton Vindicator, May 3, 1861, page 1, column 4.
  106. Staunton Spectator, May 14, 1861, page 2, column 3.
  107. Staunton Vindicator, April 26, 1861, page 2, column 3.
  108. Driver, Staunton Artillery, pp. 4-6.
  109. See James I. Robertson, Jr., Stonewall Jackson: The Man, the Soldier, the Legend (New York: Macmillan, 1997), p. 226.
  110. Staunton Spectator, May 14, 1861, page 2, column 7.
  111. Staunton Vindicator, May 17, 1861, page 1, column 3.
  112. Staunton Spectator, May 14, 1861, page 1, column 5.
  113. Staunton Spectator, May 21, 1861, page 2, column 2.
  114. Staunton Vindicator, May 17, 1861, page 2, column 2.
  115. Staunton Vindicator, February 15, 1861, page 3, column 2.
  116. Letter from Mary Smiley to Thomas Smiley, May 23, 1861, Smiley Family Papers, University of Virginia.
  117. Staunton Vindicator, May 24, 1861, page 2, column 4; May 31, 1861, page 1, column 3.
  118. The following account is drawn from the diary of Alansa Rounds Sterrett, entries dated April 4, April 11, April 23, and April 27, 1861.
  119. Letter from unknown correspondent in Chambersburg, to the editor of the Pennsylvania Daily Telegraph, dated April 30, 1861.
  120. Letter from unknown correspondent in Chambersburg, to the editor of the Pennsylvania Daily Telegraph, dated April 30, 1861.
  121. The following account is drawn from a letter from Alexander Cressler to Henry Bitner, May 17, 1861, Henry A. Bitner Letters, University of Virginia.
  122. Semi-Weekly Dispatch, May 21, 1861, page 2, column, 1.
  123. Semi-Weekly Dispatch, May 21, 1861, page 2, column, 1.
  124. Broadside Portfolio 7, number 10, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress.
  125. Staunton Spectator, September 3, 1861, page 1, column 3.
  126. Staunton Spectator, September 3, 1861, page 1, column 3.
  127. Valley Spirit, May 1, 1861, page 4, column 2; Semi-Weekly Dispatch, May 10, 1861, page 3, column 2.
  128. Semi-Weekly Dispatch, May 10, 1861, page 3, column 2.
  129. Semi-Weekly Dispatch, May 17, 1861, page 3, column 2.
  130. Semi-Weekly Dispatch, May 31, 1861, page 3, column 2.
  131. Semi-Weekly Dispatch, May 17, 1861, page 2, column 1.
  132. Valley Spirit, June 26, 1861, page 1, column 4. Reprinted from the Newark Journal.
  133. Valley Spirit, June 26, 1861, page 2, column 1.
  134. Semi-Weekly Dispatch, May 14, 1861, page 2, column 1.
  135. Semi-Weekly Dispatch, May 10, 1861, page 2, column 2.
  136. Semi-Weekly Dispatch, May 17, 1861, page 3, column 1.
  137. Valley Spirit, June 5, 1861, page 2, column 2.
  138. Valley Spirit, June 5, 1861, page 2, column 2.
  139. Semi-Weekly Dispatch, June 4, 1861, page 3, column 2; Valley Spirit, June 5, 1861, page 2, column 2.
  140. Semi-Weekly Dispatch, May 14, 1861, page 1, column 5; May 21, 1861, page 3, column 1.
  141. Semi-Weekly Dispatch, June 4, 1861, page 2, column 2.
  142. Semi-Weekly Dispatch, June 28, 1861, page 2, column 4. Reprinted from the Washington Republican.
  143. Semi-Weekly Dispatch, May 14, 1861, page 2, column 2. Reprinted from the New York Tribune.
  144. Semi-Weekly Dispatch, May 17, 1861, page 2, column 1.
  145. Semi-Weekly Dispatch, July 12, 1861, page 3, column 2.
  146. Staunton Spectator, September 3, 1861, page 1, column 1; September 10, 1861, page 1, column 1; September 10, 1861, page 2, column 1; October 8, 1861, page 1, column 1; column 5.
  147. Staunton Vindicator, January 11, 1861, page 2, column 3.
  148. Staunton Vindicator, February 1, 1861, page 2, column 4.
  149. Staunton Vindicator, January 11, 1861, page 1, column 3.
  150. Augusta County Free Black Registry, entered by John D. Imboden, county clerk, January 28, 1861, Augusta County Courthouse, transcribed by Katherine Bushman.
  151. Staunton Vindicator, January 11, 1861, page 1, column 3.
  152. Staunton Spectator, October 1, 1861, page 2, column 2.
  153. Diary of Michael Reid Hanger, entries dated April 19, 20, and 22, 1861, Hanger Diary, Washington and Lee University.
