Named for a British Prime Minister and carved from Augusta County in 1777, Rockingham County lies at the heart of Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. As home to a portion of the Great Wagon Road running southwest from Pennsylvania, the county's culture and landscape reflect the influence of ethnic groups migrating to the frontier along this trail. Rockingham County's rich agricultural traditions have been a constant throughout its history, and while recent population increases have led to the disappearance of much of its rolling farmland, the county maintains a strong adherence to its agricultural past.

Massanutten, a 50-mile-long mountain range, ends in a striking peak in the Shenandoah Valley of western Virginia, splitting the Blue Ridge Mountains from the Alleghenies and the North and South Forks of the Shenandoah River. Once an area where Native Americans dwelled and perhaps cultivated the land, Massanutten boasted healing springs that blossomed to become a four-season resort. Private homes intermingle with a conference center, timeshares, and condominiums in an area of preserved woodland heritage. This volume chronicles the history and development of this part of the mountain range, from its use as a Civil War lookout point to a modern-day ski resort complete with golfing and a water park. Included are glimpses of sports, business, and political notables like Lance Armstrong, Del Webb, and Bob Mathias, who have made their marks here--either as guests or in the development of the resort itself.

One of the most intriguing and storied episodes of the Civil War, the 1862 Shenandoah Valley Campaign has heretofore been related only from the Confederate point of view. Moving seamlessly between tactical details and analysis of strategic significance, Peter Cozzens presents a balanced, comprehensive account of a campaign that has long been romanticized but little understood. He offers new interpretations of the campaign and the reasons for Stonewall Jackson's success, demonstrates instances in which the mythology that has come to shroud the campaign has masked errors on Jackson's part, and provides the first detailed appraisal of Union leadership in the Valley Campaign, with some surprising conclusions.

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Bordered by the Blue Ridge and the Allegheny Mountains, the Shenandoah Valley forms a natural corridor to the western parts of Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina. Early American settlers followed the valley as one of the first routes westward. In Shenandoah Valley Folklife, Scott Hamilton Suter documents the many peoples who have left their marks on the folkways of the region--Native Americans, Germans, Swiss, Scots- Irish, and African Americans. His research reveals how the first settlers there built homes, how they worshiped, and how they passed on legends and musical traditions that continue to play a role in the community today. Throughout the book, Suter argues that the valley's past plays a definitive role in its present. He finds family traditions still thriving in crafts like white oak basketmaking, as well as in cooking and architecture. To illuminate the change and continuity in religious life, he focuses on Old Order Mennonites, the Church of the Brethren, and Baptists in the region. Using both historical sources and his own field work, Suter shows how folklife remains a powerful, resonant force in the Shenandoah, and how new immigrants are adapting and adding their own traditions to long-standing customs. Scott Hamilton Suter is curator of the Shenandoah Valley Folk Art & Heritage Center in Dayton, Virginia. He was a Senior Fulbright Scholar and University Fellow at The George Washington University and wrote "Tradition and Fashion: Cabinetmaking in the Upper Shenandoah Valley, 1850-1900" and has had articles in the "Folklore Historian" and the "Virginia Explorer."