Category: Civil War
The American Civil War
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Colonel Henry Gantt of Valmont
by Richard Ludlam Nicholas “On the afternoon of July 3, 1863, Henry Gantt bravely led the regiment assigned to Garnett’s Brigade of Pickett’s Division up Cemetery Ridge in the battle of Gettysburg – arguably the most famous charge in American history.” Perhaps the most overlooked and forgotten man in Scottsville’s history is Colonel Henry Gantt,…
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Boyd, Edmond, and Davenport Packet Boats
Scottsvillian Jack Hamner, an experienced ‘dirt fisherman’ (relic hunter), unearthed this packet boat baggage tag near an old stone chimney between Keene and Esmont. The tag’s front reads “BE&D Packet, 8.” Engraved on the tag’s back is “John Robbins, Boston.” In the mid-1800’s, such small metal tags were attached to a traveler’s personal luggage and…
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The Covered Bridge at Temperance Wayside
“We rattle through the Hardware River’s old-timey “rabbit burrow” bridge,” wrote Virginia Moore, talking about life in Scottsville between the wars. This was the covered bridge built about 1850 at Temperance Wayside where Highway 6 crosses the Hardware River. Sheridan’s departing troops had clattered over it in 1865. A painting by Cornelia Burgess Dorrier shows…
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1865 Report to Stockholders of James River and Kanawha Canal
In the above photo, mules pulled a canal boat along the James River and Kanawha Canal near Richmond, Virginia, in the early 1860’s. The canal served as a very successful means of transporting produce from the Lynchburg area all the way to Richmond during the 1840-1880 time period. However, bad weather impacted the canal’s operation…
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