The Shenandoah Valley was critical to both north and south during the Civil War. The blessings of peacetime – the fertile fields, breathtaking mountains, and developed roadways – proved to be curses from 1861-1865, bringing war not just to the doorstep, but crashing and burning through the door.
On This Day in Civil War History
The Valley and Its People:
- The Winchester Area: Occupied Winchester
- The Signal Knob Area: Witness to Tragedy
- The New Market-Luray Area: Crossroads of Destiny
- The Rockingham Area: Conflict in the Breadbasket
- The McDowell Area: Mountain Highlands
- The Augusta Area: Strategic Strongpoint
- The Lexington Area: VMI, Jackson, and Lee
- The Geography and Strategic Importance of the Shenandoah Valley
Before and After the War:
The Valley At War:
- The Daughter of the Stars: The Shenandoah Valley at War
- First Battle of Kernstown (March 23, 1862)
- The Battle of McDowell (May 8, 1862)
- Battles of Front Royal and First Winchester (May 23 and 25, 1862)
- Two Victories in Two Days – Cross Keys and Port Republic (June 8 and 9, 1862)
- Results of the 1862 Valley Campaign
- The Strategic Valley
- The Shenandoah Valley and United States Colored Troops
- “Put the Boys In”: The VMI Cadets at New Market (May 15, 1864)
- Thomas Garland Jefferson and Mother Crim (New Market)
- The Battle of Lynchburg (June 17-18, 1864)
- The Battle of Monocacy (July 9, 1864)
- Third Battle of Winchester (September 19, 1864)
- Battle of Fisher’s Hill (September 22, 1864)
- The Cavalry Engagement at Tom’s Brook (October 9, 1864)
- The Battle of Cedar Creek (October 19, 1864)
- A Lost Generation: The Tragic Deaths of Stephen Ramseur and Charles Lowell
- Henry A. du Pont and the Battle of Cedar Creek
- Armed Conflict in the Shenandoah Valley: A Chronology
The Burning:
Civilians in the Whirlwind:
- The Devil Diarists: Life in Wartime Winchester
- Pritchard Family
- Uncertain Freedom:The African Americans’ Civil War in the Shenandoah Valley
- Dissenters from the “Southern Cause”: Unionists in the Shenandoah Valley
- Shenandoah Religion during the Civil War
- A Separate Sovereignty: The Shenandoah Valley’s Confederate Women
- “A torn and bleeding country”: War on the Home Front