The Civil War Preservation Trust, the History Channel and the Center for Civil War Photography are sponsoring this competition. Amateur photographers are invited to submit Civil War-related photos in six categories: Endangered Battlefields, featuring a battlefield under threat of destruction; Scenic, showing the natural beauty of Civil War sites; Historic, capturing the solemn effect of a historic structure or monument; Close-up, examining a detail of a monument or landscape; Then and Now, comparing early images of Civil War battlefields and historic sites with modern images; and Junior Photographer, a special category for photographers under 18. Prizes will be awarded in each category. $20 entry fee; deadline for entries is 30 November 2006. For contest rules, visit http://www.civilwar.org/photocontestrules.htm.

Posted by river queen at 2:35 AM PST

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More than 100 years ago, historical documents, including letters, personal records and census figures were compiled in the Freedmen’s Bureau Records following the emancipation of slaves after the Civil War. The historical data includes information on emancipated slaves, freed blacks and black Union soldiers. There’s lots of information, but it has been difficult to access because it was all on paper. But, the records are set to go online next spring or summer, said Karen White, president of the Afro-American Historical Association of Fauquier County. She said that digitizing the documents will make the history - specifically the genealogy of families looking to map their family trees - much more accessible to the public. Read more at the Times Community Newspapers.

Posted by river queen at 12:50 PM PST

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Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, Prince Philip, will travel to the United States in May to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the establishment of Jamestown, Va., White House officials said Wednesday.

The queen mentioned her plans Wednesday during her annual address to the opening of Parliament. The state visit will commemorate the first permanent English settlement in the Colonies, 13 years before the Pilgrims arrived in Massachusetts. In a statement, President Bush praised an “extraordinary friendship that is sustained by deep historical and cultural ties.”

No dates were announced. In 1957, on her first state visit to the U.S., the queen took part in Jamestown’s 350th anniversary.

Posted by river queen at 1:57 AM PST

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The following information was contained in a report that I wrote for a college class on “Information Graphics,” or about how a business uses a defined space to display its wares and its atmosphere. The report was written in January 2003, so I’m sure that some of the exhibits have changed since that time.

APPOMATTOX DEPOT, located in Appomattox, Virginia

The state-certified Town of Appomattox Visitor Information Center is located in a restored railroad depot on Main Street. The center showcases a variety of the community’s current and developing tourist attractions, and it also provides a wide variety of state-wide attractions and information through brochures, maps, and flyers.

Maps printed in 1863 show that this railroad depot was initially named “Appomattox Station,” as when the railroad arrived in this area in 1854 this depot was the closest rail service to Appomattox Court House, located approximately three miles to the northeast. The same maps and records from the U.S. Postal service show that the community where the depot was located was named Nebraska, Virginia. Samuel D. McDearmon was Nebraska’s first postmaster and he was responsible for naming the community on 23 February 1855. He was also the first Virginia House of Delegates member from this area and he later served in the Virginia Senate. At the time of General Lee’s surrender, then Lt. Col. McDearmon was on former governor Henry Wise’s staff in West Virginia. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted by river queen at 3:33 PM PST

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William M. Kelso has been the chief archaeologist of the Jamestown Rediscovery project from the beginning. His book, Jamestown, the Buried Truth, is a lucid and enthralling history of the excavations and of the reinterpretation of the events of the first few years of the Virginia colony. So clear and informative is the text that the volume is one of the best books ever on how students of the past, whether archaeologists or other kinds of historians, do their work. Brent Tarter, Richmond Times Dispatch.

Once thought to have been washed away by the James River, James Fort still retains much of its structure, including palisade walls, bulwarks, interior buildings, a well, a warehouse, and several pits, and more than 500,000 objects have been cataloged, half dating to the time of Queen Elizabeth and King James. Artifacts especially reflective of life at James Fort include an ivory compass, Cabasset helmets and breastplates, glass and copper beads and ornaments, ceramics, tools, religious icons, a pewter flagon, and personal items. Dr. Kelso and his team of archaeologists have discovered the lost burial of one of Jamestown’s early leaders, presumed to be Captain Bartholomew Gosnold, and the remains of several other early settlers, including a young man who died of a musket ball wound. In addition, they’ve uncovered and analyzed the remains of the foundations of Jamestown’s massive capitol building.

Refuting the now decades-old stereotype that attributed the high mortality rate of the Jamestown settlers to their laziness and ineptitude, Jamestown, the Buried Truth produces a vivid picture of the settlement that is far more complex, incorporating the most recent archaeology to give Jamestown its rightful place in history and thus contributing to a broader understanding of the transatlantic world.

Posted by river queen at 3:41 AM PST

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