The Great Virginia Flood of 1870

by Paula F. Green

In the fall of 1870, a massive flood engulfed parts of Virginia, West Virginia and Maryland. What began near Charlottesville as welcome rain at the end of a drought-plagued summer quickly turned into a downpour as it moved west and then north through the Shenandoah Valley. The James, Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers rose, and flooding washed out fields, farms and entire towns. The impact was immense in terms of destruction, casualties and depth of water. The only warning that Richmond, downriver from the worst of the storm, had of the wall of water bearing down on it was a telegram. In this account, public historian Paula Green details not only the flood but also the process of recovery in an era before modern relief programs.

211 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 24, 2020

Reviews

[Mark Bailey]

Very well researched book which goes into as much detail as possible, given the limited amount of thorough accounts of this tragic event. I had read a book, Torn Land, about the flood in Nelson County, and surrounding areas in Virginia which occured in 1969, and it was heart wrenching to read. When I saw this book, I was intrigued, as I had never heard about this event in 1870. The book does a good job of going from locale to locale and describing how each area experienced and dealt with this horrible flooding event. The author does tend to repeatedly mention the absence of documentation relating to the names of people of color; if she mentions it once, this will suffice for a reader. After a dozen or more mentions, it becomes political pandering.

[Sara Pope]

The book was well researched and for having very little source material to work with the author did a great job bringing out the personal hardships of the victims of the Flood. However, the author continuously refers to socioeconomic,misogynistic and racist factors that contributes to less coverage of certain victims, which I believe takes away from the story. This was common for this time period and should be dealt with in the introduction.
I also disagree with the speculation that African American communities were overlooked in getting aid (such as in Lynchburg) , it just may not have been reported in newspapers, which the author heavily relied upon.