SUMMARY
The Battle of Trevilian Station, fought June 11–12, 1864, during the American Civil War (1861–1865), was a victory for Confederate cavalry under Wade Hampton when they turned back Union raiders under the command of General Philip H. Sheridan. Fought solely by cavalry, this was the largest such battle during the war (the larger Battle of Brandy Station, fought a year earlier during the Gettysburg Campaign, involved some infantry). Union general-in-chief Ulysses S. Grant had hoped that Sheridan’s troopers might destroy the Virginia Central Railroad west to Charlottesville while distracting Robert E. Lee‘s Army of Northern Virginia enough that Grant might sneak across the James River and around to Petersburg. Instead, Hampton’s cavalry blocked the way, and although Sheridan claimed to have decommissioned the railroad, he was unable to fulfill the last part of Grant’s plan: to reinforce Union general David Hunter in the Shenandoah Valley.
The Austerity Politics of White Supremacy
Since the end of the Confederacy, the cult of the âtaxpayerâ has provided a socially acceptable veneer for racist attacks on democracy. A composite photograph of South Carolina s majority-black legislature created and circulated by opponents of Reconstruction (Library of Congress)
From the Southern strategy of the 1960s to Donald Trumpâs refusal to concede the presidential election, it is easy to trace the Republican Partyâs decades-long descent into racial authoritarianism. Despite the presidentâs unhinged response to the election results, the real locus of power is the Senate, where Republican legislators have been striking sober-sounding notes about the need for smaller government, an end to relief spending, and the danger of higher taxes. Those desperate to see a return to normalcy may hail this born-again fiscal conservatism as a departure from Trumpâs racist, antidem