It Is Not J. E. B. Stuart

 

Over the last few weeks, I have seen multiple people refer to the statue on the grounds of the Patrick County, Virginia, courthouse as J. E. B. Stuart. IT IS NOT STUART! It is a statue to honor all the men from Patrick County who fought for the Confederate States of America in the War Between the States 1861-65. Stuart is on the base under the statue.

With the recent discussion of the Confederate Statue in front of the Patrick County, Virginia, courthouse, Daniel Louis asked me to give a little background information about the statue in front of the Patrick County Courthouse in Stuart, Virginia. For a little history about Stuart and the town that bears his name today. Patrick County formed in 1790-91 depending on which source one believes, named for Patrick Henry. The county seat was named Taylorsville, after George Taylor, a hero of the American Revolution, but was usually known as Patrick Court House in most of the contemporary letters I have read over the years. It became Stuart in 1884 after the Civil War to honor General J. E. B. Stuart, twenty years after his death in 1864.

In 1936, the statue of a Confederate Veteran was placed on the courthouse grounds in Stuart, Virginia, with a plaque on the base honoring J. E. B. Stuart. The statue is not Stuart, but represents all the men from “The Free State of Patrick,” who served in the war fought from 1861 to 1865 for the Confederate States of America. The Junior Book Club organized in 1933 with 17 members. They put up the statue, not the usual organizations like the United Daughters of the Confederacy or the Confederate Veterans, now the Sons of the Confederate Veterans. The club spawned from a book club that met originally in 1925. Virginia Lt. Governor James H. Price spoke at the dedication. I believe it belongs to Patrick County. Interestingly, it was one of the last Confederate Veteran statues placed in Virginia and the last one before World War Two. It would be another 28 years before another went up in Virginia.

            In the 1860 Census, 1617 men between the ages of 15 and 50 lived in Patrick County. Eighty-seven percent served in the war. These soldiers faced daunting odds in their service for the South. Seventeen percent became prisoners. Most horrifying for their families, twenty-seven percent made the ultimate sacrifice and died. There were at least 152 men from Patrick in the 42nd Virginia Infantry and only 6 at Appomattox. Of the 334 Patrick County residents who lost their lives in 1862, 102 died due to the war. One can imagine the mental anguish this war brought to them and their families.

Patrick men fought in all the major engagements in Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Kentucky, and North Carolina. The majority of these men enlisted from Elamsville or Ararat at opposite ends of the county.

Patrick County men served in fifty different regiments of artillery, cavalry and infantry during the war. Twenty-five percent of them served in the 51st Virginia Infantry Regiment. The 50th, 24th and 42nd Virginia Infantry Regiments contained the next largest numbers. Seven percent of Patrick Countians served in the cavalry and three percent in artillery units. Others served in diverse organizations such as the 5th Battalion Virginia Reserves, 6th Virginia Infantry, 58th Virginia Infantry, the Orange Artillery, and the 21st Virginia Cavalry. Many served in North Carolina units such as the 53rd Infantry Regiment or 2nd Cavalry Regiment.

Here are some of their stories. A headstone in the Hunter’s Chapel Church Cemetery in Ararat lists James T. W. Clements of Pittsylvania County, 6th Virginia Cavalry. Sheridan’s cavalry captured Clements along with sixty men making a last stand at Yellow Tavern the day “Jeb” Stuart received his mortal wound on May 11, 1864. Present in Harrisonburg, Virginia on June 6, 1862, Clements’ company carried the dead Turner  Ashby from the field. Clements served time in a Yankee prison before returning home to Virginia.

The pool of men of marriageable age forced many women to marry much older men such as Edward Noah Martin, who was forty-eight years older than his bride, Naomi Caroline Moran. She kept a sense of humor, stating that, “I’d rather be an old man’s darling than a young man’s slave.” You can see their picture hanging in Wanda’s Estate and Custom Jewelry in Stuart and a giant billboard for the business too.

Many children grew up never knowing their father such as Susan Emma Moss, born after the death of her father Jesse Moss of Company G, 51st Virginia Infantry. Moss died of measles and rests today ten miles north of New Market in a cemetery near Mount Jackson. His wife’s pension application is the only record of his service in the Confederate Army. My friend Tommy Morse Moss is descended from him.

            Andrew Jackson Stedman of Gates County, North Carolina, enlisted as a sergeant in Company B, 49th North Carolina Infantry, and received a wound at Malvern Hill in July 1862. He became a first lieutenant in the Signal Corps. He married Susan K. Staples of Patrick County after the war, practiced law in Stokes County, North Carolina, and edited the first newspaper in Patrick County, The Voice of the People, in 1876. It is still in print today as The Enterprise.

Descendants of the veterans formed the Wharton-Stuart Camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans on April 14, 1906, with George T. Munford as commandant, Samuel M. Lybrook as first lieutenant commandant, R. H. Dunkley as Second Lieutenant Commandant, R. E. Woolwine as Adjutant, L. C. Dickerson as surgeon, John A. Adams as quartermaster, John W. Wimbush as chaplain, along with a treasurer, color sergeant, historian and over seventy-six members.

