From 1861–1865 Virginia stood at the center of a military and social revolution. How we define freedom, liberty, patriot, and nation today is directly related to the diverse experiences of the individuals who participated in the war. Using original objects, interactive technology, and state-of-the-art audiovisual programs, the 3,000 square-foot exhibition—An American Turning Point—encourages visitors to consider how a single event, separated by 150-years can influence and address the questions of today—what was gained, what was lost, what was undecided, and what was left for us to resolve?

Sponsored by the Virginia Sesquicentennial of the American Civil War Commission, the exhibition opens at the Virginia Historical Society (VHS) on February 4, 2011 and will then travel to seven other Virginia museums from January 2012 through August 2015.

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Read regular updates about this upcoming exhibition on the VHS blog

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

An American Turning Point is a signature program of the Virginia Sesquicentennial of the American Civil War Commission.

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)