1865

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Events

Beginning of the period of Reconstruction, 1865–1870.

• March 2 - Governor William Smith wrote a letter to an unknown correspondent regarding his decision not to exempt men who are members of the council of towns of such size as Charlottesville unless they are at least forty-five years old.
• March 3 - Union cavalry under the command of general Philip H. Sheridan occupied Charlottesville and the University of Virginia. Union troopers burned the Woolen Mills but, apart from widespread foraging and some looting, the town and college remained intact. On March 6th, Sheridan’s men left Charlottesville, riding south in the direction of Scottsville, on the James River.
• March 3 - Congress passed “An Act to establish a Bureau for the Relief of Freedmen and Refugees” to provide food, shelter, clothing, medical services, and land to displaced Southerners, including newly freed African Americans.
• March 6 – The first and only edition of the Third Division Cavalry Chronicle is hurriedly published.
• April 2 - The Fall of Richmond: the Confederate government and military began to evacuate Richmond, the Capital of the Confederacy.
• April 9 - Approximately 60 miles south of Charlottesville, in the community of Appomattox, Robert E. Lee surrenders his 28,000 Confederate troops to Union General Ulysses S. Grant, effectively ending the Civil War.
• May - At the close of the war no courts were held from May till August. The county was then under military government. The State of Virginia had been transformed into Military District No. One, and General John M. Schofield was the first military ruler. An officer of the United States army was stationed in Charlottesville, with the style of Military Commissioner of Albemarle County, and through him the orders of the commander at Richmond were carried out. Captain William Linn Tidball was the first officer appointed to this position.
• May 11 - What remained of the 11th Regiment, Pennsylvania Cavalry (108th Volunteers) arrived from Staunton for duty in the Sub-District of Albemarle and stayed until July. (The regiment later mustered out at Richmond on August 13, 1865.)
• May 18 - Professor John B. Minor signed the Amnesty Oath under the supervision of James A. Skelly, Major 11th Pa Cav. Asst. Provost Marshal.
• June 15 - The Freedmen's Bureau was established in Virginia. The State was divided into eight districts, each under an assistant quartermaster. These, in turn, were divided into sub-districts under the command of military officers.

Births

• September 15 – Mary-Cooke Branch Munford is born in Richmond to to James Read Branch and Martha Louise Patteson Branch. An individual who had devoted much of her life to activism for women's rights, civil rights, women's suffrage, and education in Virginia, Munford was the namesake for Munford Hall, a building that served as the University of Virginia's first female dorm and today composes a part of the school's International Residential College.

Images

The Fall of Richmond, Virginia, on the Night of April 2nd, 1865