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Try to meet me in Heaven where I hope to go. These poignant words were written in the summer of 1865 by twenty-year-old Confederate Sergeant Isaac Newton Koontz, in a letter he penned for his fiance just hours before his death at the hands of Union firing squad in the heart of Virginias Shenandoah Valley. The execution of Koontz and Captain George Summers came after the surrender at Appomattox Court House, and remains one of the most tragic yet little-known events of the Civil War. One month prior to kneeling on the hard ground to face their deaths, Koontz and Summers, along with four other Confederate soldiers, stole horses from a Union troop stationed near their home. Soon after the theft, the young menremorseful and goaded by their fathers to uphold their honorreturned the horses and were offered a pardon by Union Colonel Francis Butterfield. The rebs returned home, free of mind and clean of conscious. All had been forgiven. Or so they thought. As the sun crept over the horizon on June 27, 1865, Union soldiersunder new commandswarmed the family homes of Summers and Koontz in a swift raid and arrested the two bewildered men. They were told that their pardons were no longer valid, and later that same day they were tied to a stake and shot with Union musketsno trial, no judge, no jury. Before their deaths, Summers and Koontz were allowed to write farewell letters to their loved ones, and these heartrending documents serve as the basis for Robert Moores insightful recounting of the Summers-Koontz execution. An experienced Civil War writer and a direct descendent of Koontzs fiance, Moore brings this shocking story to life with a clarity that will appeal to Civil War experts and enthusiasts alike. Exhaustively researched and well written, Tragedy in the Shenandoah Valley tells one of the great and largely untold stories of the Civil War.
This book tells the story of the execution of two Confederate soldiers, Sergeant Isaac Newton Koontz and Captain George Summers for looting Union troops. The two soldiers were at first pardoned but the pardon was then revoked. The execution occurred June 27, 1856 after the surrender at Appomattox Court House.
"​Trailed is a beautifully written account of a great American tragedy--the unsolved murders of an undetermined number of young women, all by the same serial killer, who got away. The truth is still buried. I couldn't put it down." --John Grisham, #1 New York Times bestselling author A riveting deep dive into the unsolved murder of two free-spirited young women in the wilderness, a journalist's obsession--and a new theory of who might have done it In May 1996, Julie Williams and Lollie Winans were brutally murdered while backpacking in Virginia's Shenandoah National Park, adjacent to the world-famous Appalachian Trail. The young women were skilled backcountry leaders and they had met--and fallen in love--the previous summer, while working at a world-renowned outdoor program for women. But despite an extensive joint investigation by the FBI, the Virginia police, and National Park Service experts, the case remained unsolved for years. In early 2002 and in response to mounting political pressure, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft announced that he would be seeking the death penalty against Darrell David Rice--already in prison for assaulting another woman--in the first capital case tried under new, post-9/11 federal hate crime legislation. But two years later, the Department of Justice quietly suspended its case against Rice, and the investigation has since grown cold. Did prosecutors have the right person? Journalist Kathryn Miles was a professor at Lollie Winans's wilderness college in Maine when the 2002 indictment was announced. On the 20th anniversary of the murder, she began looking into the lives of these adventurous women--whose loss continued to haunt all who had encountered them--along with the murder investigation and subsequent case against Rice. As she dives deeper into the case, winning the trust of the victims' loved ones as well as investigators and gaining access to key documents, Miles becomes increasingly obsessed with the loss of the generous and free-spirited Lollie and Julie, who were just on the brink of adulthood, and at the same time she discovers evidence of cover-ups, incompetence, and crime-scene sloppiness that seemed part of a larger problem in America's pursuit of justice in national parks. She also becomes convinced of Rice's innocence, and zeroes in on a different likely suspect. Trailed: One Woman's Quest to Solve the Shenandoah Murders is a riveting, eye-opening, and heartbreaking work, offering a braided narrative about two remarkable women who were murdered doing what they most loved, the forensics of this cold case, and the surprising pervasiveness and long shadows cast by violence against women in the backcountry.
For fifteen years Sue Eisenfeld hiked in Shenandoah National Park in the Virginia Blue Ridge Mountains, unaware of the tragic history behind the creation of the park. In this travel narrative, she tells the story of her on-the-ground discovery of the relics and memories a few thousand mountain residents left behind when the government used eminent domain to kick the people off their land to create the park. With historic maps and notes from hikers who explored before her, Eisenfeld and her husband hike, backpack, and bushwhack the hills and the hollows of this beloved but misbegotten place, searching for stories. Descendants recount memories of their ancestors “grieving themselves to death,” and they continue to speak of their people’s displacement from the land as an untold national tragedy. Shenandoah: A Story of Conservation and Betrayal is Eisenfeld’s personal journey into the park’s hidden past based on her off-trail explorations. She describes the turmoil of residents’ removal as well as the human face of the government officials behind the formation of the park. In this conflict between conservation for the benefit of a nation and private land ownership, she explores her own complicated personal relationship with the park—a relationship she would not have without the heartbreak of the thousands of people removed from their homes. Purchase the audio edition.
One of the most intriguing and storied episodes of the Civil War, the 1862 Shenandoah Valley Campaign has heretofore been related only from the Confederate point of view. Moving seamlessly between tactical details and analysis of strategic significance, Peter Cozzens presents a balanced, comprehensive account of a campaign that has long been romanticized but little understood. He offers new interpretations of the campaign and the reasons for Stonewall Jackson's success, demonstrates instances in which the mythology that has come to shroud the campaign has masked errors on Jackson's part, and provides the first detailed appraisal of Union leadership in the Valley Campaign, with some surprising conclusions.
"The Battle of New Market, though a smaller conflict, represented a crucial moment in the Union's offensive movements in the spring of 1864 and became the last major Confederate victory in the Shenandoah Valley. The results of the battle between Franz Sigel and John C. Breckinridge - with the Virginia Military Institute Cadets pushing the conflict in the Confederates' favor - altered the campaigns of Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee and the course of the American Civil War in Virginia."--Provided by publisher.
Remembering the Civil War: Reunion and the Limits of Reconciliation
At 2:30 am on April 15, 1865, Mary Elizabeth Surratt was awakened by loud knocking at the door of her H Street boardinghouse in Washington D.C. Officers first inquired as to the whereabouts of her son, John Surratt. She was quickly told that her son was wanted in connection with the murder of President Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth, a famous actor and acquaintance of the family! Three days later, Mary found herself under suspicion and under arrest for involvement in the assassination of the president.Elizabeth Steger Trindal worked fifteen years to chronicle the life of this little known but important figure in American history. Mary Surratt's son, John Surratt, was believed to have acted in a plot with John Wilkes Booth and othersto not only murder the president but also kill Secretary of State Seward. John Surratt was out of the country, and Booth yet to be apprehended. But Mary and others were arrested in connection with the assassinationof the president.Eventually they were brought to trial by a military commission.Tried by a military tribunal despite protests by her defense lawyers that it was illegal to try a civilian before a military court, Mary and three others were tried for the crime of conspiring with Booth and found guilty. Many prominent citizens pleaded with President Andrew Johnson for a stay of Mary's execution. He steadfastly refused. On July 7, 1865, Mary Surratt along with the other accused assassins was hanged. In its grief over the death of President Lincoln did America condemn an innocent woman die? This moving account will no doubt elicit new debate on the subject of the Civil War and reveal a new perspective on the events surrounding Lincoln's assassination.
While helping to restore the family home in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, Tessa MacCrae reevaluates her marriage and discovers an old wedding-ring quilt that holds the key to forgiveness, hope, and healing.