Patrick County’s Civil War soldiers are all gone. They rest in graves from northern Georgia and Fort Donelson, Tennessee to Finns Point, New Jersey, and Elmira, New York. The last veteran of the War, Joseph Henry Brown, served in Company G of the 24th Virginia Infantry. Born in 1843, he survived the war after capture at Five Forks in April 1865, as Robert E. Lee’s lines were broken around Richmond forcing the retreat that ended in surrender at Appomattox. Brown died in 1940 at the age of 96, ending the last human link to the war.

            These are the men the statue on the courthouse square represent. All of this comes from my book The Free State of Patrick: Patrick County Virginia In the Civil War. Available at www.freestateofpatrick.com.

 

 

The statue went up in 1936.

 

 

The plaque on the base remembers Stuart.

 

The statue on top is a Confederate Veteran.

 

The Patrick County, Virginia, Courthouse.

 

 

J. E. B. Stuart on the base.

 

 

Patrick and Henry Counties In Vietnam

On Wednesday, September 13, I am speaking to the Daughters of the American Revolution about Vietnam. Here are my comments.

 

          Several years ago, Debbie Hall and I began working on a project that became the thing that I am most proud of all the things I have done relating to history. We invited the veterans of Vietnam to come in and talk to us. Here are some thoughts from that project.

They came in by themselves. For those who died, their older sisters came in for them. In one case a niece came with her uncle, who lost his arm in the war. One was a drill sergeant that trained men for the war. One guarded B-52 planes in Thailand and another ran communications south of the capitol along the river that led to the sea. Others served on aircraft carriers or destroyers in the U. S. Navy. Most were Marines or men in the U. S. Army who fought against the Vietcong or the Army of North Vietnam. Some would not talk at all, but brought in their photos and many items from their time in Southeast Asia. Others found the experience a cathartic experience that allowed them to release the pain and experiences they held inside sometimes for decades. They were the Vietnam Veterans and they humbled me with their service to this nation even though at the time their service was not appreciated and in many cases they were abused and even spit on by their fellow citizens at the time. Today, veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan do not experience treatment such as this, but for the men who went to Southeast Asia in the 1960s and 1970s we felt the need to say “It is never too late, welcome home.”

            The voices I heard working on this exhibit and book had many things in common besides their service in Vietnam. Almost all have some physical health problems due to their service in Vietnam. Many blamed it on the defoliants used to control the jungle growth in South Vietnam such as “Agent Orange.” Many had mental health issues relating to their service, but not all. Some of the men who spoke with me found ways to deal with what they saw. One Air Force man spent years in therapy and kept a journal that he wrote down his thoughts and those of others to deal with the pain of his time in Indo-China. Several took photographs and slides that they shared. These men used these images as their way of dealing with the things they might not want to talk about. A few used humor to deal with their time in the service and spoke glowingly of the time in Vietnam and the people they fought to keep free. A few even expressed a wish to return to the country they fought to keep free from communism.

            There were men who fought and would go back, but most felt the war took their friends and their youth when they were as Oliver Wendell Holmes, himself a Civil War Veteran, spoke of being “Touched by Fire.” Their bitterness is understandable considering the treatment they received for doing nothing more than answering the call of their country at a time of war even though it was never called a war, but a “Conflict” so that Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon did not have to answer to the U. S. Congress except for monies to fund the “Conflict” in far off Vietnam.

            One with the nickname of “Hillbilly” brought it home for me during an interview that he did not want recorded. He asked me if I wanted to see the cost of freedom and when I answered affirmatively, he pulled up his shirt to show me the three wounds he received in battle as a part of a “Recon” team in the jungles of South Vietnam. He experiences health problems due to his exposure to “Agent Orange” that was used to kill the jungle so that the forces of the United States could see their enemies easier and clear spaces to operate within the nation they tried to keep from Communism.

            The men who died were represented by their older sisters, who came in with photos and stories about their younger brother. Time is not kind to women as these ladies all are in their sixth and seventh decades while their younger male siblings remain frozen in time in their late teens and early twenties. Wrinkles and extra weight are not problems for the departed, they are forever young with bronze skin and fit bodies trained in the art of war by their nation to as Bruce Springsteen sang in Born in the U. S. A. “going off to kill the yellow man.”

            These women brought in photos of their brothers from the time they were children and especially spoke eloquently about their mothers and the relationships with what for many of them was their only sons. Few spoke of their father’s feelings as I expect they did not know their father’s feelings as men do not express their emotions the way those who carried these now dead heroes in their wombs. For the most part all of those who lost their lives did so early in their tour of service in Vietnam with one exception due to the pettiness of an officer. In many cases the way these men died was not the story told their families, but the official government description did not match up with the tales of the men who witnessed the end of their compatriots.

