American Civil War
The Virginia Navy existed briefly from the time the state of Virginia seceded from the Union on April 17, 1861, until Virginia joined the Confederate States of America and turned over its military on June 8. One of the state's first actions was to appoint Robert E. Lee as head of its army and navy.
The first, and only, flag officer of the Virginia Navy was Commodore French Forrest, formerly of the United States Navy. The command center was the newly acquired naval base at Virginia, abandoned by Union forces on April 20, 1861.
Read more about this topic: Virginia State Navy
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“He was high and mighty. But the kindest creature to his slaves—and the unfortunate results of his bad ways were not sold, had not to jump over ice blocks. They were kept in full view and provided for handsomely in his will. His wife and daughters in the might of their purity and innocence are supposed never to dream of what is as plain before their eyes as the sunlight, and they play their parts of unsuspecting angels to the letter.”
—Anonymous Antebellum Confederate Women. Previously quoted by Mary Boykin Chesnut in Mary Chesnut’s Civil War, edited by C. Vann Woodward (1981)
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—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“Both of us felt more anxiety about the South—about the colored people especially—than about anything else sinister in the result. My hope of a sound currency will somehow be realized; civil service reform will be delayed; but the great injury is in the South. There the Amendments will be nullified, disorder will continue, prosperity to both whites and colored people will be pushed off for years.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
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—John Ruskin (1819–1900)