Our Jefferson Davis entry has been published on the site. I like this bit of drama from Davis’s early career: Davis missed the Black Hawk War (1832) due to illness—Lincoln, however, battled the Sac and Fox tribes as a member of the Illinois militia—but returned in time to escort the Indian chief into captivity. (Davis [...]

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I realize that this isn’t Virginia history exactly, but the Washington Post reports this morning on a recently discovered cache of unknown letters by, to, and about Benjamin Franklin. The sensational find, announced in the upcoming issue of the William & Mary Quarterly, centers on Franklin’s interactions with Gen. Edward Braddock after he and his [...]

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More than $30 million of federal stimulus money will go to the Blue Ridge Parkway and Shenandoah National Park. Shenandoah National Park will receive $17 million, the largest amount of money awarded to any national park in Virginia. Of that sum, $9.5 million will go toward rehabilitating 16 historic overlooks along Skyline Drive. “These projects [...]

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Jill Lepore writes on Edgar Allan Poe in this week’s New Yorker: You love Poe or you don’t, but, either way, Poe doesn’t love you. A writer more condescending to more adoring readers would be hard to find. “The nose of a mob is its imagination,” he wrote. “By this, at any time, it can [...]

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We live in interesting times. We have an African American president, which leads the Washington Post to think anew about the causes of the Civil War. And that same president is getting flak from conservatives over economic policies, which has led the governor of Texas to threaten secession. Sort of. “I believe the federal government [...]

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There’s an interesting piece in this morning’s Washington Post about how schools teach the causes of the Civil War in the era of Obama. Well, Obama is the story’s hook, but aside from some airy cliches about a “national conversation on race,” I’m not sure he has too much to do with anything. Still, talking [...]

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From the Roanoke Times: Elisha Ray Nance died at the Elks National Home in Bedford on Sunday, less than two months before the 65th anniversary of D-Day. Nance, 94, was the last surviving officer of Company A and the last surviving Bedford Boy. He was one of 34 servicemen from the Bedford area who landed [...]

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We’re going to start using this space to regularly spotlight new Encyclopedia Virginia entries. Today, it’s the Rye Cove Cyclone, about a tornado that struck a Scott County school in 1929, inspiring a country music song. After the disaster, a relief train took some of the injured to Clinchport for treatment. Others were taken by [...]

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