            There was emotion kept in secret in some cases for decades. It was not just the sisters of the men who gave their lives, but many of the men who returned and shared their stories became emotional during the course of our conversations. Often, I found myself acting as a therapist for these men, but what amazed me was the simple greatness in all of these men and women who were willing to talk about a time of their lives that many thought would be forgotten because until we started this project no one has asked them about their service or the service of those they lost.

            Another tragic aspect of this work was the several children who never knew or could not remember their fathers, who died in Vietnam without ever laying eyes on them or because they were simply too young to recall the young men who were their fathers. One thing important to me was to visit the graves of all the men who lost their lives in Vietnam as a sign of respect and to make their sacrifice tangible for me personally.

            A gratifying aspect of this project was the men and families of the lost thanking us for doing this project. I never realized that while the men of World War Two receive thanks in the form of monuments, movies and documentaries, Korea and Vietnam do not and the simple fact that we wanted to remember those who passed and those who served meant much to these people and it came to mean much to those of us involved in the project. These are some introductory remarks about the interviews we conducted and converted to DVD so that those visiting the exhibit could hear and see the people and the faces and voices from Vietnam.

            Over twenty hours of video and 2,000 scanned images resulted from this project and exhibit. It came to feel that we were meant to do this project at this time due to all sorts of coincidences that some might see as fate or “God’s Will,” but I know that it seemed that remembering the men who served in a controversial war and forgotten service was well worth the effort. At least one day a week or more, we spent interviewing, scanning, and talking to veterans and their families about their service, memories and how they feel about the longest war fought by the United States.

            Serving your country when it is not the popular thing to do takes a special kind of courage. The sunshine patriot as Thomas Paine stated over two hundred years ago will shirk from such service, but the men and women who went to Vietnam did not. Many expressed their time in the military as “My country, good or bad.” While not all might go back if the war in Vietnam was today, they did then and we should honor their service and not the cowards, who ran off to Canada, and protestors, who get all the air time for taking the popular view today.

            We should never forget that such people make our nation great and exceptional. Most were the children of World War Two servicemen and women, who saved the world from the Nazis, their allies, and Imperial Japan. Several served in two wars that we tend to forget about the 1950s war on the Korean Peninsula and in Indo-China.

            Without exception everyone who came into to talk to us ended up thanking us for remembering their service to this country. It is a humbling feeling to have men, who faced the combat and time in Vietnam to thank you for remembering. These are men who it was my great honor to cross paths in researching history. They reminded me of something Ernest Hemingway once wrote, "The world is a fine place and worth fighting for."

 

Never Forget: Martinsville, Patrick and Henry Counties In Vietnam is available online at www.freestateofpatrick.com

Bill Bryson Comes To Critz

 

Many might know Bill Bryson for the book and movie A Walk In The Woods about his attempt to walk the Appalachian Trail with an old friend. They didn’t get to walk it all, but they did get portrayed in a movie by Robert Redford and Nick Nolte. Those of us who have read many of Bryson’s travel books know that he came to Patrick County, Virginia, way back in the late 1980s.

            In The Last Continent: Travels in Small-Town America published in 1989, Bryson writes about coming through our neck of the woods. In the warm and fuzzy way that Bryson writes, I type with my tongue held firmly in my cheek, yes sarcasm, something I am known for, he rips us to shreds.

            When I first saw Critz and Patrick Springs in the index, I should have known what was coming, but still I read on, only to find that the sharp tongue of Bryson landed in my home county. In chapter eleven beginning on page 123 Bryson begins telling of his aversion to highway historical markers as his father apparently stopped and read everyone he encountered, out loud to his wife and three children. Bryson’s father sounds like my kind of man, but apparently, this left deep emotional scars in the offspring. Specifically, his father would nearly kill the entire family by pulling back out in the highway unaware of the myriad of trucks that nearly flattened their vehicle. His father always said the same things. “Well, I’ll be darned…Yes, that was really very interesting.”

            Bryson apparently traveling west to east along Highway 58, Bryson was trying to get to the Booker T. Washington National Monument to the north east in Franklin County, Virginia. He “spied a side road leading to a place called Critz.” Bryson turned his Chevette, yes that’s right a Chevette, towards Critz saying, “My first rule of travel is never go to a place that sounds like a medical condition and Critz clearly was an incurable disease involving flanking skin.”

            Bryson turned, no doubt, on to the Abram Penn Road heading towards Critz and the Reynold Homestead, which was either horribly marked or he chose to ignore as that might lead to all sorts of anti-tobacco comments or to make Critz sound a little more civilized. Bryson does write with an agenda especially in his politics.

            He grew up in Iowa, but then moved to England, where he still lives, I believe at least part time. Many of his books deal with Europe or the English language. Anyway, back to Critz.

