> to contact Richmond newspapers and/or the Associated Press ... 
> history-related discovery with connections to eastern Virginia

One answer and another that you didn't ask for but that might help:

1.
Stephen A. (Steve) Szkotak in AP's Richmond office has often covered 
historical topics over the years.
[log in to unmask]
https://twitter.com/sszkotakap
(Unfortunately, he adheres rigidly to too many historians' lazy, obsolete 
conventional wisdom--not racist, merely thoughtless--that what happened in 
Ed Ayers' "greatest moment in American history" at Fort Monroe in 1861 
resulted not from black people acting with true agency, but from the white 
general who merely reacted. Cavalier antebellum white-centrism is not dead, 
and Steve Szkotak sometimes proves it.) (But that should be no impediment 
here.)

2.
In eastern Virginia, you might want to contact Mark St. John Erickson 
([log in to unmask], another unskeptical believer in the General 
Butler nonsense, but a wonderfully fine culture reporter all the same) of 
the Newport News Daily Press and Paul Clancy of the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot. 
Both are veteran history writers. Sorry I don't have Mr. Clancy's e-address. 

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