Every object tells a story . . .

An American Turning Point features nearly 250 original objects from the collections of the Virginia Historical Society, numerous museums, and private collectors—many of which will be on public display for the first time.

Look carefully and the stories of the men, women, and children who struggled to survive Virginia’s Civil War reveal themselves. They can be found in the fabric of every uniform, the blade of every sword, the handle of every tool, the imagery of every drawing, the words of every letter, and the notes of every song.

Conservation

A number of VHS collections to be featured in the exhibition will undergo conservation treatment. Among these items are several Civil War flags. In October 2008, the Virginia Historical Society received a grant from The Cecil R. and Edna S. Hopkins Family Foundation to underwrite the conservation treatment of the Petersburg City Guard flag for the Sesquicentennial exhibition. . .
Learn more about the conservation of VHS collections

Digital Collections

Several Civil War collections will be digitized at the Virginia Historical Society for use in the exhibition's state-of-the-art audiovisual programs. These collections include:

	watercolors, sketches, diagrams, and landscapes by Robert K. Sneden—perhaps the largest collection of soldier art to survive the war
	Andrew J. Russell's album of Civil War period images showing views of the military railroad and other war scenes
	original pen-and-ink illustrations by Edwin Forbes, a Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper illustrator who documented camp life during the Civil War    • browse the Forbes collection
	Digital images of Civil War photographs, maps, broadsides, and other objects are available through the VHS online catalog.    • browse digital collections

Civil War-related online exhibits

Lee and Grant offers a glimpse of each man as he understood himself and his place in the world.
view exhibit

The Story of Virginia, an American Experience covers 16,000 years of Virginia history from prehistoric times to the present.
view exhibit

The Sneden Civil War Collection highlights an illustrated memoir, including detailed watercolors, maps, and drawings made by a Union private.
view exhibit

Henry V. L. Bird
(Virginia Historical Society, Accession no. 1994.108.6)
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Henry Bird, a twenty-one-year-old store clerk, enlisted in the Petersburg Grays (Company C, 12th Virginia Infantry) two days after Virginia's secession. In July 1862 he caught a mild strain of typhoid fever that kept him out of the war for seventeen months. Returning to his unit in 1864, he fought alongside them through the Overland Campaign and into the trenches at Petersburg. At the October 1864 battle of Burgess' Mill, Bird became a prisoner-of-war and was confined at Point Lookout, Maryland. Following Appomattox, while he waited to be released, Bird received a letter from his father:

"The state is quieting down and people are going to work, and the war will soon be a thing of the past. I [have] been to see Genl Lee and he told me that all the soldiers who desired to return to their native places . . . should take the oath of allegiance to the U. States and become god citizens."

Bird returned to Petersburg in June 1865. Apologizing to his fiancée, Margaret Randolph, he took the oath of allegiance—the prerequisite to receiving a marriage license. Facing an uncertain future, Bird penned a note to Margaret, "My darling, we are all strangers in the land now…" Bird lived in Petersburg until his death in 1903.

Margaret Randolph Bird
(Virginia Historical Society, Accession no. 1994.108.8)