            Bryson got lost. He passed through Sanville, Pleasantville, Preston, and then back to Sanville for a third time when he stopped to ask an older man, who was “taking his dog out to splash urine around the neighborhood” for directions. The old fellow then “launched into a set of instructions of the most breathtaking complexity” for five minutes. Describing the instructions as something like a description of Lewis and Clark’s journey west. The old man took Bryson to Preston, by the old McGregor place via the “drover’s road”, but not to take the road to the left towards “Dead Man’s Creek” as the bridge is out and Bryson would plunge into the stream.

            Bryson thanked him, continued on, where he took the wrong fork in the road and eventually came back by the same old fellow, who was gesturing at him “excitedly” and shouting. Bryson “plundered” back to Highway 58, two hours after setting off for Critz. “Sourly, I pulled back onto the highway and drove for many long hours is silence.”

            He did not make it to Booker T. Washington or Monticello as he had hoped. I think he doesn’t realize how close he was to making it at Sanville, he could have turned north and made his way to Highway 57 and then to 220 and north to 40 and on to visit Booker T.

            So ends Bill Bryson’s visit to The Free State of Patrick and along the border of neighboring Henry County. It was before the days of smartphones, which Bryson swears off. He must have passed by the Reynolds Homestead and the historic highway marker denoting Abram Penn, which would have brought memories back of his father, which he must have shut out. “The day had been a complete washout. I had no lunch, no life giving infusions of coffee. It had been a day without pleasure or reward.”

Vagabonds Visit Virginia

HENRY FORD,

THOMAS EDISON,

HARVEY FIRESTONE, JR.,

AND JOHN BURROUGHS

COME TO MARTINSVILLE VIRGINIA

 

 

On August 29, 1918, with the shadow of World War One looming over the entire world, a group of famous men and their entourage visited Martinsville, Virginia, as part of a thirteen day “circle tour” into the “Land of Dixie.” The group included Henry Ford, the founder of Ford Motor Company, Thomas Edison, the world-famous inventor, Harvey Firestone, Jr. the man who put tires on the cars and naturalist John Burroughs.

 

The group made a two-week summer trip calling themselves the “Vagabonds” from 1915 until 1924. In 1919, the trip included fifty vehicles including a kitchen camping car with a gas stove and ice box built into the vehicle. Later trips included President of the United States, Warren G. Harding. The group were the subject of news reels that promoted Ford cars and Firestone tires, filmed by a cameraman from Ford Motor Company.

 

 




Ford called Edison his “boyhood idol” and the two had summer homes Florida together. Edison navigated with his compass sitting in the “perch,” the front seat of the first car. Edison often recited chemical formulas or told tall tales to the group. The group slept in personal tents with power for lights supplied by Edison generators.

 

The group left Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on August 18 on a nearly two-week excursion. They traveled through West Virginia to Hot Springs, White Sulphur Springs, Princeton, Bluefield, and then into Virginia visiting Lebanon, Abington, and Bristol, before visiting the Great Smoky Mountains and Asheville, North Carolina, where they stayed at the Grove Park Inn. The group had dinner at the Rotary Club in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, before making their way back into Virginia and a visit to Martinsville on August 29, 1918.

 

 

Naturalist John Burroughs kept records and photographs of their trip. “A plunge into the South for a Northern Man is in many ways a plunge into the Past. As soon as you get into Virginia, there is a change.” Burroughs was in his seventies during the excursions. He taught the group bird calls and how to identify birds. Firestone said, “We never knew where we are going.”

 

 

The entourage included six cars: two Packards, two Model Ts, and two Ford trucks. They had seven drivers/helpers and plant pathologists, Professor R. J. DeLoach.  This was 1918 when the vehicles could move along about 18 miles an hour on roads that were mostly dirt or a “Macadon” surface. Counties, not states, took care of the roads. Many roads were taken care of by the people, who lived along the roads, so it was hit or miss when it came to quality of the road ways this group encountered.  Many times, there were toll gates with costs such as two cents for cars and five cents for trucks.

 

Henry Ford was age 55 in 1918 and wanted to “reconnect with nature” on this journeys.  Ford chopped wood and loved to hike and even rode wheat harvesters. Once when a radiator broke, Ford fixed it himself.

 

Sometimes wives joined the group. Firestone once brought a butler. At night around the campfire, the “Vagabonds” ate ribeye steaks and talked about everything from Mozart to Shakespeare.

 

Once when a vehicle broke down, a local man inquired of the group and was told, “I am Thomas Edison. I am Henry Ford.” The local looked at Burroughs, who had a long white beard and skeptically asked, “Are you Santa Claus?”

 

 

From Martinsville, the “Vagabonds” went on to Roanoke and the Natural Bridge before overnighting at the Castle Inn in Lexington, Virginia. One of their stops included the Old Hambrick Mill, which is no longer standing in Franklin County, Virginia, along the Blackwater River near Gogginsville, Virginia.

 

On September 1, 1918, the group went on to Staunton, Virginia. The group completed their trip “road weary” in Hagerstown, Maryland.

