Saving Monticello: The Newsletter
The latest about the book, author
events, and more
Newsletter Editor - Marc Leepson
Volume XVI, Number 2 February
1, 2019
“The study of the past is a constantly evolving,
never-ending journey of discovery.” – Eric Foner
THE CIVIL WAR AT MONTICELLO: It’s difficult to
throw a rock in the Commonwealth of Virginia and not hit a spot where some sort
of Civil War event took place. Virginia was the scene of four years of troop
movements and scores of battles and skirmishes, including the first and last
significant engagements of the war—at First Manassas and Appomattox Court House.
Virginia saw more than its share of the largest and bloodiest battles: at
Chancellorsville, Cold Harbor, the Crater (at Petersburg), Fredericksburg
(twice), Manassas (twice), Spotsylvania Court House, and The Wilderness.
Luckily for its preservation—and as
I noted in Saving Monticello—no
fighting of consequence took place near Monticello during the war even though
Charlottesville played an important support role for the Confederate Army. In a
city in which the white citizenry was solidly behind the southern cause,
several Charlottesville businesses provided clothing, supplies, and weapons for
the Confederate Army. There was a 500-bed military hospital in the city and large
shipments of supplies came through town via the railroad.
 |
| Gen. Philip Sheridan and staff, including Geo. Armstrong Custer (right) |
Near the end of the war, Gen. Philip Sheridan’s Union
troops, with some 5,000 cavalrymen under the command of George Armstrong
Custer, occupied the city briefly, arriving on March 3, 1865. There were fears
that the conquering Union troops would wreak havoc in the city, including
burning the University of Virginia. That did not happen.
Instead, University
and city officials met the Union leaders as they entered Charlottesville, and
“surrendered the town with medieval ceremony,” Sheridan wrote in his memoirs,
“formally handing over the keys of the public buildings and the University of
Virginia.” Custer’s men went on to burn a mill in the city that made
Confederate uniforms, destroyed several railroad bridges, and did some
relatively minor confiscating of food (and beverages). As Sheridan put it in
his after-action report: “Forage and subsistence were found in great abundance
in the vicinity of Charlottesville.”
He had stopped in Charlottesville, Sheridan wrote, “for the
purpose of resting, refitting, and destroying the railroad.” He sent raiding
parties “well out toward Gordonsville to break the railroad, and also about
fifteen miles toward Lynchburg for the same purpose… A thorough and systematic
destruction of the railroads was then commenced, including the large iron
bridges over the North and South Forks of the Rivanna River, and the work was
continued until the evening of the 5th….”
When Sheridan’s men left town on
March 6, 1865, they headed south toward Scottsville. Among other things, they
took with them a significant number of formerly enslaved people who took
advantage of the opportunity to free themselves.
 |
African Americans, fleeing slavery, crossing the Rappahannock
River in 1862.
(Library of Congress photo)
Starting in the fall of 1861, Confederate soldiers recuperating from their wounds in C’ville did journey up the mountain and had picnics at Monticello. I didn’t go into detail about those rest and recreational visits in Saving Monticello, other than to say that it wasn’t uncommon for visitors back then to write their names on the walls of the upstairs dome room and to take souvenir chippings from Jefferson’s tombstone in the family graveyard.
I recently came across a description of a Confederate troop
Monticello picnic in the fall of 1863, one I had not seen when doing the research
for the book. The day on the mountain included a “tournament,” according to Louise
Wigfall Wright in her 1905 book, A
Southern Girl in ’61: The War-time Memories of a Confederate Senator’s Daughter.
“Some of the Knights—with only one arm to use—[held] reins
in the teeth and dash[ed] valiantly at the rings with wooden sticks, improvised
as spears for the occasion,” she wrote.
Wright—whom one observer described as “a wealthy young woman
on the highest rungs of Southern society” and a proponent of the “Lost Cause”
theory—noted that a “gallant colonel” who lost an eye “in his country’s
service” was in attendance, wearing an “unsightly” black eye patch as a “badge
of honor.” She also described a “boy captain” at the picnic wearing an “old
ragged faded jacket” with a hole in it where a “minie ball had just missed the
brave heart beneath it.”
EVENTS: Three of my
four February events include talks on Saving
Monticello. They will take place at:
- the annual meeting on Saturday, February 9, of the Potomac Hundred DAR chapter in Rockville, Maryland
- the Winter luncheon of the D.C. chapter of the Society of Mayflower Descendants on Sunday, February 10 in McLean, Virginia
- the Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia, in Fairfax, Virginia, beginning at 12:30 on Tuesday, February 26. That talk and book signing is part of the “Founding Fathers and Their Homes” series and is open to the public. For more info, go to http://bit.ly/JCCNVMonticello email shari.berman@jccnv.org or call 703-537-3068
- On Tuesday, February 12, I will be doing a talk on the history of the American flag, based on my book, Flag: An American Biography, at the Lincoln’s Birthday luncheon in Alexandria, Virginia, following the official ceremonies at the Lincoln Memorial.
There’s always the chance that I may
be doing a last-minute talk or signing. For the latest on that, or to check out
my scheduled 2019 events, go to the Events page on my website at https://leepsoncalendar.blogspot.com
If you’d like to arrange an event
for Saving Monticello—or for any of
my other books, including Ballad of the
Green Beret—please email me.
For info on my latest book, Ballad of the Green Beret, go to http://bit.ly/GreenBeretBook
GIFT IDEAS:
Want a personally autographed, brand-new paperback copy of Saving Monticello? Please e-mail me at marcleepson@gmail.com I also have a few as-new, unopened hardcover
copies, along with a good selection of brand-new copies of my other books: Flag: An American Biography; Desperate
Engagement; What So Proudly We Hailed: Francis Scott Key, a Life; and Ballad of the Green Beret: The Life and Wars
of Staff Sgt. Barry Sadler.
