In 1867 a former enslaved man named Peter Wiggins petitioned the Westmoreland County Court to gain custody of the two sons and two daughters he and Malinda Thompson had before the Civil War; but because Wiggins had been married to a woman named Ann…
While the convention called to rewrite Virginia's constitution was meeting, a large gathering of white men organized the Conservative Party on December 11
Raleigh Travers Daniel was an attorney who helped establish the Conservative Party in 1867. He served as Virginia's attorney general from 1874 until his death in 1877.
Brigadier General Robert Huston Milroy (1816–1890), commanding the United States Army units then posted in Winchester, pronounced the Emancipation Proclamation in effect, thereby freeing all enslaved Virginians in Winchester and Frederick…