Virginia History Books

Browse selected volumes on popular topics, such as the Civil War, the American Revolution, Fredericksburg, and the surrounding counties. These titles are updated frequently, so check back often for more recommendations. Most books can be requested and checked out from your home library branch. Use the menu below to limit your search to areas that interest you.

A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia

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By Thomas Hariot

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As the first volume in de Bry's celebrated Grand Voyages, a series of publications chronicling many of the earliest expeditions to the Americas, this book, which incorporates a 1588 text by Thomas Hariot, was illustrated and published in four languages. It became for many Europeans their first glimpse of the American continent. Accompanying the Latin facsimile is an English text. The first section is modernized from earlier versions of the English, and the second part, which accompanies the plates, is newly translated from the original Latin.

In addition to a valuable introduction, the book includes two illuminating essays. The first, by Karen Ordahl Kupperman, examines the early American settlement and tells how a collaboration between the writer and mathematician Thomas Hariot and the artist John White (later governor of the Roanoke Colony) evolved into a rich study not only of English colonial life but of the Indian culture and the natural resources of the region. The second essay, by Peter Stallybrass, uncovers new information in the much studied plates and presents an intriguing theory about the creation and importance of the engravings.
(From the publisher's description)

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A Dictionary of Marks: Metalwork, Furniture, Ceramics; the Identification Handbook for Antique Collectors

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By Margaret Macdonald-Taylor

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"Including the marks of American and British metalwork, this book also includes coverage of ceramics and furniture. The ceramics include English and European marks, as well as Japanese date marks and Chinese reign marks. English, French and European furniture and tapestry marks are also included." (Pickabook Books)

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A Different Story: A Black History of Fredericksburg, Stafford, and Spotsylvania, Virginia

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By Ruth Coder Fitzgerald

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In a landmark book, Ruth Fitzgerald reveals much of our region's African-American history, from the 18th century through the Civil Rights Era. Includes black and white photos as well as an index.

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A History of Our Own: Stafford County, Virginia

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By Albert Z. Conner, Jr.

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Mr. Conner's book gives Stafford County its own place in American history, from the 17th to the 20th centuries. Filled with photographs and illustrations, this handsome book gives an excellent overview of the county's development and includes noteworthy individuals and events that impacted the area.
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A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom: Including Their Own Narratives of Emancipation

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By David W. Blight, editor

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Through a combination of intelligence, daring, and sheer luck, the men reached the protection of occupying Union troops. Historian Blight prefaces the narratives with each man's life history. Using genealogical information, Blight has reconstructed their childhoods as sons of white slaveholders, their service as cooks and camp hands during the Civil War, and their climb to black working-class stability in the North, where they reunited their families. In the stories of Wallace Turnage and John Washington, we find portals that offer a rich new answer to the question of how four million people moved from slavery to freedom.
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A Treasury of Foolishly Forgotten Americans: Pirates, Skinflints, Patriots, and Other Colorful Characters Stuck in the Footnotes of History

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By Michael Farquhar

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Michael Farquhar ransacked the archives to rescue 30 almost-famous Americans from the dust bin of obscurity. These colorful figures range from Mayflower Murderer John Billington (1624) to Dick Fosbury, father of the "Flop" (1968).
Also available to download as an audiobook.
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Adapting to a New World: English Society in the Seventeenth-Century Chesapeake

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By James Horn

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Often compared unfavorably with colonial New England, the early Chesapeake has been portrayed as irreligious, unstable, and violent. In this important new study, James Horn challenges this conventional view and looks across the Atlantic to assess the enduring influence of English attitudes, values, and behavior on the social and cultural evolution of the early Chesapeake.
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Adopted Son: Washington, Lafayette, and the Friendship That Saved the Revolution

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By David A. Clary

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"One was a self-taught, middle-aged Virginia planter in charge of a ragtag army of revolutionaries, the other a rich, glory-seeking teenage French aristocrat. But the childless Washington and the orphaned Lafayette forged a bond as strong as any between father and son, a trust that saw them through betrayals, shifting political alliances, and the trials of war. Using personal letters and other key documents, author Clary offers a rare glimpse of the American Revolution, including intimate portraits of such major figures as Alexander Hamilton, Benedict Arnold, and Benjamin Franklin."
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African Americans of Spotsylvania County

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By Terry Miller and Roger Braxton

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The African American community emerged from the ravages of war after more than 140 years of slavery. The community formalized the institutions they developed for survival during those years and charted a path for their growth. This volume pays homage to religion, work, service, education, and the human touch that brought families through undeniably difficult times.
Terry Miller is a writer and frequent visitor to Spotsylvania, and Roger Braxton is a native whose family can be traced to the early 1800s. Their combined curiosity about local history has produced a work of historical insight, humor, and reverence to an ancestral past. The photographs and accompanying stories come largely from private collections of Spotsylvania African Americans who gratefully shared their ancestors' heritage with the wider world.
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African-American Education in Westmoreland County

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By Cassandra Burton

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"...a unique study of the traditions, institutions, and people who were involved in teaching and educating the black population throughout the county. In this volume, with many never-before-published photographs, you will take a visual journey through the area's past and visit the one and two-room schoolhouses of Templemans, Potomac, and some of the smaller areas, such as Frog Hall and Mudbridge; and meet the dedicated and creative teachers and their students who studied and learned in this picturesque region nestled between the Potomac and Rappahannock Rivers."
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