During the Civil War, many young men from Lexington, Virginia, both permanent residents and students of Virginia Military Institute (VMI) and Washington College, enlisted in the Confederate military by 1862. In June 1864, General David Hunter marched Union troops through the Shenandoah Valley and targeted Lexington. The Union Army fired artillery into the town, looted homes and businesses, and burned the VMI barracks, as well as Governor John Letcher's home. More broadly across the former Confederacy, the destruction of infrastructure and the natural environment, along with the end of an enslavement-based agrarian economy, rising inflation, and failure to keep pace with the Union’s evolving economic system, left much of the South with great financial setbacks after the Civil War.

This local and national economic crisis left many southerners unable to pay for goods with currency. This led to the use of bartering for goods as an alternative economy.

Sources:

“Lexington and the Burning of the Virginia Military Institute,” Cedar Creek & Bell Grove National Historical Park, National Park Service. Accessed December 6, 2022. https://www.nps.gov/cebe/learn/historyculture/lexington-and-the-burning-of-the-virginia-military-institute.htm.

“Lexington during the Civil War,” Encyclopedia Virginia. Accessed December 6, 2022. https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/lexington-during-the-civil-war. Benjamin T. Arrington, “Industry and Economy during the Civil War,” National Park Service. Accessed December 6, 2022. https://www.nps.gov/articles/industry-and-economy-during-the-civil-war.htm.

Paul F. Paskoff, “Measures of War: A Quantitative Examination of the Civil War’s Destructiveness in the Confederacy,” Civil War History 54, no. 1 (March 2008): 35-62. https://doi.org/10.1353/cwh.2008.0007.

Tilford Barclay Heck was born in Rockbridge County, Virginia, in 1823. In 1850, he married Estellina M. Boyd in Arbemarle County, Virginia. The pair had seven children. Heck worked as a carpenter from early adulthood. In 1861, Heck enlisted in the Confederate army in Rockbridge County. After the Civil War, Heck returned to Lexington and continued to work as a carpenter. He died in 1890 and was buried in Oak Grove Cemetery, Lexington, Virginia.

Sources: United States Censuses for 1850, 1860, 1870, 1880

Virginia Compiled Marriages, 1740-1850. Ancestry Database.

“Heck, Tilford B.” National Park Service Soldiers and Sailors Database. Accessed December 6, 2022. https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/search-soldiers-detail.htm?soldierId=714112A7-DC7A-DF11-BF36-B8AC6F5D926A.

“Tilford Barclay Heck.” Find A Grave. Accessed December 6, 2022. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/120746201/tilford-barclay-heck.

"Telford B. Heck" [sic], Dodd, Jordan R., Et Al.; Early American Marriages: Virginia to 1850; Publication Place: Bountiful, UT, USA; Publisher: Precision Indexing Publishers. In Ancestry.com, https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/discoveryui-content/view/136049:3723.

Andrew D. Elliott was born in 1832 in Rockbridge County, Virginia. Elliott married Georgia Anna Liggan in Rockbridge County in 1853. He worked as a cabinet maker from early adulthood until his death in c. 1870.

Sources:

United States Censuses for 1850, 1860, 1870, 1880

"Andrew D. Elliott", Dodd, Jordan, Liahona Research, comp. Virginia Marriages, 1851-1900. In Ancestry.com, https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/discoveryui-content/view/13776:4498.