History Commons^™

John Bankhead Magruder And The Defense Of The Virginia Peninsula, 1861-1862, Leonard W. Riedel Jr.

History Theses & Dissertations

The viability of the Confederacy depended on its ability to organize a government and military defense force. Two early concerns were the operation of Gosport Naval Shipyard and protection of the Confederate capital at Richmond. Poised between them was Fortress Monroe.

With undisputed Union mastery of the Chesapeake Bay, Fortress Monroe was a constant reminder of the tentative security of these critical points. The man chosen to protect the Peninsula was Virginian, John Bankhead Magruder. Less than one year later, his efforts were denigrated by Commanding General Joseph E. Johnston who wanted to pursue his own strategic plan.

Under constant …

A Heritage In Stone: The History Of Norfolk's Burial Grounds And Customs Seventeenth To Nineteenth Century, Cheryl Copper

History Theses & Dissertations

The study of death and burial grounds is not one of endings as much as it is a search for perspective in the continuum of life. Burial customs and graveyards offer a rich thread in the tapestry of local history. From poignant epitaphs to newspaper ads for mourning goods, from stone carvings to grave robbing, a colorful story unfolds; a story whose characters are rich, poor, female, male, black, white, young and old. They are doctors, strangers, craftsmen, mothers-thieves. The fabric of Norfolk's history is woven with their lives-and their deaths. This study is intended to root out the many …

The Road To Reorganization: The First Convention Of The Protestant Episcopal Church In Virginia, May 18-25, 1785, William C. Barnhart

History Theses & Dissertations

Following the War of Independence the Anglican church in the United States was all but defunct. In the eyes of many American communicants, political independence from England necessitated a comparable ecclesiastical divorce. The postwar years produced various plans aimed at the reorganization of the Protestant Episcopal Church. The Episcopalians of Maryland and Pennsylvania took the lead in awakening their brethren to the advantages of national unification.

How did Virginia, perhaps the most Anglicanized state of all, respond to this call for religious solidarity? This matter, and others, were addressed at the first convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Virginia, …

The Origin Of Integration In Virginia's Public Schools : A Narrative History From 1951-1959, James Morrman Weigand

Master's Theses

This thesis traces the origins of integration in Virginia's public schools from a strike for equal facilities by black students in Prince Edward County in 1951 to Governor Almond's capitulation of the resistance movement in 1959. The 1951 student strike became a law suit challenging the constitutionality of Virginia's segregation laws. It was one of four cases heard collectively before the United States Supreme Court in 1954 as Brown v. Board of Education. Virginia resisted the Court's decision until 1959.

The thesis relied upon newspaper accounts and personal interviews. It concluded that a fear of amalgamation of the races and …