August 1998 Featured Southerner - Confederate Network - Joel Wuthnow
Confederate Network is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, Southern site on the Internet. Founded in 1995 long before there was such a tool as webwriters. Joel Wuthnow has always been a leader in Southern Websites. However, more importantly, he has always been a leader for the South in general. When the Dixieland Ring was established, Joel was one of the first to answer the call.
Joel=s family lived in western Virginia for eighty years before the outbreak of the War, and when sectional tension inflamed in 1860, his family was split. One ancestor fought for the North, another ( brother -in-law) became a Confederate.
A profound, although tacit, interest in the war era arose in his family, one that he states was carried down through the generations. After a childhood trip to Gettysburg, Joel discovered among his extended family, a Southern general . . . Richard S. Ewell. Ewell was the first of many period leaders that Joel would later read about . . . his interest constantly expanding to include several facets of the era, including political, socioeconomic, and military science areas.
One classic of particular interest to him is A_Lee_@ by the preeminent Southern scholar Douglas Southall Freeman. States Wuthnow, Aaccounts of the General's humility and gentility had a deep effect on my own journey for identity. This is a tome I would commend to anyone beginning to look into the War era.@
In 1995, he began an unorthodox form of community outreach in the form of AThe Confederate Network, Inc.@ Seeking to help guide many online scholars and other casual visitors through the maze of related Internet sites, Joel endeavored to create a nexus where links to the myriad information could be made readily available.
Since that time, Confederate Network has been redesigned many times. The index improving and expanding to its present size of over 1100 links in dozens of categories. Joel has helped design homepages for reenacting groups, SCV camps, and other organizations. These homepages now serve their own cadre of visitors. The SCV, the reenacting society, and the South is better because of the effort of Joel Wuthnow.
States Joel . . . AA student residing in Princeton, NJ, a major project for me this summer, is working with a professor at the University into the US Sanitary Commission, the largest privately-run volunteer organization during the war. Based on a love of my Southern heritage, it has been important for me to keep the research utterly objective, never descending to northern elitist tendencies which pervade many aspects of the current academic climate in this country.
My other areas of academic interest include pre-revolutionary America, with particular interest in colonial Virginia; classics, with special emphasis on Virgil, Cicero, and their contemporaries; political science, with a decidedly conservative tilt. I am looking into legal studies as a possible postgraduate route.
A devout Christian, I share the same church as many of my ancestors (The Episcopal Church), and am currently reading a fascinating book entitled A_Miracles_@ by C.S. Lewis. Anyone engaged in a spiritual journey should try to wade through it. Reading can truly help one develop character.@
Joel R. Wuthnow, is a resident of Princeton New Jersey and is active in the genealogical and historical fields, being a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, the Military Order of the Stars and Bars, and the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War. He welcomes all messages and can be reached at the e-mail address jrw101@hotmail.com. Joel is a charter member of the Dixieland Ring.
Dixieland Ring notes: Can you believe it? Eleven Hundred Links! This is almost incredulous. We have a hard time keeping our few links pages updated. Joel Wuthnow was on the Internet long before most of us even had a good knowledge of it. He has always fought for the South by his site, his ideas, his ideals. In my personal correspondence to him I have always found him as Lee . . . gentle in nature, humble when praised but far advanced in his field. Thank you Joel for sharing yourself with us.
