Bill Text: VA HR189 | 2015 | Regular Session | Enrolled
Bill Title: Commending H. V. Traywick, Jr.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Republican 1-0)
Status: (Passed) 2015-01-16 - Bill text as passed House (HR189ER) [HR189 Detail]
Download: Virginia-2015-HR189-Enrolled.html
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WHEREAS, it is the task of an author, in Samuel Johnson's view, "to teach what is not known, or . . . to let new light in upon the mind," so that readers may "take a second view of things hastily passed over, or negligently regarded"; and WHEREAS, an author may "turn over half a library to make one book"—as again Dr. Johnson observed; and WHEREAS, H. V. "Bo" Traywick, Jr., has mastered more than half a library in producing a major new work on the Sesquicentennial of the War Between the States, Empire of the Owls; and WHEREAS, among those commending H. V. Traywick, Jr.'s, work, Frank E. Eakin, Ph.D., professor of Jewish and Christian studies at the University of Richmond, has observed that "Traywick has enabled the unique but often silenced voice of the South to be heard. . . . Letting individuals of the [War] period speak for themselves is crucially important, for it both challenges long held perceptions and serves to redeem those often falsely castigated . . ."; and WHEREAS, H. V. Traywick, Jr., the son of the late H. V. Traywick, Sr., and his widow, Flo Traywick, of Lynchburg, was graduated from E. C. Glass High School and in 1967 was graduated from Virginia Military Institute with a degree in civil engineering and a commission in the United States Army; and WHEREAS, H. V. Traywick, Jr., is a combat veteran of the Vietnam War, having served first with the 82nd Airborne Division and subsequently as commander of an engineer company, earning the Bronze Star; and WHEREAS, having embarked after his military service on a series of adventures—as traveler, deep-sea diver, and surveyor, among other pursuits—H. V. Traywick, Jr., settled, after a fashion, on a career as captain of a tugboat plying the waters of the Atlantic seaboard; and WHEREAS, a devoted and prodigious reader, H. V. Traywick, Jr., more recently earned a master's degree in liberal arts from the University of Richmond, with a focus on war and cultural revolution; and WHEREAS, forebears of H. V. Traywick, Jr., have participated in virtually all of the major military and cultural revolutions experienced and alternately achieved or prevented by the people of Virginia; and WHEREAS, through his father's line, H. V. Traywick, Jr., is descended from Lieutenant John Lampkin Crute, who fought during the Revolutionary War as a lieutenant in the 4th Virginia Regimental Continental Line commanded by Abraham Buford, surviving "Buford's Massacre" inflicted by the British General Banastre Tarleton at Hanging Rock, South Carolina; and WHEREAS, H. V. Traywick, Jr., is the great-grandson of the Reverend Joseph Benjamin Traywick, who served as a private in the 6th North Carolina Regiment under General Jubal Early of Lynchburg, participating in the battles of Cold Harbor, Lynchburg, Monocacy, Washington, and Third Winchester, only to be captured at the Battle of Fisher's Hill, subsequently surviving confinement to a Union prison camp; and WHEREAS, H. V. Traywick, Jr., is the great-great-nephew of Joseph Crute, owner with his wife of Clifton, the home in Buckingham County that Union General Ulysses S. Grant expropriated for his headquarters on the evening before the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia on April 9, 1865; and WHEREAS, it was a daughter of the Crutes who, on the fateful evening before the surrender by the Confederate Army commanded by General Robert E. Lee, and though a mere toddler, switched General Grant on his boots, exclaiming, "Look, Papa! I can whip the Yankees!"; and WHEREAS, drawing upon his own experiences of war and cultural revolution, drawing upon a rich and even heroic lineage, and drawing, too, upon a vast reservoir of records bequeathed to us by those who lived the history of a bygone era, H. V. Traywick, Jr., has, in Empire of the Owls, presented Virginia readers with a wealth of original source material on "The Tragic Era" of 1861-1865; now, therefore, be it RESOLVED by the House of Delegates, That H. V. Traywick, Jr., hereby be commended for the admirable scholarship he has manifested in Empire of the Owls; and, be it RESOLVED FURTHER, That the Clerk of the House of Delegates prepare a copy of this resolution for presentation to H. V. Traywick, Jr., upon the occasion of a forum on his work to be held in Richmond. |
