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EXCERPTS FROM
BY DIANNE SWANN-WRIGHT
THE LEGACY MUSEUM’S CIVIL WAR SESQUICENTENNIAL EXHIBIT
Central Virginians are well acquainted with the story of Wilmer McLean. In 1861,
his home in Manassas was serving as Confederate General Beauregard’s headquarters when the kitchen was hit by a Union artillery shell, disrupting dinner. To keep his family safe and ensure his livelihood, McLean headed farther south, eventually settling in Appomattox Court House. There, in 1865, the war ensnared him again. This time General Lee and Lieutenant General Grant used McLean’s home to conduct their surrender ceremony.
Though many detailed and more embellished versions of the story have been told over the years, few have mentioned the fact that McLean was a slave owner. However, that omission and others like it—the untold experiences of enslaved people and free blacks during the Civil War—are now being addressed in current sesquicentennial exhibits, including an installation at Lynchburg’s Legacy Museum named “Trouble Don’t Las’ Always”: African American Life in Central Virginia During and After the Civil War, 1860–1870.
In a section titled “We were at Manassas and Appomattox” visitors learn that two sisters, Carolyn Brown and Edwina Brown Beverly, “are descended from the enslaved Stewart family, held in bondage by Wilmer McLean...The Browns’ ancestors’ names appear in Lynchburg’s city directories from the 1870s onward. Family members owned businesses, raised children, garnered educations, served churches, and taught others, even until today.”
Curated by Dianne Swann-Wright, founding curator of the Frederick Douglass–Isaac Myers Maritime Park in Baltimore and former director of African American and special programs at Monticello, “Trouble Don’t Las’ Always” offers both a local and an African American perspective on the Civil War and
its immediate aftermath. Selections from the exhibit included in this issue have been condensed and edited for Lynch’s
Ferry readers. “Trouble Don’t Las’ Always” will be on display through May 2014. — Ed.
36 LYNCH’S FERRY
GRAPHIC COURTESY OF STAN WEBB