The Civil War: An Enduring Conflict in Virginia

Along the banks of the Potomac, men gather annually to walk across a low point of the river, treading the path where Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee marched toward Maryland and the Sharpsburg campaign in early September 1862. It is considered "sacred ground."

In downtown Fredericksburg, a knee-high stone sits outside a hair salon, across the street from a pizza joint. For years, many locals thought it nothing more than an old-time stepping stone used to get into horse-drawn carriages. Now, a small plaque states that this was a "Principal Auction Site... for Slaves and Property."

In Appomattox, where the Civil War ended on paper in April 1865, the Rebel One store hawks Confederate battle flag memorabilia, from bedspreads to coffee mugs, and bumper stickers with slogans such as "Secession: The right thing to do."

The Civil War and its ghosts have never disappeared from the southern landscape. They remain especially visible in Virginia, where the Confederates located their capital, where the fall of slavery began in Hampton and where more major battles were fought than in any other state.

In this, the 150th anniversary year of the war's start, many people are forfeiting their weekends for re-enactments, making a living off war-related merchandise and giving countless blue-and-gray tours to keep the memories alive.

The sheer scale of the war and its devastation make it difficult to forget, said historian Adam Goodheart. Nationally, an estimated 100 million Americans have Civil War soldiers on their family trees.

But the entire story can't be told in numbers. Some say it's important to remember the past so that its lessons aren't lost. Others say that it's part of our heritage - both as a state and on a personal level - and that we can't deny it. And it continues to live, some historians say, because we continue to reinterpret the war's causes to fit our purposes.

Goodheart, author of the critically acclaimed "1861: The Civil War Awakening," reminds us that the Civil War is not so far removed from the present. He has met the grandchildren of Civil War veterans who have clear memories of their ancestors.

In addition, each generation continues to look at the war through the lens of its own time. For example, historians note that some Southerners insist that the war was fought over several issues, including taxes, rather than slavery, though research shows otherwise. Some present-day Confederate groups, historians say, find it difficult to mesh the idea of revered ancestors with the uncomfortable sin of slavery.

The live-wire issue of slavery was pushed to the forefront during the war, and the complexities of race haven't gone away. Civil War history once relegated blacks to the role of slaves and little else, but now we recognize that blacks fought in the war and that their story is part of the nation's war story.

"This history is very, very central to the black experience, yet blacks have been told that it doesn't belong to them," Goodheart said.

Goodheart pointed to the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg in 1913, when former Union and Confederate soldiers met on the field and shook hands. Black veterans were excluded.

Times are changing. Last weekend, Colored Troops re-enactors converged on Gettysburg to salute black veterans who are buried there.

Over the past six months, Pilot photographer Preston Gannaway traveled the state. Today we offer images of how the war is being kept alive and the words of those who feel compelled to do so.

Military historian Gregg Clemmer works with the Smithsonian Institution to conduct tours of the Gettysburg battlefield as well as Civil War crossings of the Potomac. He always ends his Gettysburg tours in the cemetery because he worries that people celebrate war while forgetting the human costs. He often begins his lectures to schoolchildren with a picture of a Confederate soldier, which he props in a chair.

"I tell them that his name is Mathew. At one point, he was captured at Gettysburg, and his pregnant wife didn't know whether he was dead or alive. Mathew was released and went back into the army, and darn it if he didn't get captured again, about a week before the Appomattox surrender. He eventually returned to his wife, where he started rebuilding his home, his business and his community, like all southern men of the time.

"And I'll say that's Mathew's story. Why is that important to us today?

"Mathew had a little girl, and when Nannie grew up, she got married and had a little boy named Henry. She told him stories about her father. Henry grew up and had a little girl named Betty, and Betty learned about her great-grandfather's part in the war. When she grew up and got married, she had a little boy. That was me.

"I say, that's my story. If Mathew had been killed instead of captured, I wouldn't exist. The schoolchildren then take another look at Mathew's photo. You think of the boys and girls who will never exist because their ancestors perished in war."

Twin sisters Audrey and Jordan Joyner, 16, of Camp Lejeune, N.C., are members of the Children of the Confederacy, a group that refers to the Civil War as the "War Between the States." Audrey writes about the importance of Southern heritage and keeping that alive:

"It's an honor because I have the privilege to be related to some very heroic men and women who knew what it meant to uphold justice and to defend a cause in which they believed.

"Now don't get me wrong, the war is over - and it is in no way the goal of the Children of the Confederacy to continue fighting it. It is our Southern heritage that is important to us.... The war was not a rebellion nor was it fought to sustain slavery. The south fought to repel invasion and for the right of self-government, just as the fathers of the American Revolution did."

Kevin Williams, 46, is a retired Navy lieutenant commander who spent more than half of his military service in Hampton Roads. He now lives in Spotsylvania, where he's a member of a group representing the 23rd United States Colored Troops.

"We have forums occasionally, and every once in a while you get people who lived through the Jim Crow era who say, 'You're glorifying hate.'"

"We tell them that you have to look at it from the slaves' point of view. Frederick Douglass said it best: 'Once let the black man get upon his person the brass letters, U.S., let him get an eagle on his button, and a musket on his shoulder and bullets in his pocket, there is no power on earth that can deny that he has earned the right to citizenship.'"

"It takes a special person to go back in the past, find the truth, bring it to the present and help society grow from it.

"The whole truth has to be told, and the time is now. Since I benefited from their sacrifice, I have a duty to help tell their story."