The Valley of the Shadow at the University of Virginia was an early example of a successful digital humanities project. Comparing northern and southern communities, the digital archive is especially valuable for us here at the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library because Staunton and surrounding Augusta County are one of the two Civil War regions covered. The Wilson Library was even involved in the initial development of the project in the early 1990s.

Some of the material from the Valley of the Shadow starts just weeks after Woodrow Wilson was born in December 1856 and gives a good picture of life in Staunton at the time, including Rev. Wilson’s decision to leave the congregation.

Congregation of Presbyterian Church met in Stanton on 10/5/1857 following a decision by the church pastor, Rev. Joseph R. Wilson, to seek dissolution of appointment. Committee of J.A. Waddell, Wm. A. Bell, and J.D. Rabodan drafted a resolution approving separation and praising Wilson

And there are maps!

With all of the fighting up and down the Shenandoah Valley, Staunton could be considered to have experienced the Civil War right at its heart. It is possible to follow events in the diaries, newpaper accounts, and military records on the site. In the summer of 1861, Staunton served as a base for Confederate troops in the Valley, but things were unsettled from the start.

To advance may be dangerous; to retreat would be ruinous, since the whole country, thus apparently abandoned, would probably turn from us to receive the enemy with open arms.

General Sheridan entered the town in 1865, but left quickly in pursuit of the Confederate army.

Before leaving Staunton for Waynesborough, I obtained information of a large amount of rebel property at Swoope's Depot, on the Lexington railroad, and sent a party to destroy it, which was done.

In comparing the two counties, Augusta and Franklin, it quickly becomes clear how much the institution of slavery shaped life in Virginia before the Civil War, and during the conflict. Not only did enslaved Americans suffer much and have very different lives from other, free laborers in the country, but white Southerners could not ignore the presence of enslaved people working in their farms, businesses, and households, nor could they forget the moral outrage of the critics of slavery or the fears of violent rebellion. Though the Wilson family had left the area before the war started, they too lived alongside enslaved people in their manse in Staunton and then in Augusta, Georgia during that time.

We can get some further insight into the lives of enslaved people in Staunton with another online resource. The website, John Howe Peyton’s Montgomery Hall, describes the plantation of the Peyton family that was on land that is now part of the City of Staunton park system. The author seeks to mine the sparse historical records about the people owned by the Peytons to give us some idea of who they were and who they were related to.