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The World After: Central Virginia In The Wake Of The Civil War, Harry Caldwell

Masters Theses, 2020-current

This thesis examines the situation in Central Virginia following the surrender of Appomattox. Its primary focus is on the Federal Provost Guard who were sent back into the region in the month following the Surrender. It begins in March 1865, introducing the world that the Provost will be thrown into that summer, and it will go month to month until January 1866, when the Provost have fully departed from the region and power was fully turned over to civilian authorities. This research is primarily built of the General Orders that were printed in the Lynchburg newspaper, The Daily Virginian, …

Carolina Sunset, Cuban Sunrise: A Comparative Study Of Race, Class, And Gender In The Reconstructed South And Colonial Cuba, 1867-1869, Eric Walls

Madison Historical Review

The loss of the American Civil War and the consequence of Reconstruction literally turned the South on its head, profoundly altering the dynamics of race, class, and gender that previously defined antebellum Southern society. The letters of Harriet Rutledge Elliott Gonzales reveal one formerly elite South Carolina family’s struggle as they faced a new social landscape that forced them to adapt to new challenges, particularly surrounding emancipation and the drastic reversal of the norms that previously characterized Southern society that development entailed. Harriet Rutledge Elliot Gonzales never abandoned a sense of her “aristocratic” origins and “good blood,” despite the hardships …

Good Union People: Enduring Bonds Between Black And White Unionists In The Civil War And Beyond, James Schruefer

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

The thesis investigates the nature of the relationship between white unionists during the American Civil War and their enslaved and free black counterparts. To do this it utilizes the records of the Southern Claims Commission, which collected testimony from former unionists and their character witnesses from 1872 to 1880. For comparative purposes, it focuses on two regions economically similar and frequently contested by opposing armies: Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, and the region of central Tennessee to the southeast of Nashville. As the war began, white unionists were suddenly alienated from the larger community and faced persecution by authorities and threats of …

Memory As Torchlight: Frederick Douglass And Public Memories Of The Haitian Revolution, James Lincoln

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

The following explores how Frederick Douglass and others used public memories of the Haitian Revolution during the nineteenth century.

"Ruin And Desolation Scarcely Paralleled" : An Examination Of The Virginia Flood Of 1870’S Aftermath And Relief Efforts, Paula Fielding Green

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

During the autumn of 1870, a massive flood engulfed parts of Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland. The turbid waters claimed over 100 lives and left communities and residents along the James, Shenandoah, Potomac, Rappahannock, Anna, Rivanna, Maury, Middle, South, Staunton, Rockfish, Tye, and Pamunkey Rivers in varying states of distress. At least one quarter of Virginia was affected by the storm and subsequent flooding, making it significant to multiple areas of the State through the loss of life, property, and infrastructure.

This thesis examines the flooding event in detail through both a written thesis and website component. The written thesis …

The Advent Of Universal Public Education In Virginia And Its Valley: Reconstruction Through The Progressive Era, 1865-1920, Paul N. Belmont Iii

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Prior to 1870 there was no such thing as a public school in the state of Virginia, nor in most of the United States. History regards Reconstruction as a lost moment in time which failed to realize its potential to secure the full promises of freedom. The historiography rightly focuses on this ugly legacy of Reconstruction in a racially segregated south. Virginia’s Redeemer Democrats had rested political control from Radical Republicans by the ratification of the state’s 1870 Constitution. Virginia’s 1902 Constitution is rightly remembered for effectively disenfranchising blacks and poor whites. Yet, the promise of education was introduced to …