Ann, another possibility is checking into the stories told by Mary Berkeley
Minor Blackford, of Fredericksburg, in the book _Mine Eyes Have Seen the
Glory_, by L. Minor Blackford.  Mary relates how her mother, Lucy Landon Carter
Minor, was distressed over slavery.  One incident describes how a free black man
by the name of Tyree had saved up money to buy his wife and children, yet at
the auction another man kept bidding the price higher than Tyree could afford.
Lucy Landon was able to persuade the high bidder to desist from bidding higher
and Gen. John Minor, her husband, helped Tyree to "finance" the portion over
and above what he could not pay.

Mary was active in the American Colonization Society, and later the Virginia
Colonization Society.  Her husband WIlliam owned a newspaper in Fredericksburg
for a while, training a slave in the business and later manumitting him.
After obtaining freedom James Cephas went to Liberia and established a newspaper,
said to have been Liberia's first newspaper.

Mary had four sons who fought for the Confederacy with her blessing, and the
Minor/Blackford experience is just one of many that demonstrate the complexity
of the issue for many Virginia families.  Even if you don't find some models
in it, the book is a good read for understanding the frustrations many
Southerners had with the institution of slavery.

Holly Wilhelm Mills
Amherst, VA.

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