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During the Union Army's occupation of southeastern Virginia following General
McClellan's unsuccessful Peninsula campaign to capture Richmond in the spring
and early summer of 1862, Union troops in Williamsburg commandeered the press of
the suspended Weekly Gazette and launched the Cavalier on June 25.
In December of 1862, the printing operation was moved to Yorktown, which was
under the control of Major General Erasmus Darwin Keyes, the commander of the
4th Corps. Resuming publication in early 1863, the weekly newspaper was
issued in a new series to differentiate the Cavalier from its
Williamsburg existence. 23 issues of the rare soldiers' newspaper are
featured in the collection, spanning from February 3 to July 7, 1863.
Under the capable editorship of Lieutenant J. Hiram Champion, a chaplain in
the 8th Independent New York Battery, the Cavalier quickly became popular
with the troops and Yorktown's unionists. The editor featured a full
range of war news each week, from developments in Yorktown and the surrounding
areas to major battles in the eastern and western theaters. A
dyed in the wool patriot, Champion used the newspaper to promote the Union cause.
Although Champion faced many logistical challenges in publishing the Cavalier
in a combat zone, he made every effort to produce a first-rate newspaper
that would not only provide extensive coverage of the war but would also
entertain his readers with original poetry and short stories.
The Yorktown newspaper was discontinued in 1864 and the printing plant was
moved to the vicinity of Fortress Monroe (near Hampton, Virginia). The
last known issue was published on April 11, 1864.
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