Civil War section puts local faces on conflict

The Mid-Ohio Valley has been a hot bed of history since the first pioneers came floating down the Ohio River in 1788.

An important part of the history of the area pertains to the Civil War, a conflict that literally created West Virginia and is being observed around the state because it happened 150 years ago.

On Thursday The News and Sentinel printed a special section highlighting the role the area and the people who lived here had in the War Between the States.

The material contained in the section has now been added to the community section, which is part of NewsandSentinel.com. The community section contains dozens of pages of information about area schools, communities and rivers; it will now also contain the Civil War information, allowing people worldwide to discover the information.

A lot of families in the area are descendants of people who fought on one side or the other, and in some cases both sides, of the conflict. We wanted to add a place where people could spotlight what role their family had in the war. To do that we added a new Local History section to our popular Reader Forums. Within Local History, we added a topic where people can talk about their family’s involvement in the Civil War.

There is a direct link from the Civil War section to the topic.

150 years ago newspapers were the primary way people learned what was going on in the war. Today newspapers (and their websites) are still providing the most detailed information about the war.