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The article reports on the two letters written by soldiers James Zimmerman and William Wagner, which relates their discontent over the post-Gettysburg army in Virginia. Accordingly, both of them expressed their sufferings which includes not eating for up to four days, and not having comfortable shelters unlike the high ranking officers. It states that soldiers were also not paid for three months and were put under strict compliance despite not having all the comforts they deserve.

The article reports that Virginia's colleges became cradles of disunion as young people debated the necessity, and opportunity, of a new Southern nation. Student demonstrations in support of secession occurred not just in the Old Dominion but throughout the South, confirming the low opinion adults had of young men whose political acts were routinely dismissed as the consequence of immaturity and excessive emotionalism. Many scholars have explained secessionist activity among young people as evidence of a Southern romantic tradition that compels Southern men to feel rather than think.

Presents a personal account by David E. Beem, a captain in the union army's 14th Indiana Volunteer Infantry Regiment of the battle between union and confederate forces in Fredericksburg, Virginia during the American civil war in 1861. Biographical sketch of Beem's military career; Battle on the banks of the Antitam Creek; March to the Rappahannock river; Confrontation on the streets of Fredericksburg.

An interview with the authors Jason Phillips and Aaron Sheehan-Dean is presented. Sheehan thinks that the hard war the Union brings to Virginia makes Virginians respond by recognizing it as not a war for abstract principles. Phillips points out that he sees a similar dynamic between the hard war and then the hardening of diehard Rebels against the Union. Sheehan-Dean depicts that criticizing the David administration does not mean a return to the Union.

The article presents information on the diary of Jane Howison Beale of Fredericksburg, Virginia. In the diary, Beale describes her experience about the war for the Union. There was a Union artillery bombardment that destroyed the town. After the attacks, Beale and her family escaped in an ambulance to Confederate lines. Beale's diary suggests that she saw the war between the Christian South and the philistine North in great detail. Her view of the war was very complicated.

Few of Robert E. Lee's lieutenants inflicted less damage on the enemy than artillery chief William Nelson Pendleton did. His battlefield mishaps were numerous and notorious, with a particularly spectacular failure coming at the end of the September 1862 Antietam Campaign, when he nearly lost the reserve artillery to an advance Union guard near Shepherdstown, Virginia. And as a spiritual leader he(Virginia) constantly preached to the troops, inspiring the men to see that duty to the Confederacy was inseparable from duty to God. After graduating from the U.S. Military Academy in 1830, Pendleton left the Regular Army to become an ordained Episcopal priest.