 

There were apparently other visits by individual members of the group such as Thomas Edison in May 1906 when he stopped in the area on his way to Lincolnton, North Carolina, to investigate supplies of cobalt to use in a storage battery. He was called “the greatest man in the country” by a local man. Edison replied to the compliment asking, “What about Teddy?” referring to then President Theodore Roosevelt.  Another visit by Edison, Firestone, and Ford reportedly in 1910 on their way to Fort Meyers, Florida, where they had homes.

 

You can learn more at this link of John Burroughs Our vacation days of 1918.

https://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/drs:46429194$58ihttps://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/drs:46429194$58i



A Portrait of J. E. B. Stuart

 

Tonight I will be speaking the Fincastle Rifles Sons of Confederate Veterans Camp about the portrait and the resulting controversy and outcome of these events.

            On August 19, 2015, Judge Martin F. Clark, Jr. took down the portrait of Confederate Major General James Ewell Brown “Jeb” Stuart in the Stuart, Virginia, courthouse, where he presides. A few weeks later on August 31, Clark held his last book signing for his new book The Jezebel Remedy in Patrick County at Meadows of Dan. Two days after his book signing, he released a four page statement announcing he had taken the portrait down and his reasoning that was basically “someone” complained about it due to the fact Stuart fought for slavery and an African-American might feel they could not get a fair trial in a courtroom, which also held a portrait of Patrick Henry, for whom Patrick County is named. Henry was a much larger slave owner than Stuart and his portrait still hangs on the wall of the courtroom.

            Confederate symbols came under increased public scrutiny in the summer of 2015 after the June 17 massacre of nine black worshippers at a church in Charleston, South Carolina. Subsequently, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley caved into political correctness and worked to remove the Confederate flag from the statehouse grounds in Columbia even though there was a law in place to prevent such an action.

Oscar winning actress Julianne Moore called for the name of the high school she attended to change its name a few weeks before Clark took down the portrait. The name was J. E. B. Stuart High School, located in Fairfax, Virginia, which in 1861 had been the site of a camp Stuart occupied in the early days of the War Between the States. The school became one of the most diverse high schools in the United States.

At Hillsville, Virginia’s, giant Labor Day flea market a few weeks after the portrait came down, I was selling books. Almost everyone who came into my tent wanted to talk about “Jeb” Stuart and “PORTRAITGATE.” No one supported the removal of the portrait from the Patrick County Courthouse.

One of those who came into my tent was Ed Turner III, who shared some interesting information with me. I know there is information in my papers at Virginia Tech, but I have not had time to visit to go through all that and my memory is not what it once was on all things J. E. B. Stuart. That is why I wrote books about it. Ed’s father, Edward Turner, Jr., was Patrick County Administrator in the 1970s and in my thirty years of research I have come across his name often in his efforts to preserve Patrick County history including efforts to save Stuart’s Birthplace in the 1970s.

            After all the controversy surrounding the portrait of “Jeb” Stuart, I made a trip to the Bassett Historical Center, our regional history and genealogy library, to have a look in the files. Here is what I found after about an hour of research.

On Monday, February 7, 1972, the day before was James Ewell Brown “Jeb” Stuart’s 139^th birthday, the newly formed Patrick County Historical Society presented the “People of Patrick County” a portrait of Stuart dressed as a Major General in the Confederate States of America’s Army of Northern Virginia. Judge John D. Hooker accepted the portrait saying, “I think it is well, indeed, that one of the first things the Patrick County Historical Society is doing is placing on the walls of this courtroom the portrait of one of Patrick County’s greatest.” Judge Hooker stated that he “cherished” the fact that the portrait of his father was hung on a wall with J. E. B. Stuart, who was “a young man who made a tremendous contribution to a cause that he considered to be just.”

The portrait was the work of Ellen D. Stuart, a relative of J. E. B. Stuart. She completed the watercolor in 1889 and referred to in this document as the portrait.  It was a copy of an earlier painting that was a gift to Flora Cooke Stuart, widow of J. E. B. Stuart, from Major Heroes von Borcke, a Prussian, who served on Stuart’s staff during the War Between the States. The original painting went to the descendants of Flora and J. E. B. Stuart’s daughter Virginia Pelham Stuart Waller.

            The portrait made its way to the Stuart Normal College in Stuart, Virginia. The school started in 1906 and “The portrait of General Stuart graced this auspicious occasion.” The portrait then made its way to Stuart High School in the 1920s, but was not hung that anyone in 1972 could remember. Next, the portrait graced the walls of the J. E. B. Stuart Inn, formerly the Perkins Hotel, in uptown Stuart today.  The hotel burned, but the portrait was not a casualty. The portrait disappeared after that for many years.

            Many people worked tirelessly to find the portrait and get it in condition to hang in the courthouse. Judge Hooker pointed out that Mrs. N. C. Terry, mother of Mary Sue Terry, former Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Virginia, provided “invaluable assistance” in tracing the whereabouts of the portrait. Mrs. Terry corresponded with Miss Sidney Penn, a descendant of Abram Penn, who was the last surviving teacher at the Stuart Normal College. Miss Lula West, nursed in France during World War I was another that gave information on the portrait.

