Browse Items (24 total)
- Collection: Civil War and Reconstruction
Requisition Order to Washington County Slaveholders, Abingdon Virginian, Feb. 20, 1863
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,…
Resolutions Adopted by a Meeting of the People of Powhatan County, 1865
On February 3, 1865, Confederate Vice President Alexander H. Stephens and two other commissioners met with United States President Abraham Lincoln on the steamship River Queen near Fort Monroe in Hampton to discuss a potential treaty to end the Civil…
Roanoke County Cohabitation Register, 1866
Prior to the Civil War, enslaved men and women were not legally allowed to marry. However, many enslaved couples considered themselves married, despite the lack of legal protection and recognition. Often, families were split apart by enslavers who…
The First Vote, Engraving published in Harper's Weekly, 1867
With the end of the Civil War came the end of slavery in the American South. The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified on December 9, 1865, officially outlawed slavery. Racial hostilities towards formerly enslaved men and…