Eloquently stated, Henry.  The varying perspectives of that tragic era,
like many others in Virginia's long history, reveal the widespread suffer-
ing that accompanies revolutionary transformations in socio-economic
systems.  The poor and disenfranchised people of all races have been
victimized throughout history by the malevolence and malfeasance of
governments, establishment elites, and one another since the opposite
ends of the Atlantic World collided in 1607--and, of course, for millennia
before that.  We see it still in daily headlines about global events that
remind us of the grotesque atrocities that humankind is capable of.

Maybe History is the true "dismal science."  But at least the search for,
and the reporting of, accurate information about the past eventually eats
away at mythology, which helps keep cynicism at bay in the present.
Granted the gift of 20/20 hindsight and blessed with the still-flickering
conviction that we can all do better by our neighbors, historians must
try to understand and empathize with victims and victimizers, alike,
especially in key watershed events of the past, when the two categories
intersected and became indistinguishable.

Best Wishes,

Fred Fausz
A native Kentuckian, whose soul is in Virginia,
although the body resides in Missouri

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