Here's why Turner Ashby wasn't the confederate hero you thought:

First, Ashby lead an attack on Union troops at the Battle of Bolivar Heights in WV. Despite having the upper hand (700 troops vs the Union's 100), his poorly-trained men still lost the battle. He then lied that they killed 25 Union soldiers. In actuality, they killed 4.

If you are a Stonewall Jackson stan, you should know that Ashby and Jackson were not friends. SJ tried to strip Ashby of his cavalry forces and constantly fought for Ashby not to be promoted to general. Ashby threatened to quit if SJ took away his unruly troops

At the First Battle of Kernstown (near Winchester), Ashby told SJ about a retreating Union group of 1,600 vulnerable men (about the same size of SJ's men). When SJ went to attack, he found there were in fact 9,000 Union soldiers there and SJ had to retreat.

At the First Battle of Winchester, Turner Ashby's men were distracted with stealing goods from wagons. If they had been alert, the confederates had a good chance of smothering the Union troops that instead retreated freely.

That's about all he got to mess up before he was shot and killed at the Battle of Good's Farm near Harrisonburg in 1862. Now, 158 years later, people in the area he was shot still cling to his name "for history's sake" without any understanding of his legacy.

We should not have a high school named after a confederate general. Period. Much less someone who never lived here and did nothing for our community. And even less so because the school wasn't named this until 1956. It's racist, and our community can do better.

Here's the petition to change the name of Turner Ashby High School: https://www.change.org/p/rockingham-county-public-schools-change-the-name-of-turner-ashby-high-school-in-bridgewater-va?recruiter=841131463&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=psf_combo_share_abi&utm_term=tap_basic_share&recruited_by_id=ff7501e0-dc42-11e7-815e-7d17b5102cfa

Here is information about Charlotte Harris, a Black woman lynched in Harrisonburg after she was falsely accused of burning down a barn, and then seized by 12 white men in blackface from the Rockingham County Jail: https://sites.jmu.edu/valynchings/va1878030601/

Here is the Shenandoah Valley Black Heritage Project if you want to learn more about our rich local history. They have lots of resources on their website: https://valleyblackheritage.org/index.html 

And here are my sources for the Turner Ashby information:
Books:
- Nine Men in Gray by Charles Darfour
- A Politician Goes to War: The Civil War Letters of John White Geary by William Alan Blair
Website:
- the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation: https://www.shenandoahatwar.org/history/turner-ashby/