After the Gunboats Landed

This memoir by George Benjamin West, compiled and edited by Parke Rouse, Jr., offers us a young man's personal story centered around the wartime occupation by United States Army troops on the Virginia Peninsula. The narrative's events are the true experiences of West, about 22 years old when the conflict began in April 1861. His middle-aged recounting of youthful exploits and the war-related travails of his family offer the reader details of Virginia domestic life during the war - Southern at war's outbreak, but soon occupied by Union troops for the duration. For most Peninsula residents, the Union troops were invaders whose mission was to change the status quo in ways both important and trivial. West also describes life in Newport News during postwar Reconstruction, which was a time of upheaval and, for many, much opportunity. We still have much to learn about those changes.