Medical care in major cities such as New York and Philadelphia was far more advanced due to increased access to education and technology; however, this was not true for many rural areas of the country. During the antebellum period, the practices of medical doctors were not always well regulated. Doctors were considered quite knowledgeable but most of their remedies were local in nature and chosen...
After leaving Richmond on his way to Harper's Ferry, Thomas Jackson quickly wrote his wife Mary Anna on April 27, 1861 telling her of his reassignment. The Governor appointed him Colonel of the Virginia Volunteers; he was honored to hold such an independent position but warned Mary Anna, whom he affectionately called little one, that they would probably not be able to correspond for quite some...
Even a hundred years before Surgeon General Warnings, we already had begun to understand tobacco's effects. On January 11, 1868, HarpWeek published a two-picture political cartoon entitled The Pleasure of Tobacco. The first picture featured a young man in bed enjoying his pipe. The caption under the drawing said, To which young and promising Tom Smudger abandons himself. He wasteth the midnight...
Born to former slaves on July 15, 1867, shortly after the end of the Civil War, Maggie L. Walker would become one of the most influential black females at the turn of the century. From her roots in poverty in the city of Richmond, Walker became the first woman in the United States, black or white, to charter a bank when she opened St. Luke Penny Saving Bank in her hometown: the City of Richmond....
Soldier conditions throughout the Civil War, especially for the Confederacy were far from inspiring. All units from Virginia through Texas experienced poor camp conditions. Many soldiers wrote home complaining about the high occurrence of death and the inability of the sick to recover.
J.B. Robertson was a colonel in the fifth Texas Infantry and often corresponded with Governor Lubbock....
The Currency Act was first introduced as a bill to the “Currency Committee' of the House of Representatives in a secret session. The bill relied on taxation, not on funding, for the reduction of the heavily inflated currency in the Confederate States. It proposed that a tax of 4 percent be levied on the value of property. This bill became an Act of the Confederate Congress on February 27,...
In May of 1860, two major Southern papers, The Charleston Mercury and The Richmond Enquirer, engaged in a fiery debate. The issue of this debate was participation in the Democratic Party National Convention at Baltimore, Maryland-where the party's Presidential nominee was to be decided. The Baltimore Convention was the second such attempt; Democrats had met earlier...
After years of debate, the Confederate Congress agreed to use African American troops on March 13th, 1865. This had been a highly controversial issue and many continued to disagree with the black involvement. Black soldiers were seen as inferior in ability, and Confederate generals and soldiers did not want to fight along side them, and they didn't trust them. However, the law was passed and signed...
The process of Reconstruction played out differently for each Southern state. In Virginia, the process began smoothly but became more complicated in 1867, after the meeting of the Virginia Constitutional Convention.
Representatives from every county wanted to be a part of the re-drafting of the constitution. In Nelson County, W.C. Carrington announced his candidacy in a letter addressed...
Citizens of Richmond put together a proposal for constructing a railroad that connected Richmond, Virginia to Raleigh, North Carolina. In this proposal they laid out future profits that could be reaped if someone would finance the project. Richmond citizens were hoping to build this line to increase the inflow of crops and merchandise to both cities. They pointed out that one of the favored crops...