  154. William Francis Brand to Amanda Catherine Armentrout, April 25, 1861; William Francis Brand to Amanda Catherine Armentrout, June 23, 1861.
  155. Mary A. Smiley to Thomas M. Smiley, April 26, 1861; Ellen Martin to Thomas Smiley, April 28, 1861, Smiley Family Papers, University of Virginia.
  156. Letter from Mary Smiley to Thomas Smiley, April 26, 1861.
  157. Letter from Mary Smiley to Thomas Smiley, April 26, 1861.
  158. Letter to Thomas Smiley from his cousin Maggie, July 12, 1861.
  159. Letter from Mary Smiley to Thomas Smiley, May 30, 1861. For the notion of "vicarious war," see Charles Royster, The Destructive War: William Tecumseh Sherman, Stonewall Jackson, and the Americas (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991).
  160. Letter from Mary Smiley to Thomas Smiley, July 13, 1861.
  161. Letter from Mary Smiley to Thomas Smiley, May 7, 1861. Junkin was the father of Stonewall Jackson's first wife.
  162. Letter from Mary Smiley to Thomas Smiley, May 30, 1861.
  163. Letter from Mary Smiley to Thomas Smiley, July 13, 1861.
  164. Letter from Mary Smiley to Thomas Smiley, May 23, 1861.
  165. Letter to Thomas Smiley from his cousin Hannah, [July] 1861.
  166. Letter from John D. Imboden to John McCue, February 24, 1861.
  167. Letter from Mary Smiley to Thomas Smiley, May 30, 1861.
  168. Letter to Thomas Smiley from his mother, June 1861.
  169. Letter from Mary Smiley to Thomas Smiley, July 13, 1861.
  170. Letter to John McGuffin from his cousin, April 22, 1861, McGuffin Family Papers, University of Virginia.
  171. Letter to John McGuffin from his mother, June 3, 1861.
  172. Letter to John McGuffin from his mother, July 6, 1861.
  173. Letter to John McGuffin from his mother, July 19, 1861.
  174. Staunton Vindicator, April 26, 1861, page 2, column 4.
  175. Letter to Thomas Smiley from his aunt, Ellen Martin, June 4, 1861.
  176. Letter to Thomas Smiley from C. Smiley, June 1861.
  177. Memoir of Alansa Rounds Sterrett, copied from separate sheet, undated, probably early July 1861.
  178. Diary of Michael Reid Hanger, entry dated July 7, 1861.
  179. John P. Lightner to Amanda Catherine Armentrout, May 18, 1861; John P. Lightner to Amanda Catherine Armentrout, June 29, 1861, Brand Family Papers, University of Virginia.
  180. Staunton Spectator, July 16, 1861, page 1, column 3.
  181. Letter from William J. Willey to Alexander H. H. Stuart, dated May 7, 1861, Stuart Family Papers, University of Virginia.
  182. Richard O. Curry, A House Divided: A Study of Statehood Politics and the Copperhead Movement in West Virginia (Pittsburg: University of Pittsburg Press, 1964), p. 7.
  183. Curry, A House Divided, p. 55.
  184. Letter from Jedediah Hotchkiss to Sara Hotchkiss, dated June 27, 1861, Hotchkiss Papers, Library of Congress.
  185. Letter from Jedediah Hotchkiss to Sara Hotchkiss, dated July 7, 1861; July 18, 1861.
  186. David J. Eicher, The Longest Night: A Military History of the Civil War (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2001), pp. 82-86.
  187. Staunton Spectator, August 27, 1861, page 1, column 1. Note: Correct date is August 27, 1861.
  188. M. G. Harman to Robert E. Lee, July 15, 1861, Official Records of the War of the Rebellion, Series I, vol. 2, Serial 2, ch. 9.
  189. Alexander H. H. Stuart to Hon. L. P. Walker, July 20, 1861, Official Records of the War of the Rebellion, Series 1, vol. 51, Serial 108.
  190. Semi-Weekly Dispatch, July 2, 1861, page 2, column 4.
  191. Semi-Weekly Dispatch, July 19, 1861, page 2, column 2.
  192. Semi-Weekly Dispatch, July 19, 1861, page 2, column 3.
  193. Report of F. J. Porter, Assistant Adjutant-Gen, June 3, 1861, Official Records of the War of the Rebellion, Series 1, vol. 2, Serial No. 2.
  194. McClure, Old Time Notes of Pennsylvania, pp. 491-93.
  195. McClure, Old Time Notes of Pennsylvania, pp. 491-93.

Text and images Copyright 2003 by Edward L. Ayers. All rights reserved. A part of the Valley of the Shadow Project