The search results below contain listings from our website. To search our library and museum collections catalogs, please visit the Collections page.
Article
A Ninety Day War?
Image
The small United States Army could be enlarged quickly only by appealing to the states to activate local militia troops...
Article
Arthur Ashe Jr.’s Family Tree: Tracing the Blackwell Family to 1735
Image
See a rare family tree, drawn by hand on canvas, tracing Arthur Ashe, Jr.’s family.
Article
Booker T. Washington
Image
Booker T. Washington (1856–1915) was born enslaved on April 5, 1856, in Franklin County, Virginia. After emancipation...
Article
Colonial Cookbooks
Image
Food and dining were integral to social life in the eighteenth century, particularly among the upper class. The gentry...
Article
Confederate Imprints
Image
Before secession, most of the established publishers of booking, broadsides, and sheet music were located in such large...
Article
Confederate Love Poems
Image
The most prominent Civil War poetry is poetry of the battlefield.
Article
Elizabeth Keckley
Image
Born a slave in Dinwiddie County, Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley (1818–1907) purchased her freedom in 1855 and supported...
Article
Freedmen's Schools
Image
In the antebellum South, African Americans were generally prevented from receiving education. After Appomattox...
Article
How Did Civilians Suffer?
Image
White women and children were left to fend for themselves, and many became widows and orphans when one in five...
Article
How Did Enslaved People Support the Confederacy?
Image
Enslaved and free black people provided even more labor than usual for Virginia farms when 89 percent of eligible white...
Article
Liberated Books
Image
During the Civil War, looting by soldiers was a common practice. The hungry soldier usually confiscated food and...
Article
Maggie Lena Walker
Image
Maggie Lena Walker (1864–1934) was the daughter of Elizabeth Draper, a former kitchen slave and then cook in the Civil...
Article
Men of Color To Arms?
Image
When the war began, many black Americans—North and South—volunteered to serve as soldiers. United by a belief in black...
Article
Offense or Defense?
Image
To win the war, United States troops needed to invade and control an unfriendly South and subdue Confederate armies.
Article
Olaudah Equiano
Image
Snatched from his Ibo village in Nigeria at the age of eleven, Equiano (c. 1745-1797) was transported to Barbados...
Article
Oysters in Virginia
Image
Learn about the history of oyster in Virginia's food culture, tourism, and economy.
Article
Richmond in the Midst of the Civil War
Image
As the Confederate capital, Richmond experienced waves of change that saw the city lurch from the untidy influx of...
Article
Robert E. Lee after the War
Image
After the Civil War, Robert E. Lee left his life in the military and accepted the position of president of Washington...
Article
Robert Edward Lee
Image
Robert Edward Lee (1807–1870) was born at Stratford in Westmoreland County, Virginia, in 1807, the son of Revolutionary...
Article
Robert Knox Sneden's Dispatch Case
Image
Learn about the dispatch case of Civil War artist and mapmaker Robert Knox Sneden that was acquired in 2017 by the...