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    Murder in Lexington: VMI, Honor and Justice in Antebellum Virginia
    Murder in Lexington: VMI, Honor and Justice in Antebellum Virginia
    Murder in Lexington: VMI, Honor and Justice in Antebellum Virginia
    Ebook486 pages5 hours

    Murder in Lexington: VMI, Honor and Justice in Antebellum Virginia

    By Daniel S. Morrow

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    About this ebook

    In 1853 Lexington, Virginia, Mary Evelyn Anderson, one of the most beautiful women in the Commonwealth, spurned the advances of a young law student named Charles Burks Christian. Humiliated and heartbroken, Christian confronted, stabbed and killed the man he believed responsible for Anderson's decision. The man was her cousin, Thomas Blackburn, a VMI cadet and student of Stonewall Jackson. What followed was a circus of inept and brilliant lawyers dragging members of the most prominent families in antebellum Virginia through and all-too-public discussion of seduction, courtship, honor and self-defense. Author and historian Daniel S. Morrow chronicles the history of the events that led to Blackburn's death, the trials that followed and the impact on Lexington, its two colleges and the men and women who would soon find themselves engaged in a great Civil War.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherThe History Press
    Release dateOct 15, 2013
    ISBN9781625840011
    Murder in Lexington: VMI, Honor and Justice in Antebellum Virginia
    Author

    Daniel S. Morrow

    Dan Morrow is the publisher of the Middleburg Eccentric, a newspaper outside Washington, D.C. He is the founder of the Jamestown Exploration Company and was the first executive director of the Computerworld Smithsonian Awards Program. He has served on the Board of Directors for many local organizations, including the Mosby Heritage Area Association.

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    • 3/5
      This is an account of life in Lexington in the 1850s and the value placed on honor. It also shows the rivalry among the three higher learning institutions for men in that town at that time: VMI, Judge John White Brockenbrough's Law School (which later became the Washington and Lee University School of Law), and, to a much lesser extent, Washington College (which later became Washington and Lee University). Honor meant fighting among the men if they felt they were dishonored. Charles Burks Christian, a law school student, felt snubbed by a beautiful young lady and decided her cousin, VMI Cadet Thomas Blackburn was responsible. Christian met Blackburn as the latter was escorting another young woman to church and asked him to come with him. The two men got into a scuffle, and Christian - who was armed with two guns and a knife - stabbed the unarmed Blackburn to death. Much of the book centers on the first trial of Christian, which resulted in a hung jury. The account of the trial becomes laborious. In a later trial in another community, Christian was found not guilty. At both trials Christian had numerous lawyers, 6 and 8 respectively, and members of both juries included friends or relatives of the defendant. Throughout the book the author repeatedly states the pedigrees of many of the characters in the story, showing their high status.

    Book preview

    Murder in Lexington - Daniel S. Morrow

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