Two major events happened this 4th of July weekend, both of great importance not only to the United States as a nation, but to Virginia as a commonwealth.
On July 4th, 1776, the Declaration of Independence authored by Thomas Jefferson and lead by a resolution from the Virginia House of Burgesses was voted upon by Continental Congress two days earlier and published on the 4th.
Similarly, the Battle of Gettysburg during 1-3 July 1863 culminated the final effort of the Confederacy during the Civil War, as 15,000 Virginians charged the fields under General Pickett and were ultimately turned back by Federal troops, thus joining with the surrender at Vicksburg as the coup de grace for the Southern Confederacy and turned the tide of the War.
“For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it’s still not yet two o’clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word and it’s all in the balance, it hasn’t happened yet, it hasn’t even begun yet, it not only hasn’t begun yet but there is still time for it not to begin against that position and those circumstances which made more men than Garnett and Kemper and Armistead and Wilcox look grave yet it’s going to begin, we all know that, we have come too far with too much at stake and that moment doesn’t need even a fourteen-year-old boy to think “this time. Maybe this time with all this much to lose and all this much to gain: Pennsylvania, Maryland, the world, the golden dome of Washington itself to crown with desperate and unbelievable victory the desperate gamble, the cast made two years ago….” — William Faulkner, Intruder in the Dust
So… you’re a Virginian (or an adoptee) — which movie do you watch first?
Sorry, there are no polls available at the moment.I say voooote yes (sit down, Shaun!) — vote for independency!
Just for kicks…
