Patricia Miller

1 month ago | encyclopediavirginia.org | Patricia Miller

For as long as there have been armies, there likely have been camp followers—the civilians, usually women, who tagged along providing goods and services to soldiers. And for just as long, camp followers have been derided as nuisances at best and prostitutes at worst—hangers-on looking to exploit the loneliness and wages of military personnel. But as our new entry by Rebecca Rose on Women of the Army shows, the women who accompanied Continental and militia troops were anything but.

Mar 6, 2025 | encyclopediavirginia.org | Patricia Miller

Sometimes history is right under our feet and we don’t even realize it. When I lived in Old Town Alexandria, I frequented the quaint brick Kate Waller Barrett branch of the Alexandria Library. Not only was it around the corner from my house, but it contains the city’s local history and special collections reading room, where I spent many hours poring through old newspapers and documents as I worked on various projects.

Feb 7, 2025 | religiondispatches.org | Patricia Miller

There are many pleasures for students of the Catholic Church in Conclave—which recently received eight Oscar nominations—from the glimpses behind the doors of the uber-secretive papal conclave itself to the spot-on portrayal of the lush-austere pageantry of an institution that is some eight centuries older than the British monarchy.

Jan 17, 2025 | encyclopediavirginia.org | Patricia Miller

Whether it’s ferocious Santa Ana winds howling through Los Angeles or a polar vortex holding much of the country in its icy grip, it’s impossible to ignore the weather or how it affects everyday life. Human civilizations have long sought to make sense of the weather, to seek patterns that make it more predictable. But it was only with the invention of instruments like the thermometer and barometer in the seventeenth century that studying the weather became a scientific discipline.

Dec 11, 2024 | encyclopediavirginia.org | Patricia Miller

No one disputes that the American Civil War was the bloodiest conflict in American history. But for decades historians and demographers have had difficulty pinpointing the exact number of casualties, especially on the Confederate side, due to poor record-keeping and records that were destroyed when Richmond fell at the end of the war. The long-standing consensus figure of 618,222 dead was reached by applying the percentage of Union soldiers lost to Confederate forces.