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The purpose of this research and writing is to examine the military history which transpired in the Shenandoah Valley during the American Civil War. There is a general motivation to discover more about the people who made the decisions that impacted the Valley. Two research questions will be considered. First, why did the Union and Confederate leadership conduct operations in the Shenandoah Valley as they did in the Civil War? Second, how did the conduct of operations in the Shenandoah Valley change during the war for both the North and the South? Readers will encounter what happened in the Shenandoah Valley during the Civil War from the perspective of some of the participants who lived through it. This encounter will be presented from the analysis of both primary and secondary sources. Such sources as collected papers of people including Robert E. Lee and Robert Milroy along with recorded history from units like the 118th Pennsylvania will be included. The Shenandoah Valley campaigns of the Civil War tell the story of two wars. In the beginning, there was the dramatic success of the Confederate army in the Valley in the first half of the war. Subsequently, there was the ultimate, final success of the Union army in the last half of the war. Unfortunately for the Confederacy, the Union success came at the right time and marked the end of the war for the South. This duality of emphasis on the Valley can be seen in two observations. First, the Federal leadership did not understand the importance of the Shenandoah Valley until they did. Second, the Confederate leadership always understood the importance of the Valley. Their problem was they were able to adequately defend it until they could no longer defend it. In the end, the explanation for the ability to access the Valley boiled down to the ability of both the Union and the Confederacy leadership to hold on to it.

The German Baptist Brethren, Dunkers, were a Pietist sect which organized in the Palatinate region of the German lands in central Europe in 1708. The sect was founded upon the structure of the Apostolic, or Primitive, Christian Church. The founder, Alexander Mack, was strongly engaged with the theology of the Pietist movement and taught that the structure of the Christian life must be firmly founded in scripture with Mathew 5 proscribing the elemental principles of the sect. The Brethren practiced adult, believers, baptism and firmly adhered to core peace principles as interpreted from Mathew 5. Increasing persecution forced the two small groups of Brethren from the Palatinate within a couple of years. The Brethren subsequently immigrated to Pennsylvania in two migrations, settling in the vicinity of Germantown during the 1720s. The peace principles of non-violence/ non-resistance became a core element of the theology of the Brethren from the earliest founding. These peace principles prohibited participation in militia drilling, enlistment in the military, or even physical self-defense. These principles created extreme difficulties for the Brethren during the American Revolution, contributed to a stronger dedication to separatism, and a subsequent migration west and south. A large number of German Baptist Brethren settled in the Valley of Virginia, (the Shenandoah Valley), and south throughout Southwest Virginia in the years following the American Revolution. Here they formed close knit farming communities, planted new congregations, and lived semi-separatist lives centered on the core peace church theology. The Brethren were staunchly opposed to slavery and prohibited membership in the church to slaveholders. The American Civil War brought extreme difficulty for a peace principle population who refused to muster into either army. The conscription laws passed by the Confederate government placed the Brethren in the south in a situation where they could either adhere

Voices of Virginia pulls together stories from oral history collections from across decades and archives to create an all-audio source companion for Virginia’s high school and college students. The "album" is only two hours long, but contains dozens of short oral histories from eyewitnesses to key moments in American history, from the end of the Civil War to the 1980s. The excerpts are downloadable, accessible by smartphone, and accompanied by a transcript. Mason Multi-Media Award from the Oral History Association. Over twenty archives across Virginia and beyond have generously donated segments, and granted permission for their oral histories to be reproduced and publicly shared under a CC BY NC SA 4.0 license, which ensures that the content remains free to use and re-purpose for all listeners. These archives include: African American Historical Society of Portsmouth Amherst Glebe Arts Response Archives of Appalachia (Eastern Tennessee State University) Cape Charles Rosenwald Initiative Center for Documentary Studies and the David M. Rubenstein Rare Boo

Agricultural activities have significant impacts on global biogeochemical cycles, particularly carbon and nitrogen. Conventional row-crop agriculture accelerates the decomposition of soil organic matter, contributing to atmospheric carbon and declining soil fertility. Planting perennial warm season grasses is a useful management alternative to row crop agriculture because these species have been shown to be effective at increasing soil carbon storage and retaining nitrogen. The objectives of this research were to examine how converting row crops to a native perennial warm season grass (Panicum virgatum L., common name switchgrass) influences the recovery of soil organic matter fractions and nitrogen retention within an agricultural watershed in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Soil samples were analyzed for total carbon and nitrogen, three particulate organic matter fractions, root biomass, mineralizable carbon and nitrogen pools, and microbial biomass. Surprisingly, I observed significant declines in bulk soil organic matter and surface particulate organic matter pools following switchgrass establishment. There were no differences in mineralizable carbon and microbial biomass pools between row crop and switchgrass soils, but labile carbon pools and nitrogen immobilization increased as switchgrass stands matured. These results are potentially due to switchgrass litter inputs stimulating microbial communities and accelerating the decomposition of recalcitrant soil organic matter, leading to declines in soil organic carbon stocks. The results from this study will be used to understand the environmental and economic benefits of implementing switchgrass plantings in agricultural watershed as a means to mitigate agriculturally-induced effects on carbon storage and nitrogen retention in soils.

This thesis explores the role of political culture in the secession of two Virginia counties: Augusta and Rockbridge. These two counties, which in 1850 were staunchly loyal to the Union, shifted loyalties late in the secession crisis of 1860 and 1861. Comparing local reactions to national politics with local views on the nature and unity of political communities more generally moves the decision to secede in April 1861 into clearer focus. Specifically, comparing regional attitudes towards the sectional controversies surrounding Virginia's constitution with the national debates on slavery in the territories reveals a general concern with the unity of political communities, and the common interests and values needed to sustain such communities. In the context of cross-cutting borderlands between eastern and western Virginia and the northern and southern United States, these sectional questions took on important significance. Political decision-making in this region emerged from a combination of widely-circulating views on the nature of government in this borderland setting. By placing the Valley's secession within these contexts, this thesis argues that Augusta and Rockbridge seceded when they did because events in the North persuaded them that the moral and political character of white northerners had become suspect relative to the question of slavery.