{"id":7240,"date":"2026-07-30T07:46:32","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T11:46:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/?p=7240"},"modified":"2026-07-30T07:46:33","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T11:46:33","slug":"first-to-fight-the-culpeper-minutemen-and-the-liberation-of-virginia-1775-76","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/first-to-fight-the-culpeper-minutemen-and-the-liberation-of-virginia-1775-76\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cFirst to Fight:\u00a0the\u00a0Culpeper Minutemen\u00a0and the Liberation of Virginia,\u00a01775-76\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\"><strong>Pr<\/strong><strong>esented by&nbsp;<\/strong><strong>Jim Bish<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\"><strong>Museum of Culpeper History<\/strong><strong><\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\"><strong>Sunday,&nbsp;<\/strong><strong>Aug 9<\/strong><strong>, 202<\/strong><strong>6<\/strong><strong>, at 2:00 p.m.<\/strong><strong><br><\/strong><strong>St. James United Church of Christ,<\/strong><strong><br><\/strong><strong>10 East Broad Way, Lovettsville<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>On Sunday, August 9,&nbsp;Revolutionary War historian Jim Bish returns for&nbsp;the next offering in the Lovettsville Historical Society\u2019s 2026 Lecture Series.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bish will discuss the Culpeper Minute Battalion&nbsp;(the&nbsp;&#8220;Minutemen&#8221;),&nbsp;which&nbsp;was vital to the early American Revolution.&nbsp;Raised in the Culpeper District (consisting of Culpeper, Orange, and Fauquier counties), it was the most famous and successful of Virginia\u2019s minute battalions. Elsewhere, the experiment was a failure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These more than 650 men played a decisive role in the liberation of Virginia from British colonial governance. Culpeper\u2019s readiness was\u00a0certainly unusual for the time, and its Minutemen played an indispensable role in the defense of Hampton, the Battle of Great Bridge, and the occupation of Norfolk which eventually led to the evacuation of Virginia by Royal Governor Dunmore and his British and Loyalists forces.<br><br>The Culpeper\u00a0Minutemens&#8217; actions allowed Virginia to declare independence in May 1776,\u00a0and then to request Richard Henry Lee to introduce Independence at the Second Continental Congress for all the colonies in June 1776.<br><br>The leadership of this Culpeper Minute Battalion will be examined as to why it was different.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignright size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"357\" height=\"263\" src=\"http:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IMG_5033.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-7239\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IMG_5033.jpeg 357w, https:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IMG_5033-300x221.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IMG_5033-150x111.jpeg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 357px) 100vw, 357px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p>In 1989, Jim&nbsp;Bish helped to organize the Prince William County, Virginia Historical Society, known as Historic Prince William, where he served as the organization&#8217;s first president. He continues to serve on the Board of Directors of Historic Prince William. He worked at the National Museum of the Marine Corps for two&nbsp;years,&nbsp;and&nbsp;later served Prince William County as a member of the Prince William County Historical Commission. He currently operates History Happened Here Tours,&nbsp;and also&nbsp;volunteers with the Museum of Culpeper County, Virginia, where he also serves on their Board of Directors. Bish and his wife Rebecca currently live in Culpeper, Virginia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Admission is free, but donations are welcome to defray expenses of the program and to support the activities of the Lovettsville Historical&nbsp;Society.<br><br>For more information, call 540-822-9194.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Presented by&nbsp;Jim Bish Museum of Culpeper History Sunday,&nbsp;Aug 9, 2026, at 2:00 p.m.St. James United Church of Christ,10 East Broad Way, Lovettsville On Sunday, August 9,&nbsp;Revolutionary War historian Jim Bish&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7238,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,89],"tags":[120,323,4,322,83,324],"class_list":["post-7240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lecture","category-revolutionary-war","tag-american-revolution","tag-culpeper","tag-lecture","tag-minutemen","tag-revolutionary-war","tag-virginia-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7240"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7241,"href":"https:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7240\/revisions\/7241"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}