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After the Civil War many white Virginians could not vote because they had supported the Confederacy. In June 1865, the General Assembly restored voting rights to some of those white men, but the federal government required men who had supported the…

Harper's Weekly published two political cartoons by Thomas Nast, one contrasting Confederate leaders applying for a pardon that would restore their voting rights with another of a wounded African American soldier who was denied the right of suffrage.…

A joint Congressional committee was appointed in 1865 to determine whether the former Confederate states were entitled to have representation in Congress. More than one hundred witnesses testified early in 1866 about the situations in the four…

For several months after the end of the war, the army stationed soldiers, including African Americans, throughout Virginia to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation and protect the freedpeople. White Lunenburg County residents petitioned Governor…

After the United States Army captured Petersburg, Confederate and Virginia officials fled Richmond during the night of April 2

During the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House in May 1864, Major General Edward Johnson and Brigadier G. H. Stewart were captured.

This composite set of sketches illustrates the variety of ways in which African Americans served the United States Army, as laborers and scouts, as drovers, as washer women, and as soldiers.

An African American soldier was photographed in his United States Army uniform, along with his wife and two daughters. In May 1863, U.S. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton issued General Order No. 143 creating the Bureau of U. S. Colored Troops.…

In May 1863, U.S. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton issued General Order No. 143 creating the Bureau of U. S. Colored Troops. Almost 200,000 African Americans served in the United States Colored Troops during the last two years of the Civil War.

William I. Johnson Jr., was born enslaved and was a butler for the Johnson family of Goochland County and Richmond. He describes slave auctions and slave hiring. He details his Civil War experiences, including how he escaped to Union lines. After the…