Staunton Spectator

• id: 430
• end_date: May 31, 1864
• frequency: Weekly
• lineage_id: 100
• proprietors: Richard Mauzy
• start_date: June 5, 1860
• variant_number: Staunton 06-17
• notes: On June 1, 1860, the Waddells sold their interests in the Spectator to partner Mauzy and retired from journalism to follow careers in the law; Mauzy retained a controlling interest in the weekly until December 1895.
  During the secession crisis, Mauzy's Spectator kept a Unionist perspective, supporting the 1860 Constitutional Union ticket; but once the state's ordinance of secession was enacted in April 1861, the Spectator became an ardent supporter of the Confederacy, though also a critic of the conduct of the war by certain Confederate officers and officials.
  On June 7, 1864, Federal forces commanded by Gen. David Hunter arrived in Staunton, as part of that summer's campaign to destroy produce and manufactures that could sustain Lee's Army of Northern Virginia; contrary to orders issued by Hunter's predecessor, those troops ransacked the Spectator office – now comprising the assets of three papers – and scattered its types in the city's streets; that action made the number of May 31, 1864 the last one issued until after the war ended.
• lineage_title: Republican Farmer
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