Browse Items (24 total)

In October 1859, white abolitionist John Brown led an armed raid on the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), in an attempt to overthrow the system of slavery. Sixteen people died in the raid. Brown and six of his…

Black Americans understood the meaning of citizenship and the possibilities afforded by the prospect of emancipation long before the end of the Civil War. Among their demands for equality was the right to participate in the political process as…

Virginia was a critical battleground during the Civil War. Not only was Richmond the seat of the Confederate government, but the Commonwealth was also the site of some of the war’s major battles. Tens of thousands of Virginians fought in the Civil…

From the beginning of the Civil War, the Confederate government attempted to requisition needed goods and services from private citizens. In March 1863, the Confederate Congress passed an Impressment Act that allowed them to requisition crops,…

During the secession crisis of 1860–1861, attitudes about leaving the United States varied widely throughout Virginia. While the majority of white men supported the secession referendum that was approved in a vote on May 23, 1861, many white…

Even before the end of the Civil War, newly freed Black people called on the government to grant them equal suffrage (the right to vote). A committee of Black residents in Norfolk made this demand in June 1865, shortly after the war ended. Norfolk’s…

Emancipation at the end of the Civil War did not bestow citizenship or legal protections on formerly enslaved men and women. Concerned that the newly freed African Americans would not be treated equally in courts of law, Congress passed a Civil…

In March 1865, before the Civil War had ended, Congress created the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands (generally known as the Freedmen’s Bureau) to supervise matters related to freed people as well as to distribute land "abandoned" by…

After the Civil War, Virginia and other Confederate states were required by Congress to write new state constitutions in order for their representatives to be seated in Congress. Virginia's convention met from December 3, 1867 to April 17, 1868, and…

The end of the Civil War and the abolition of slavery in 1865 led to important changes in American politics, especially in the former slave states. The most dramatic were changes to state constitutions and the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment…