NEWS

By: Noelle Bye, Staff Writer
Newspaper: Culpeper Star-Exponent
Phone: 540-825-0771 ext. 125
Email: nbye@starexponent.com
Date: December 28, 2003

8th Printing! Sales of "Marching Through Culpeper" top 7500
 

Since Virginia Morton published "Marching Through Culpeper" in 2000, the book has propelled the historic county to national fame in the 21st century. Often called Culpeper's version of "Gone With the Wind," the book is now in its eighth edition and some 7,500 hardback copies have been sold.  "Scarlett has competition from the lovely, independent and adventurous Constance Rixey Armstrong, 'Marching Through Culpeper's' central character," said Thomas J. Ryan, in his review in "North & South" the Civil War Society's official magazine. "Rarely does a book of Civil War fiction not only meet expectations, but exceed them," said reviewer Mary Bogen-Kuczek in CWI Premium, the daily newspaper of the Civil War.

Though "Marching Through Culpeper" is centered around the fictional Armstrong family, it has more real characters and battles than "Gone With the Wind." "I wanted a book that would be as compelling as ("Gone With the Wind") to read," Morton said. "But I was not trying to copy that book.  "... I was really trying to tell Culpeper's history in a way that was as compelling as 'Gone With the Wind.'"

Readers seem just as enamored as critics. Tourists from as far away as California have visited Culpeper County after reading Morton's book. "Of course, they have to come east because they don't really have the history out there - the locations and the battlefields," Morton said.  The book has thrown the author into the worlds of lectures and tours.  The speaking engagements take her up and down the east coast, and in February, her storytelling will bring her to the Mississippi river, for the History American Riverboat Tour.

Back home in Culpeper County, Morton conducts Civil War Walking Tours in downtown Culpeper and at the Brandy Station battlefield. She has raised over $5,000 for the Museum of Culpeper History. In addition, she organized the "Ghost Walk" in June in conjunction with the 140th Anniversary Weekend at Brandy Station, which drew a crowd of 500 and brought in $4,000. "In the last two years I've been leading tours," Morton said, "and I'm sure I've had close to 2,000 people on all of those tours."

When asked why she thinks the book has been a success, Morton said, "It brings (the Civil War) to life. It transports people back in time, and it appeals to males and females." On a national level, the success can probably be attributed to the original backdrop. More famous locations such as Gettysburg or Manassass are the typical settings, Bogen-Kuczek points out, but few of these were in the spotlight like Culpeper County during the 1860s. "We didn't have the enormous battles here," Morton said, "but we had over 100 small battles, as well as Brandy Station. Culpeper is a microcosm of the Civil War."

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