Defend the Valley A Shenandoah Family in the Civil War [Paperback]

Located in a strategic position in the Shenandoah Valley, Winchester, Virginia, witnessed the Civil War in a way unlike any other town in America. InDefend the Valley, the story of the war is told through the letters and private papers of the Barton and Jones clans--two great limbs of one family tree with roots in Winchester. By collecting her ancestors' papers, Margaretta Barton Colt has done far more than provide a record of the Civil War. She has brought it to life with astounding clarity through the voices of those who experienced it. The Bartons and Joneses collectively sent eleven men into battle, most in the brigade led by Thomas Stonewall Jackson. Culled from the private papers of twenty family members, the material presented here includes many vivid recollections found in the soldiers' first-hand descriptions of the battles, as well as responses from the home front. The result is a fully rounded picture of the daily struggles of the Civil War, and a documentation of the passing of a way of life.

Margaretta Barton Colt brings to life the courage, recklessness, heartbreak, and deprivation of the Valley Campaign and the battles to the east of the Blue Ridge. Whether one's sentiments lie or would have lain with the North or South,Defend the Valleyis difficult to read without tears of sorrow...We come to know these people almost too well and suffer their deaths as we would those of dear friends. --The Commercial Appeal, Memphis, TN

An astonishingly vivid account of one family's experience of the Civil War. --American Heritage

Defend the Valleyis a book that resonates with the richness of human experience...By honoring her family and retrieving her story, the author has given us a book that is both a pleasure to read and a saga to be shared.Defend the Valleyinstructs, enlightens and perhaps most of all, reminds us that great events always knock at the homes of families. This bool“7