Union soldiers mingle with Confederate parolees at the Washington Monument next to the Capitol in Richmond, Virginia.
Library of Congress
Union soldiers mingle with Confederate parolees at the Washington Monument next to the Capitol in Richmond, Virginia, on April 14, 1865, five days after Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House. To the left of the monument’s base, a line of men, somewhat blurred by the camera’s multisecond exposure, may be southern soldiers. This image was made by John Reekie, a photographer for Alexander Gardner’s gallery, hours before the day became one of the most consequential dates in American history with the assassination that night of President Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C.
Bob Zeller is president of the nonprofit Center for Civil War Photography, which is devoted to collecting, preserving, and digitizing Civil War images.