            Murray Thompson, publisher of The Enterprise, Patrick County’s weekly newspaper, contacted Edward Turner, Jr. about the portrait and the search began. Turner and Stuart Elementary School Principal Calvin Shockley found the portrait in a storage trailer at the school.

            The portrait went to Remsen Studio in Martinsville, Virginia for a restoration paid for by the Patrick County Historical Society and J. E. B. Stuart Senior Woman’s Club. Turner said the restored painting was a “real beauty” making a joke about J. E. B. Stuart’s nickname at West Point, where his classmates called him “Beauty,” which was not a term of endearment.

            That Monday night in 1972, Miss Ruth Jean Bolt of Meadows of Dan presided over the meeting as Mrs. Terry could not be present. The speaker that night was Samuel R. Levering, who owned Levering’s Orchard in Ararat.  A lifelong “Quaker,” Levering represented the Friends Committee on National Legislation. He spoke that night to 100 people on the “world situation and Vietnam.”

            Judge Hooker hung the portrait in the Circuit Courtroom near the portrait of his father James Murray Hooker, who represented Patrick County in the Fifth District in the U. S. House of Representatives in a newly renovated courtroom in 1972. Another portrait hanging is of Judge Andrew Murray Lybrook (1832-99) and Patrick Henry.

            Now a little history about Stuart and the town that bears his name today. Patrick County formed in 1790-91 depending on which source one believes. The county seat named Taylorsville, after George Taylor, a hero of the American Revolution, was usually known as Patrick Court House in most of the contemporary letters I have read over the years.

It became Stuart in 1884 during the heyday of the “Lost Cause” after the Civil War to honor General J. E. B. Stuart (1833-64). Born at the Laurel Hill Farm in Ararat, Stuart served as Robert E. Lee’s cavalry commander in the Army of Northern Virginia. Stuart served in the U. S. Army for seven years, mainly in the Kansas Territory, after graduating from the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York in 1854. He resigned as a Captain in the 1st U. S. Cavalry. Stuart joined the Confederacy and rose to the rank of Major General serving under Lee before losing his life on May 12, 1864. He rests today in that city’s Hollywood Cemetery.

In 1936, the statue of a Confederate Veteran was placed on the courthouse grounds in Stuart, Virginia, with a plaque on the base honoring J. E. B. Stuart. The statue is not Stuart, but represents all the men from “The Free State of Patrick,” who served in the war fought from 1861 to 1865.

            Several years ago at one of my myriad of book signings, a gentleman approached my table and looked at the book God’s Will Be Done: The Christian Life of J. E. B. Stuart. He said to me that he did not see how anyone who fought for slavery could be a Christian. A fair question for someone who sees the world through today’s standards, but when you judge people in the past by your standards that is simply not fair.

            I have seen the term “fair” bandied about with regards to the removal of the portrait from the Patrick County Courthouse. There was a judgement on the man in the portrait, James Ewell Brown “Jeb” Stuart, because of his service in the Army of Northern Virginia as Robert E. Lee’s cavalry commander and how it was not potentially fair to those the descendants of the slaves freed by that war.

            In 1988, I began thinking seriously about preserving the birthplace of the man in question. I became interested in the War Between the States at Virginia Tech, where I studied under renowned Historian James I. Robertson, Jr. I spent several year learning about my fellow Patrick Countian, “Jeb” Stuart. I devoted the next few years of my life to study and eventually I traveled all over the nation visiting nearly every place Stuart lived or served going as far west as Fort Davis, Texas, near El Paso, and to West Point, New York, where he graduated from the United States Military Academy before serving seven years in the U. S. Army. I have been to every library or society that had Stuart materials and read or transcribed every letter, telegraph, report, and known communication of the man in question.

            In 1990, I started the effort to preserve the site of his birthplace in Ararat, Patrick County, Virginia, where he was born on February 6, 1833, the eighth of eleven children to Archibald Stuart. Archibald served as Commonwealth Attorney, the same position held by Martin F. Clark, Sr., an interesting dynamic of fathers and sons in this is not lost on me as both Stuarts and both Clark’s were lawyers. Stuart passed the bar while in Kansas in the 1850s, and the other three all practiced law in the same courtroom where the painting hung until August.

            I wished to preserve the property that is now on the National and Virginia Registers of Historic Places because it was an important piece of historic property nationally and an important part of Patrick County’s history. I grew up two miles from Stuart’s birthplace, Laurel Hill, and thus it was part of my history.

            I wanted to preserve the property because J. E. B. Stuart did not have a single place in the country devoted to his history. He wrote often of his love for what he called “The Dear Old Hills of Patrick” and wished to return to it if he survived the war fought from 1861-65. He resigned to fight for Patrick County and Virginia. He was a man of his time and the pull of home and hearth was more important to him.

