The Augusta County Historical Society
“Every Man His Own Historian: From a Yankee to a Rebel Diary”
Program & Book Signing by Historian and Author Mary T. Hall
Thursday, August 13 at 7 p.m.
R.R. Smith Center for History & Art
(20 S. New Street, Staunton, VA)
2nd floor lecture room
Or via Zoom (Click Here)
Passcode: 309700
In her recently released book, From a Yankee to a Rebel Diary, Professor Hall tells the story of a small diary that belonged initially to a Union private who wrote in it faithfully for six months before abandoning it outside of Richmond in June 1862. A Confederate private – Professor Hall’s great-grandfather – found the book and began his own journal in the remaining pages. In entries spanning over thirty months, he wrote of illnesses that nearly killed him, a religious conversion that changed the arc of his life, and his grueling experiences as a prisoner of war. Hall’s wartime path repeatedly intersected with Staunton, more so than with any other city or town during the war.
Following Hall’s program, her books will be offered for sale, and she will be available to answer questions and autograph books. The program is free and open to the public. A portion of the book sales will go to benefit the work of the Augusta County Historical Society.
Augusta County’s history is America’s history.
Here in the county that once stretched west to the Mississippi River and north to the Great Lakes…Native Americans clashed with pioneers opening the frontier…Revolutionary War patriots helped secure their nation’s liberty…America’s agricultural revolution began…a future U.S. President was born…Civil War armies vied for control of a state…and great artists shaped their vision.
Indeed, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, Cyrus McCormick, Woodrow Wilson, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson all played important roles in our history, but so did Grandma Moses, George Caleb Bingham, Kate Smith, John Coalter ,and William Sheppard. Daniel Boone visited kinfolk here, Santa Anna stopped here, Charles Lindbergh landed here, Erwin Rommel studied here, and Billy Sunday preached here. Even history’s great names like Eisenhower and Lincoln traced their ancestral homes to this county. And, we cannot tell a lie – George Washington slept here.