Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-03T00:02:04.402Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

3 - When “History Becomes Fable Instead of Fact”: The Deaths and Resurrections of Virginia’s Leading Revolutionaries

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 November 2014

Craig Thompson Friend
Affiliation:
North Carolina State University
Lorri Glover
Affiliation:
St Louis University, Missouri
Get access

Summary

This chapter investigates the deaths of the South's greatest revolutionary-era leaders: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison. While other men worked alongside these three Virginians, none played a longer or greater shaping role in the creation of the American Republic. As presidents, these three men led the federal government for twenty-four of its first twenty-eight years. They were not only revolutionary leaders; they were planter-patriarchs, too. Their deaths occurred in this distinctive national/regional/gentry context, which indelibly marked the stories recounted by witnesses to their last days. And those death narratives, in the telling and retelling, helped cement the historic reputation of these revolutionaries as southern gentlemen and American heroes. Despite nineteenth-century changes to the scripts of their deaths, it is clear that the resurrection these men desired was decidedly secular: to serve a political and historical purpose.
Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2014

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×