Independent historian Gabriel Neville highlights the Revolutionary War service of a unique detachment of the Continental Army: the Eighth Virginia Regiment. In colonial America, thousands of German and Irish immigrants settled in Virginia’s western reaches. The Eighth Virginia Regiment was conceived to recruit them, and as they were sent into some of the hardest service of the war, only a few remained after the Siege of Yorktown. Drawing from his new book, Neville traces the lives of the immigrant recruits from the terrors of the French and Indian War, through the Revolution, to the settlement of the American frontier.
About the Speaker
Gabriel Neville is an independent historian and author, whose research focuses on Virginia, Pennsylvania, and the frontier in the Revolutionary era. His research has appeared in the Journal of the American Revolution, Emerging Revolutionary War Era, The American Battlefield Trust, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and county historical society journals. He is the creator of the Revolutionary Virginia (www.Virginia1776.com) and 8th Virginia Regiment (www.8thVirgina.com) websites. A former journalist and congressional staffer, he is currently a business consultant at Covington & Burling LLP, an international law firm based in Washington, D.C.