At 3:55 PM -0500 3/2/01, Brent Tarter wrote: >The Museum of the Confederacy's 2001 Lecture Series entitled "The Debate >Over Black Confederates Then & Now," One of my favorite Civil War documents is a letter signed by the free black businesspeople of Petersburg, offering to help defend Virginia against the Yankee invader. This was early in the war, when a Yankee warship was coming upriver, supposedly to attack, rape, pillage, and all that other nasty stuff. The first message on the pile is from the blacks. -- Ned Heite ([log in to unmask]) ********************************************** * * * Spring is here! Buy new Birkenstocks * * and turn the compost. Prune the * * shrubbery, and compost the cuttings! * * * ********************************************** To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html