Virginia Historical Society Podcast

On October 29 at noon, Larry Denton will deliver a Banner Lecture entitled "Unionists in Virginia: Politics, Secession, and Their Plan to Prevent Civil War." Whether the Civil War was preventable is a debate that began shortly after Appomattox and continues today. But even earlier, in 1861, a group of Union-loyal Virginians—led by George Summers, John Brown Baldwin, John Janney, and Jubal Early—felt war was avoidable. In the statewide election for delegates to the Secession Convention that same spring, the Unionists defeated the Southern Rights Democrats with a huge majority of the votes across the state. These men unsuccessfully negotiated with Sec. of State William Henry Seward to prevent the national tragedy that would ensue. Author and historian Larry Denton traces this remarkable story of the Virginians who worked against all odds in a failed attempt to save a nation from going to war. Denton is the author of A Southern Star for Maryland: Maryland and the Secession Crisis; William Henry Seward and the