Stuart witnessed firsthand the radicalism of John Brown and the Abolitionists at Harper’s Ferry in 1859, when he approached the firehouse door to demand the surrender of Brown. Only Stuart recognized Brown from his time in the Kansas Territory in the 1850s. Stuart abhorred Abolitionists and the “Fire Eaters,” who wanted secession, but if Virginia left the Union, he would go with her. Brown’s raid, I believe, changed his viewpoint. I do not believe he saw a way out of the impending crisis.

            I have seen it stated this week that Stuart did not own slaves. He and his father owned slaves. During his time in the U. S. Army, Stuart owned slaves. Among them were William, who Stuart gave a $25.00 monthly cash allowance, Bettie, who Stuart acquired from Archibald’s estate was valued at $770. He sold her “south” for mistreatment of little Flora, Stuart’s daughter. He bought a “Negro boy” age 21 named Ben for $1100.00.

            Today, you can go to Laurel Hill in Ararat and you will see slavery talked of in the open with no effort to cover it up or the Stuart’s relationship to it. It was there. It was part of that time. We should learn from it and not judge people. We cannot walk in their shoes or understand their lives unless we do it with empathy not judgement.

Getting back to the question the man asked me all those years ago. How does a Christian own slaves or fight for slavery? J. E. B. Stuart grew up in a house with a Presbyterian father and a very “High Church” Episcopalian mother. He attended services in Mount Airy, North Carolina, at the forerunner of today’s Trinity Episcopal Church on Main Street. While at Emory and Henry College, he joined the Methodist Church. While in the U. S. Army, Stuart returned to the church of his mother. I believe a man can be a Christian because he lived in a different time with a different set of values.

            Stuart lived his faith. He saw firsthand the role that alcohol ruined lives in the U. S. Army and was a “Temperance Man” giving speeches about the evil of alcohol abuse. He promised his mother at age twelve he would not drink.

            Stuart put his money where his faith was. He started a church in today’s Junction City, Kansas, just outside his post at Fort Riley. He sent his mother $100 to match him and start a small church in Ararat, which she did leaving an acre of her property for such a purpose when she sold it in 1859.

            Stuart witnessed about his faith. He attended revivals and bought his men copies of the scriptures from his own pocket. He always ascribed his military success to God in reports and letters. Here is one such statement, "From the first I prayed God to be my guide and I felt an abiding hope that all would be well with us.”

As he laying dying in Richmond on May 12, 1864, at his brother-in-law’s home on Grace Street, after receiving a wound from one of George Custer’s cavalrymen, he faced his death with the quiet grace of a true Christian. He sang Rock of Ages with those present and left this world with the last words, “God’s Will Be Done.” I believe Stuart did not fear death because he was a true believer. He believed he was right in his course and he gave his life for Virginia and for Patrick County.

            Many people disagreed with the decision to remove the portrait. I do not think it was the right decision, but all of you who talk about being Christians while disparaging Martin Clark or his family members who have been just as bad online threatening revenge on people criticizing those in this country who have every right to criticize the decision, need to step back take a deep breath and think about “What Would Jesus Do?” and maybe what would a real Christian do, “What Would Jeb Do?”

This our history and we need to leave politics and personal attacks out of this on this Sunday. Maybe we should stop and think about our behavior and if you profess to be a Christian as Jeb Stuart most assuredly was while being also a man of his time. You should live it and do not just talk about it. It is not our place to judge J. E. B. Stuart.

A protest led by my friend, Wayne Jones of South Carolina, who portrays General Stuart across the country, was held on the courthouse steps and two days later the Patrick County Board of Supervisors decided to hang the portrait on the “Wall of Honor,” which recognizes the service of the men from Patrick County, who lost their lives fighting in the myriad of wars this nations has fought.

I encouraged people to watch a documentary from my website about Stuart produced by Henrico County and read about Stuart before speaking about him. I encouraged them to speak with knowledge of Stuart and the war he gave his life in and to speak with respect about those who do not agree with their point of view. I thought it was a teachable moment.

A few weeks ago I went for my biannual visit to my alma mater Patrick County High School, as I have for a decade now, to teach Civil War to all the 11^th grade U. S. History classes. I spoke of the controversy surrounding the portrait, but that will not get in the newspapers or be on television, but I hope it gets in the brains of the next generation, where if this history is to survive, it needs to be remembered.

 A Dedication Ceremony will be held for the portrait on May 12, 2016, at 10 a.m. in the Patrick County Administration Building. The portrait has been hanging on the Wall of Honor that commemorates the people from Patrick County who lost their lives in war.

