Carly Fiorina, national honorary chair of the Virginia American Revolution 250 Commission, told a recent event that “If you believe in the promise of America, in individual liberty and equality before God, then Virginia is where you come from.”
Cardinal News 250
The Northumberland County draft riot: ‘Almost the whole county was inflam’d’
Draft resistance in the Northern Neck led to one man being charged with murder, but an uprising blocked his trial.
The American army in the Revolution was integrated. It would not be again until the Korean War.
Foreign military officers referred to the American military as “speckled,” owing to the diverse racial makeup of its troops.
Podcast about the Cardinal 250 project
We embarked on a multi-year project to tell the little-known stories of Virginia’s role in the American Revolution. Here’s what we’ve learned so far.
Dispatch from 1775: Virginia’s royal governor flees, Burgesses reject British peace offer
Meanwhile, the Continental Congress has put George Washington in charge of a Patriot army just days before yet another battle with British regulars in Massachusetts.
The British came within minutes of capturing Thomas Jefferson. An alert tavernkeeper’s son saved him.
Jack Jouett is the Paul Revere of Virginia but Revere is not the Jouett of Massachusetts.
Slavery west of the Blue Ridge was more common before the American Revolution than many think
When the Revolutionary War ended in 1783, a state census revealed that in some parts of Augusta County, slavery was so commonplace that one in three households owned at least one enslaved Black person.
Podcast about the restoration of one of Colonial Williamsburg’s most iconic buildings
On this month’s Cardinal 250 podcast, we talk with Matthew Webster of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation about the Magazine, its history and its future.
Dispatch from 1775: Henry marches on Williamsburg; Virginia comes to brink of revolution, but conflict averted for now
Angered that the royal governor had spirited Colonists’ gunpowder onto a British vessel, the Hanover County militia threatened to take it back. Dunmore agreed to pay for the gunpowder instead.
250 years ago today, Virginia’s royal governor seized Colonists’ gunpowder. Now, the building that (literally) sparked the Revolution is being restored.
Virginia’s Gunpowder Incident has been called “the second shot heard around the world,” although no shots were actually fired.

