Showdown in Virginia

The remarkable record of the Virginia State Convention, edited in a fine modern version in 1965, runs to almost 3,000 pages, some 1.3 million words. Through the diligent efforts of William W. Freehling and Craig M. Simpson, this daunting record has now been made accessible to teachers, students, and general readers. With important contextual contributionsan introduction and commentary, chronology, headnotes, and suggestions for further readingthe essential core of the speeches, and what they signified, is now within reach. Book jacket.

William W. Freehling is a Senior Fellow with the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and author of Prelude to Civil War, The Road to Disunion, and The South vs. The South. Craig M. Simpson is Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of Western Ontario and author of A Good Southerner: The Life of Henry A. Wise of Virginia. Freehling and Simpson coedited Secession Debated: Georgia's Showdown in 1860.