This series consists of articles that have emerged from scholarly sources in Lexington and the Rockbridge area — mainly the two discussion societies, the Fortnightly and Ignorance Clubs (each now in existence for more than a hundred years), as well as Washington and Lee University and Virginia Military Institute.

In all cases, the papers meet three criteria:

The Rockbridge Epilogues series is published with the blessing of the area's two history organizations, Historic Lexington Foundation and Rockbridge Historical Society.

These articles are published here with the kind permission of the authors, heirs, or copyright holders. There are no restrictions against quoting them with attribution. Many papers have a link at the end that will let you print them a single page at a time to allow convenient reading. The papers themselves, however, may not be further reproduced without permission.

Numbered endnotes are the author’s. Footnotes using roman numerals or symbols, and comments in square brackets, have been added by the editor.

This project would have been impossible without the help of the Special Collections librarians at Washington and Lee University, in particular Tom Camden, Lisa McCown, Seth McCormick-Goodhart and Byron Faidley. Originals of many of the papers reprinted here are held in the W&L Special Collections.

The editor is Bob Keefe. An informal kitchen cabinet reviews suggested topics and final papers: Beverly Tucker and Suzanne Barksdale Rice, each a past president of Historic Lexington Foundation, and Dr. Neely Young, historian, author and a former director of the Rockbridge Historical Society.

We invite you to write us at epilogues@HistoricRockbridge.org.