Vignettes of Revolutionary Virginia

Remarkable Stories from the Founding of the Nation

Illuminating and captivating stories of life in the American Revolutionary era, from the dean of Virginia history

Brent Tarter knows how to make history come alive. More than that, he knows that the best histories encompass everyone, not just “great men” making speeches in domed statehouses. Drawing on a celebrated career’s worth of experience in the archive, producing scholarship aimed not at the ivory tower but at the general reader, Vignettes of Revolutionary Virginia gathers together the most dramatic, poignant, and compelling tales of ordinary people who lived through the extraordinary days of the American Revolution.

As in Vignettes of Colonial Virginia, Tarter relates the incredible stories of his subjects in their own words. They show how life for everyone in Virginia then was radically different from life for anyone in Virginia now. They illuminat