Virginia in the American Civil War Virginia in the American Civil War The Commonwealth of Virginia became a prominent part of the Confederate States of America when it joined the Confederacy during the American Civil War. As a Southern slave-holding state, Virginia held a state convention to deal with the secession crisis, and voted against secession on April 4, 1861. Opinion shifted after April 15, when U.S. President Abraham Lincoln called for troops from all states still in the Union to put down the rebellion, following the capture of Fort Sumter, and the Virginia convention voted to declare secession from the Union. A Unionist government was
Photographers of the American Civil War documenting the "rebellion", it would be others, particularly those photographers who were under the direct supervision of, or were employed by Alexander Gardner, such as Timothy O'Sullivan, James Gibson, George Barnard, James Gardner and William Pywell, who would follow the armies and ultimately fulfill the difficult task of recording for posterity a timely, consecutive photographic history of the American Civil War. Alexander Gardner (1821–1882) was born in Paisley, Scotland. He became an apprentice silversmith jeweller at the age of fourteen. Soon, Gardner found out that his interests and talents lay in finance and journalism. When he was twenty-one he left