When John G. Selby began work on Virginians at War: The Civil War Experiences of Seven Young Confederates, he pondered four broad questions: What did the war mean to those who fought? Why did they fight? What made them keep fighting? What meaning did they find in their experiences? To find answers to these big questions, Selby continually narrowed his focus. He considered writing about a military unit, a county or region, and a small group of individuals (fifteen to twenty-five from a single state). Eventually, he chose seven Virginians around which to weave his story, three women and four men: Henry Robinson Berkeley, Lucy Buck, Susan Caldwell, Amanda Virginia "Tee" Edmonds, Alexander "Fred" Fleet, William T. Poague, and John H. Worsham.