Living With War

A visit to a Civil War reenactment near Barboursville, VA. Published in C-VILLE 9/29/2009.

Photo by Ashley Twiggs

“It’s not about slavery. It’s not about racism. For a lot of us it’s about ancestors.” Amanda Kutch is a United Daughter of the Confederacy and on Saturday morning, September 19, she’s dressed like one. Blonde, fair, and outfitted in a blue, flowered dress with a white blouse and a crocheted hairnet, Kutch is getting ready to re-enact the Battle of Rio Hill and the Battle of Stanardsville. A genealogist by hobby and an office manager and academic services coordinator for UVA’s School of Continuing Education by day, Kutch has traced her family in Albemarle County to 1760, and to the Civil War, where they fought in the 19th Virginia, Company E, “The Piedmont Guard.” Recently, she has been campaigning to preserve confederate graves on the UVA campus. “The past is the past,” she says. “There’s nothing that I can do to change it.”