Editor, Gazette-Journal:

The Mathews Market Days Committee would like to address a post which has been shared on Mathews County Talk, the real Mathews County Talk Facebook pages and to others throughout the county (and elsewhere) since this past Sunday.

Earlier this year, the Mathews Historical Society and Lane-Armistead Camp #1772 of the SCV began working on a commemoration program about Captain Sally Tompkins, the only woman commissioned as a Captain in the Confederate Army. It was to be held on center stage during Market Days. In the last month and a half, a planning committee made up of a member of the Mathews Market Days Committee, a member of the Mathews Historical Society, and three members of the local SCV have met several times and put together a program that all the parties agreed upon and fit within the Mathews Market Days Festival planned lineup.

Then the events of Charlottesville happened. On Aug. 17, MMD sent an e-mail to the planning committee. The last paragraph of t...