BLUE MOUNTAIN MEMORIES

HOW IT ALL BEGAN

My romance with the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia began more than fifty years ago. Shortly after I graduated from an Upstate New York college in 1951, a college friend, Carl Roesch, promised ourselves one last fling before we faced the world of work. We decided to visit three states we’d never seen; Kentucky, West Virginia and Virginia. All three had their charms but we both agreed the highlight of the trip was the day we came into the Shenandoah Valley from West Virginia and visited the small college town of Lexington, Virginia. Lexington, we were to learn, is a Civil War citadel of the Old South. After the war General Robert E. lee spent his last years as the president of what was then Washington College. After his death, in his honor, it became Washington and Lee.

The revered Thomas Stonewall Jackson taught military subjects at Lexington’s Virginia Military Institute. The mortal remains of both Lee and Jackson are at rest in Lexington. The white and red Georgian mansions of Washington and Lee and the haunting summertime stillness of the old parade ground at VMI have been indelibly etched in my mind since that day. Completing Margaret Mitchell’s voluminous “Gone With the Wind.”

It would be fourteen years later, after a wide-ranging career as a newspaperman, that I would return to this area as a Washington correspondent for New York State newspapers. The story of how I came to build a summer home at Blue Mountain, Virginia and got to know the people of the Blue Ridge, is the subject of this book.

This book has started several years ago in the 1970s during a year-long sabbatical from my work. It was put aside, unfinished, when I received an opportunity for a career producing television documentaries.

An interesting set of circumstances re-stimulated my interest in finishing this book. When I did the original research for the book in the 1970s I was pleasantly occupied by my love and respect for the Virginia people I met, by the beauty of their state and by its all-encompassing history from Colonial times to the present.

“The whole history of America is in that state,” a friend reminded me.

During my research I found myself envious of the people who were rooted here, who were part of the fabric of this area. Although I am proud of my Upstate New York heritage it is part of my split personality to have a deep fondness for Virginia, too. I am a Yankee who loves the South.

A curious, serendipitous experience happened to me while I was browsing in the Pentagon book store several years ago. Tucked away, amongst the books on the Civil War was a new book. The title was: Ruggles’ Regiment—The 122^nd New York Volunteers in the American Civil War by David B. Swinfen (University Press of New England). I picked it up hesitatingly. Upstate New Yorkers are always, it seems, overshadowed by their bit city to the south. I thought the book would be about a New York City regiment.

Surprisingly, it was not. Not only was it about an upstate New York regiment  it was about a regiment from Syracuse, my hometown, and Onondaga County—I didn’t know of any family members who were in the Civil War. But I remember going quickly to the back of the book where the names of individual soldiers were listed alphabetically. There it was; as sharply remembered now as anything I have ever read: “Long, Patrick—21 (age)- 23 March 1864 (date of enlistment)—D (company)—Pte. (rank) – 23 June 1865 (date of discharge).”

I was startled. I had never heard of any member of our family being in the Civil War. Skepticism overtook me. There were a lot of “Longs” in Syracuse and Onondaga County, I thought. I started to read the book. The regiment, th