Tom Perry

www.freestateofpatrick.com

Sources:

The Bull Mountain Bugle 2/2/1972
The Enterprise 2/2/1972
Martinsville Bulletin 2/3/1972, 2/11/1972
The Dear Old Hills of Patrick: J. E. B. Stuart and Patrick County Virginia by Thomas D. Perry

Teaching Civil War At Patrick County High School

            Twice a year I go to Patrick County High School to teach Patrick County in the Civil War to four classes of 11^th graders at the invitation of Glenn Burnett. I talk about The Free State Of Patrick, my book on Patrick County in the Civil War. We discuss the home front in the war, life for the slaves and “free people of color,” the many different men in regiments who fought in the war for the North and the South and J. E. B. Stuart. We discuss the effect the war had on the people during and after the war. Topics include Rufus Woolwine, R. J. Reynolds, Abram D. Reynolds and Stoneman’s Raid, the only time we had Union forces in the county. You can watch my talk I give them from my website www.freestateofpatrick.com. Just click on the History Talks link if you are interested.

           Teacher Glenn Burnett always has the Advance Placement class to ask a question about the war, then research it and answer it, and finally, they send me an email, which I respond too.

Here are some of the questions I got this time. They love to play “What If” about the war.

What if the Confederacy had won the Civil War?

If the South had won the war, would slavery still be around today? If not, when would it have been abolished?

            This year I got some very interesting questions that were not “What Ifs”

Do you think that "The Confederate Treasure" might be real?

Did Native Americans have a part in the Civil War? If so, how significant was it?

Mr. Perry, I really enjoyed you coming and talking to our class about Patrick County's involvement in the war. I was wondering, would the Civil War still have happened without the conflict of slavery?

Mr. Perry, Thank you for coming to talk to our class on Tuesday. It was very interesting to learn more about Patrick County's involvement in the Civil War. I was wondering, had the South won the Civil War, would the Confederate States of America have succeeded as an independent country?

             This time I got two J. E. B. Stuart questions. Here are those questions and the student’s response to them to give you an idea of what they say.

Why is Jeb Stuart blamed for Gettysburg?
Many people in the southern states and in the confederate army found it hard to believe that their great general, Robert E. Lee, could lose a battle as important as Gettysburg. They didn’t want to believe that their beloved general could make such a foolish mistake of trying to fight the union army at that particular time, so they found a scapegoat: Major General Jeb Stuart (History.net). Jeb Stuart was known for his colorful personality and somewhat of a rambunctious attitude, so many found it very easy to blame him for the confederate army's defeat. Many newspapers in the south caught word of Jeb’s insolence and they bashed him for it, they claimed that Jeb had been off raiding a union army camp, when he should have been scouting for Lee. However, Jeb was doing the job that Lee had given him, Jeb had left the Calvary to Lee so they could scout, but they apparently, they didn’t not have the skills that made Jeb the amazing scout that he was (History.net). In the end Jeb got saddled with the blame of Gettysburg because he was the easiest to lay blame to without having any back blow since he was just a lone horseman from Ararat.

Sources: http://www.historynet.com/jeb-stuart-battle-of-gettysburg-scapegoat-2.htm

What if Jeb Stuart would have lived to fight another day?

I believe that if Jeb Stuart would have lived, the war would have ended very differently. Stuart played a key role in the war. He was an effective leader and one of the main scouts for the Confederate army.

            Jeb started his military career when he went to the United States Military Academy. There he became friends with Robert E. Lee and learned everything he knew about the Military. After he graduated he started as a second lt. in the U.S. Mounted Rifles in Texas. This is where he gained his experience in the Calvary which would play a key role in the Civil War.

            When the Civil War started, Jeb left his career in the U.S. army to serve in the Confederate army. He was made a colonel under the command of General Jackson. Jackson soon placed Jeb in command of all the Northern Virginia Calvary Brigades. After a few successful missions, Jackson earned his stripes and became a major general.

            Jackson and his Calvary earned the nickname the ‘invincible’ Calvary. Jackson and his men were known for embarrassing Union troops and became real pains in the neck for the Union. He also was able to scout out the enemy and report locations and movements to Lee. This gave the Confederates a major advantage.

            The reason the war would have been different if Stuart would have lived, is because he supplied major support and reinforcements. He and his men were able to hurt the Union by scouting locations of the Union army and by hitting the Union army where it hurt. I believe with all that Jeb was able to, the South could have theoretically won the war. His effective leadership and his dedication was something that the South needed and he provided it. Therefore, I believe the war would have been very different. Works Cited: http://www.historynet.com/jeb-stuart

            I have been doing this now for a decade, twice a year. I do it because I was once a student at PCHS and would have loved to have someone come talk to us about history. My father was teacher and principal for almost thirty years in the Patrick County School System, so I understand the life of teachers. Finally, when I was in college James I. Robertson, Jr., my Civil War professor at Virginia Tech told us to get out of the “ivory tower” and talk to regular folks about the history of the war. Someone once told me I was the only man they ever saw who did his community service before he was arrested when it came to going back to high school to talk about the war with the students. I hear lots of people say that kids don’t get this history in school anymore. Well, in Patrick County they do.